Trout Fishing to Beat Those Winter Blues

With Christmas upon us, time to go fishing can be limited, add to that the very short days and a few hours is all most people can manage. Fly fishing on my club lake is a quick fix for me at this time of year, travelling light with one rod, tactics are a slow intermediate line, an 8lb fluorocarbon leader and a single lure.

I had tied some 3’’ snakes which I was keen to use, these lures seemed to be doing the business on other small lakes, tied with olive rabbits fur, the brilliant action of these flies would surely be irresistible to any hungry trout.

I arrived at the water around 11am, the day being one of those rare winter days with no wind and a bright sky. After only two casts a trout hit my lure, playing these winter trout on a light 5# rod is very enjoyable and the fish was netted and returned to the water in tip top condition. Moving around the lake produced another six rainbows plus a small brown trout. Great quick fix fishing!

Below is a list of good trout fishing venues that are open this winter. Get out there and give it a go! 

Cameley Trout Lakes BS39 5QA, Burton Springs Fishery TA51QB, Jacklands Fishing Lakes BS21 6SG, Avon Springs SP4 8HH, Mill Farm Trout Lakes SN10 5UW, Lechlade Fishery GL7 3QQ and Farmoor Reservoir OX2 9NS

A very colourful winter rainbow

 

2013 - A Great Year for Fishing!

I've managed a few days out since my last post and have caught perch to 2lb 3oz, a few small whiting and a decent sized silver eel. Last week I enjoyed a few hours on the River Chew and tempted some nice dace, roach and a grayling. With the year coming to an end I've found myself looking back through the photographs and have concluded that 2013 has been a very good year! One of my best in fact! River Wye barbel to over 9lb, a waggler caught chub of nearly 5lb and some big dace were all very welcome, during a dry summer in which water levels were dangerously low and the fishing pretty tricky. The hot weather also allowed me to spend time targeting surface feeding carp on the lake and I was lucky enough to catch my first ever 20lb plus fish off the top, a 20lb 1oz mirror and smash my grass carp personal best twice, with fish of 19lb 4oz and a monster weighing 27lb 13oz. I've had success sea fishing too. Personal best wrasse, pollock and my first ever bass were all caught this year. My trip to Norway produced some cracking cod and new species in the shape of ling, coalfish, torsk and a 10lb halibut. January of this year also saw me catch my first ever fly caught fish, a brown trout, on my first time of trying. All very pleasing. It's been great to see friends and family enjoy good catches too. Friends like Dave, Corin and Baz have caught personal bests that include cod, catfish, barbel and carp, to name but four. Dad has had a good year and I've been there to watch him land barbel to nearly 10lb, 5lb plus chub, large carp and tench, as well as a 10lb 8oz bass, a 12lb pollock and his biggest ever fish, a 110lb catfish, during our trip to Spain. It's been a good year in the shop with things now picking up after a slower couple of years and both Dan and Toby have found time to get out fishing, enjoying success of their own which you can read all about on this blog. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what 2014 holds in store. Until next time Cadbury Angling wishes all who support us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Red Fin Heaven. Roach Fishing in the Cotswolds



Biggest of the day

It was off to a gravel pit in the Cotswolds on Tuesday for a day targeting roach. Friend, Tony Sweet and I arrived early morning and set about pre-baiting a couple of swims at the northern end of the pit. A bag of Sensas Gros Gardons groundbait laced with hemp and caster was introduced and left to settle. We had a cup of tea and tackled up. Our chosen tactic was to fish float rods with wagglers, fished slightly over depth and on the business end, size 18 hooks with single caster as bait. We didn't have to wait long for bites and fish seemed to be lining up, with quality roach and some good sized perch coming nearly every cast. Regular top ups of bait kept the fish interested and we caught well all day. The biggest roach was just over a pound and it wasn't alone, I had half a dozen pound plus fish! A great days sport!

