Angling - watcha caught?

I’ve no idea how I got into it. We did live near a big lake so I must have just pestered.

I did have a habit of going to WH Smith, buying a magazine and then having a new hobby lol

hmmmm

The fishing mag would have been to wrap around the other one :grinning:

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:fist:t2:

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Small local commercial, not fished it before. We asked it questions with pellets and sweet corn :

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Centre pin with a waggler?

Ha no! Method feeder, semi fixed in the margin with a couple of pellets on a hair. I gave up after I kept losing the fish. They tear off and the reel backwinds. The pole was the best method, single corn on a sixteen, I had one pushing 10 at the death. The children loved it. :blush:

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Haha…proper angling faff…you might need to translate for the novices :smiley:

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There is quite a lot to explain there! :laughing:

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I have a couple of chores to do this morning but later on, I’m going to take a rod to a couple of farm ponds near here. One I’ve tried before sadly is now a bit more weedy than it was. Last time I was there I caught lots of small stuff, roach, skimmers, tiny perch but also beautiful, dark olive tench and some very pretty rudd. The other pond is in the middle of a field and walking distance. A friend I know through work who’s sister lived down here in the sixties, when he was a kid used to fish it in his summer holidays. He told me it was there and I’ve since found it on Google maps, using the satellite images facility. Should be fun with the kids!

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Tench pics always welcome.

I was put off fishing at our local fishery when it started to feel like dangling a piece of bacon in a dustbin full of rats. Almost too easy. Farm ponds and rivers are more interesting.

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Yes agreed re’ commercials. Actually the one yesterday is better than that, not a ridiculous amount of fish, so we had to work for them. There is another lake there too which is an old established farm irrigation pond. Even less but bigger fish apparently.

Have you tried fishing for perch in carp puddles Guy? That can be VERY worthwhile and takes a bit more ‘angling.’

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Do you know the farmers then Ritch?

I know my farmers intimately. :persevere:

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Did they give you permission to stick your rod in though :wink:

You will have to teach him your burley technique Jim.

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There are some very nice unchallenged perch in those waters apparently. The trick is finding a method that works for them and not the nuisance fish (carp).

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I don’t and hadnt given it much thought. The one I’ve fished before is up on the corner of a field, right on the road into/out of the village and is fished fairly regularly. I don’t think anyone is bothered. The other one is on a public footpath so should be ok. :crossed_fingers:

When I was a kid/teenager bunking on to private waters was de rigueur, I had a whole load of angling mates finding ever more extreme places to fish. There were a few really mad ones topped by a Met Police controlled pit at Cheshunt and a short stretch of the Lea Relief Channel that ran around the Enfield Small Arms factory. This stretch had armed guards and latterly cameras at either end to stop people fishing it but we got to know where the blind spots were and carried on regardless! The fishing there was amazing. Swift flowing, gin clear water over gravel, huge banks of ranunculus and streamer weed and chock full of barbel and chub. I had a Polaroid of three of us surrounded by 30 odd barbel we caught in about two hours trotting maggots after school one day and I reckon we lost nearly as many as we caught. Happy days. :grinning:

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Poached fish taste better…:joy:

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It is difficult avoiding the carp, they’ll even take deadbaits! My usual technique is to feed a central area with maggots (red seem to work best, or maybe it’s because I like the colour of them!) And then fish a rod either side of this area. Prey fish are attracted to the magg’s and the perch are drawn in by these but seem to hang back around the edges, picking off the unwary that stray. It’s possible to fish with floats but I usually use light running ledgers and buzzers with very light bobbins. Hookbaits are frozen prawns or lobworms. Dusk is the best time, perch have brilliant eyesight and feed most readily then, autumn days with low light levels also good. I have had some good perch doing this with a few two’s and a biggest of 3:10. You can never quite keep away from the carp but sometimes they are fun too. This one was the best part of 24lbs and on perch gear (6lb mainline, 12 barbless and a fine hook link) took some time to land. I had the kids (younger then) with me and they went MENTAL when I drew it’s head over the net in the torch light. :rofl:

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