Bank Holiday Mixed Bag

 A quick return to Lloyds Meadow Badger lake taking the chance to fish it as usualy its booked up for matches on the Sunday or I’m in work and as it happens we had a special on the Trigonella range for the bank holiday so with a little tweaking I took full advantage of it!

A warm day with a left to right wind and a clear sky  and not much ripple on the water greeted us as well as plenty of varied wild life loving the immaculate looking lake pruned to perfection giving each peg features close in and across to the island.

My idea today was a relaxed session involving plenty of chat with Stu and Danny and to get a few fish in the net.

Feeding the trigonella micros soon got the small carp in the swim and as previous visits I had noticed how quick these little terrors were putting on weight and giving a great fight on light elastic and taking double maggot!

slopping up the pellets and feeding heavy brought some realy good Bream and quality roach.

A couple of pegs down Stu was bagging up but using the waggler to get some good ide and carp fishing shalla on the waggler as well as getting led a merry dance on his pole line from some hard fighting carp.

As the day drew on I took a break from the pole and got the feeder rod out chucking it across to the island were I had been firing in 8mm trigonella pellets, using trigonella 8mm wafters with micros in the feeder this method was a hit catching me a good stamp of carp!

For the next couple of hours the wind picked up and we had a little rain but the bigger carp came on the feed and the trigonella wafters were doing the business for me.

few from today:

Another top day fishing at my favorite venue comfy pegs , plenty of choice of features on all the pegs , lots of parking and clean toilets all this adds up to relaxing quality fishing in a super safe environment

my advice for Badger is walk around see if the fish are moving if they are get on them pegs, at the moment the fish are not holding up in any particular place.

Pellets and maggots seem to be the go to bait at the moment and  knowing how much to feed.

As usual great hospitality from Danny and Sarah always good to catch up and hear the latest goings on at the fishery.

look at for more great offers from Beechwoodbaits.com

unit next its been a pleasure

Larford Lakes Match Lake

Rain greeted us on our return to Larford lakes for our Beechwood Baits social and after a walk round the match lake my mind was made up it was peg 43 for me giving me 2 margin swims, Lilly pads and an Island to cast to.

Three swims for my pole line included some tricky looking Lilly pads to my left and two margin swims at 5m and  8m to my right up against the bank, my feeder line composed of 34g guru method feeder and a selection of hooks with bands and spikes at various lengths.

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8mm pellets and wafters soaked in trigonella glug and corn were my main hook baits constantly firing a few pellets in every cast of the feeder.

8mm pellets glugged in trigonella

Guru method feeder

pellets fired in

Once I found my range with the feeder it was best to come off the island by about 3ft to avoid branches and leaves the fish started to come steady.  Bream and carp liking what was on offer.

caught off the Island

caught using 8mm trigonella pellet

Plenty of fish movement around the lake which for a while I had to myself until the rest of the lads on the match side of the Beechwood Baits social joined me, as the fish seemed to be spawning on the specimen lake and they were soon into the fish.

Plenty of bites still on the feeder but choosing to leave it for a while as it seemed the smaller fish had moved in on the groundbait, this decision now became a pattern for my fishing giving it 30 minutes a time swapping from pole to feeder during the course of the day.

Lots more fish came as the day went on constantly feeding now introducing dead red maggots to my feed and liquidised corn this holding and attracting fish to my chosen swims.

Sitting off and having a chat with the lads it seemed like we was all having a decent days fishing even though we were disappointed not being able to fish the specimen lake, but nature was doing its thing and there will always be another day.

Time was moving on and the fish had moved into the margins so casting the feeder  into my 8m swim and using the pole at about 6m got me some fish but loosing quite a lot with the fish snatching at the bait and shooting into the open water at a rate of knots.

A great days fishing on a day that started at 3-30am to travel down to Larford lakes seen me catch a lot of Carp and just as many if not more Skimmers and Bream, the fish were definitely in my swim(s) but I think the skill was keeping them there and then getting them in the net on balanced set ups and well presented bait.

A sneaky hour on the specimen lake Saturday morning brought me this 12lb mirror carp on double red maggots this took me over 25 minutes to get in the net as I was only using Daiwa white hydro elastic.

Thanks for reading its been a pleasure Brian

That Sinking Feeling…… By Barry Smith

With one eye on the Beechwood Baits social next weekend, I headed to my local water for a few hours determined to get a handle on a method that will catch my target species (Carp, Obviously) on the surface, in the upper layers, mid-water AND on the bottom!  All with 1 rig and 1 rod, not having to make any adjustments to depth, and to add to that I want the fish to hang themselves.  I don’t want much do I!!  Sounds perfect right?  Or perfectly mental?  Maybe both, but I had an end game in mind and this session was for me to get a handle on it.

Now the rationale is very simple, I have to sink my pellet waggler float at the same speed as my loose fed pellets droping through the water, giving me what I believe to be four bites at a fish; 1-on the splash, 2- upper layers, 3- mid to lower layers and 4- on the bottom.  Easier said than done!!!