A bag of quality roach

 

 

Chew Valley Lake Pike and Brown Trout on the Fly

Terry with a nice brown trout

The windy weather has hampered recent plans to get out fly fishing, I have however managed a day on Chew Valley Lake where I targeted reported fry feeding perch. Fish to over 4lb have been caught here in the last few weeks so I thought I would give it a go. I caught some trout but no perch, I did hook two though, both leaping clear of the water and throwing the hook. I also landed a couple of tiny jack pike. Not all Chew pike are monsters! A second trip out found my cousin, Terry and I fishing a lake on my recently acquired Somerfords Angling Association ticket. Terry is new to fly fishing and the two of us enjoyed an afternoon taking small brown trout on dry flies. Good sport!


A tiny Chew pike - a future record breaker maybe?



A Fisherman's Tale! Record Carp and Monstrous Catfish Caught

Mike shows off his new Spanish record 77lb mirror carp

Mike's friend, Alan with another big carp
from their recent holiday - a 51lb common

Fisherman's tales, some true, some not so true! The world of angling is and has always been alive with them. It's these stories of huge fish, both lost and landed, weird and wonderful bank side goings on and the simply unexplainable that contribute to fishing's huge appeal. I've always loved the mystery that surrounds fishing and enjoy a monster myth or two and so it's with great pleasure that I get to write (and be apart of) the story I'm about to tell - my very own fisherman's tale! Where do I begin? I guess it ought to be with the capture of my 245lb River Segre catfish in September of 2011, a fish recognised as being the Spanish record at the time, a record I held up until just one month ago when a giant eight foot, six inch moggie was banked at a whopping 249lb! Knocking me off the top spot. So, where am I going with this? Well, during the last couple of years many visitors to Cadbury Angling have been keen to talk to me about my lucky catch, none more so than a chap named Mike Cuff. A good natter with Mike quickly revealed that he enjoys his foreign fishing, he, like me had visited Spain in search of catfish, taking fish to over 140lb. Mike enthusiastically told me of this experience and we got on to talking about some of the other freshwater monsters he had tussled with, most notably the white sturgeon of Canada's Fraser River. I have always been keen to visit Canada to try for one of these incredible looking creatures and so when Mike told me he was planning another trip for next year I was quick to suggest I accompany him. We swapped a few ideas and were soon booking the holiday. We fly next September. Can't wait! Mike and I have been in regular contact since and the two of us have both enjoyed a foreign fishing trip each during the last month or so. For me it was a week in Norway, you can read about that on this very blog. Mike was returning to Spain and this is where the story gets very interesting. Four days in to his trip I received a text message from Mike telling me he had smashed the Spanish carp record with a huge mirror of 77lb! "What are the chances of that?" I replied "You having the carp record and me, up until recently, holding the catfish record!" After all, thousands of anglers fish the Ebro system every year. I was chuffed for Mike and told him I was looking forward to seeing the pictures. What a fish! How would Mike ever top that? With a monstrous catfish that's how! The very next evening Mike landed the same huge cat that had recently beat my record, the eight foot, six inch beast weighed at 249lb only a month ago! Incredible! Had Mike smashed the catfish record too? Unfortunately we'll never know for sure as the scales used to weigh the beast bottomed out at 230lb. What a truly amazing and bizarre chain of events! As if all that wasn't crazy enough, a friend of mine recently returned an eight foot, two inch Spanish wels unweighed due to not having scales and I was also introduced, only two months ago to the angler who held the catfish record a few years before I did, he has since become a regular visitor to the shop as he too lives locally. So, it would appear that if you're heading off out to Spain for a bit of fishing you could do a lot worse than pay a visit to Cadbury Angling as there seems to be something in the air. If we can just work out what it is then we can bottle it and sell it. Anyway, a massive congratulations to Mike on an outstanding brace of huge fish. I'm very much looking forward to our trip to Canada next September, with our combined luck a world record sturgeon is surely on the cards!!!! Mike arranged his week in Spain through Gary Allen of Regency Angling, visit www.garyallensregencyangling.com for information. Photographs of the new record 249lb catfish are a little hard to find but are starting to appear on some Facebook pages, keep your eyes peeled for those.


Mike and his 230lb plus catfish, the fish's exact
weight will forever remain a mystery



Mike and a Fraser River sturgeon - I want one
of these next year





The Peninsula Federation Team England Qualfiers. Lower Itchen Fishery

On Saturday I was lucky enough to be invited to fish the Peninsula Federation Team England Qualifiers on the Lower Itchen fishery. It is a grayling only competition, fished over 7 hours, you draw partners and setting off numbers. Between the pairing, you can choose then to either fish 3 and a half hours in the morning or afternoon, measuring your partners fish in the session you are not fishing.
I travelled down on the Friday to fish a practise session in the afternoon, arriving to find the river a little coloured, but with plenty of flow. I set up with a heavy nymph on the point, a pink shrimp and a small size 18 pheasant tail, I fished the middle beat, catching 2 small grayling and 3 brown trout which gave a good scrap on my 10’ 3# rod. I had also set up a New Zealand style rod with a dry fly and a small dropper underneath but found the heavy nymphs were out fishing this method.

Saturday morning turned out to be a windy day overcast with heavy showers not ideal but shelter from the wind could be found on certain sections of the river. I had drawn to fish in the afternoon, so upon meeting my partner for the day Michael, who had driven down from Huddersfield for the event, we set off. He had opted to fish the top beat, fishing a very similar method to the one I had opted for, he caught 5 fish ranging from 15cm (the minimum size limit) up to 24cm in his allotted time. Now it was my turn, by the afternoon the wind had increased filling the river with leaves, this was not going to be easy. I opted to try the bottom of the fishery and ended the session with 3 fish to 26cm all caught on a pink bead head fly that we had tied after coming back from the pub the night before. I did have the misfortune of dropping a fish of around 40+ cm with 15 minutes to go at the net, very disappointing!!! On a more positive note two of my companions, Jay Curry and Dave Drake came 4th & 2nd and look good to qualify, so in all I was pleased with my 3 fish in very difficult conditions, there's always next year........

Michael fishing the morning session

On Top of the World. Fishing in Norway

My 10lb halibut

My friend Dave and I have just returned from Skjervoy, Northern Norway. We were there for a week of boat fishing in search of cod, coalfish and whatever else we could tempt. After a quick safety briefing we were handed the keys to our Arvor 215 boat and were soon heading out on our first of six days fishing. This was our first visit to Norway and so we were relying on maps and information provided mainly by customers of Cadbury Angling who had fished these waters before. Many thanks to those who contributed - you know who you are. So, with the fishfinder switched on we set about searching the depths. What we found beneath the surface was as equally dramatic and amazing as our surroundings above it, tall peaks and huge drop offs, some as deep as three hundred meters were a little daunting, but we soon found fish in shallower water near a small island. By the end of day one we had caught cod and coalfish to about 6lb, a small torsk and a monster mackerel. The rest of the week was spent searching out likely looking marks, how far we travelled was largely dictated by the weather, we experienced some wet, windy days and some fine, bright ones, the temperature remaining mild throughout. Bites were plentiful for most of the week with more cod to double figures, small coalfish, a second torsk and a single ling falling to small shads fished on light 12lb - 20lb class gear. Great sport! We did find some larger fish on a couple of days and we both got our heavier 20lb - 30lb class rods bent by some decent cod, Dave took the biggest at 17lb. I was lucky enough to hook a halibut and after a good fight a fish of 10lb was on the boat. The week flew by and we were packing our bags before we knew it, both pleased to have enjoyed catching some decent fish on our first trip to this stunning part of the world. Rods used were tough Daiwa, Leeda and Shimano models. Reels were by Abu and Penn and were loaded with either 30lb or 50lb braid. Terminal tackle was Ultima shockleader, strong swivels, split rings and clips and shads by Storm, Savage Gear and the new ones from Drennan. We organised this trip through Anglers World Holidays, visit www.anglersworld.tv for information and travelled with Scandinavian Airlines - www.flysas.com

Dave with the biggest of the week - a 17lb cod