Bait for this short session was 11mm pellets gluged in Beechwood Baits Trigonella for the hook  and the same pellets to loose feed.  A few other variations of pellet sizes and colours just in case.   That was the easy bit!!

Ok, so I set to work on this float and started concocting a slow sinking float that would near as damn it sink with my loose fed pellets …….. and this took some time because my thinking was if it didn’t look natural, I was in for a dry mat day.  So I took my time, swapped and changed a lot of weights, but I just couldn’t get this float to sink slow, until I added a splash disk designed for a different much bulkier float and BOOM it looked perfect.

Float set to go I decided because of the slight wind, which made a manageable left to right bow in my line, I would have my rod resting to my right where I can make a quicker impact on the strike to my float. So now to set this float rig so the fish hang themselves.  To do this I simply had a space of about 6/8 inches between float stops, for the float to move freely.  Big space right!  But the idea being the fish will take the pellet and feel nothing until the float hits the float stop, and the hook would bury.

All I have to do now is loose feed and get the float over the pellets.

My first cast using sinking pellet waggler ended in a carp hanging itself on my hook, and no strike needed.

Fish followed fish followed fish and this method was well worth taking the time to get right. I caught in all four target areas through the session and thoroughly enjoyed getting a handle on this method.

I had a few today on this method and hope I have stirred something in someone to maybe try this themselves, it’s a great way to catch fish and you have the added pleasure of the guy in the peg next to you watch you cast a float out and it disappears all the time…… I had some fun with it!  On a side note I was chatting to a couple of lads who took some Trigonella pellets as I was leaving, and first put in he had a fish on and was eager to tell me it was a  Beechwood pellet ….. Perfect end to a session.

Until next time …..It’s been a pleasure!

Check out some video footage of the frantic action during this session here : https://youtu.be/idFo350zfr0

 

Why its called fishing……..

I originally posted this in the June of 2011 on the Warrington Anglers Forum. I feel it gives an insight into what fishing is all about, and hopefully tells you something about my personal approach to angling. Hope you enjoy it.

I finished work yesterday handy at about 5pm, and with the weather so good and the wife working a late shift I couldn’t resist a quick evening session, Rixton was the chosen spot. I rushed home and loaded the car with the minimal amount of tackle I could, rod, reel, landing net, tackle box of bits, feed pellets and a small tin of sweet corn. By 6:30pm I was there on the bank side bathed in glorious sunshine with a light whisper of a breeze on my face. I chose a spot I’ve fished the last few visits to Rixton as it looks great for Tench but I’ve yet to pluck one from the swim and with conditions looking good confidence was high that I might get lucky this time.

I chose to fish off to my left under some overhanging bushes where there were already some bubbles emerging from the bottom, could be fish, might not be, I told myself they were definitely Tench grubbing around anyway! I flicked out some corn and a few small pellets then set my tackle up. This normally takes me about half an hour, sometimes more, this evening with such a spars amount of gear with me it took 3 mins and I was fishing!

I had decided to set up a rig I have been using a lot recently as it has a couple of benefits for me. It simply consists of an under shotted float set roughly to 2-3″ over depth with no hook link on, I then slide on a running link to which I attach a small lead, followed by a quick change bead. With the float set by tightening the line, the bead sits just on bottom, so with the 6″ hook link attached to the bead I am fishing 6″ over depth. I like this rig as it enables me to easily flick the rig tight up to features without snagging up, and the extra weight of the lead makes it easy to be accurate at a fair distance, which I would struggle to do with just a float set up. Also as it is running it is still pretty sensitive and safe. It’s just like fishing a running lead really, but with a float instead of a tip as a bite indicator. I just flicked the rig out under arm, set my rod down on the lilies next to me, as I didn’t bring a rod rest, and tightened the line until the tip of the float was just visible, perfect. With double corn on the hook, one side hooked one on the hair; I sat back and enjoyed the moment.

My eyes are not what they used to be, so I let a little off the reel to allow the float to sit a little higher in the water, but the real problem wasn’t the float, it was the masses of bubbles, ducklings, small birds and fish jumping clean out of the water that was distracting my eyes from my float!

About an hour passed and I had spotted a few small dinks on the float but nothing ‘sail away’, so I changed from my double corn to single to see if a smaller bait would bring results. It certainly did, I got much more positive bites, but struggled to hit them. I changed from using a hair rig to just side hooking the corn, the same problem. It might have been smaller fish plucking at the corn, but I’ve put this down to the rig needing refining, maybe a shorter hook link next time will improve it. I didn’t change anything though this time, and didn’t catch anything either even though I continued to get bites up until I left at 9:30pm, I was just happy to be there to be honest, and a fish really would have been a bonus. I went to a local commercial fishery last Saturday with my wife as she is not a member of WAA so we just go to day ticket venues when we have time to fish together. We caught plenty of fish, but which trip did I enjoy more? It’s got to be the short session on Rixton last night, after all, it’s called fishing, not catching!

Gav