Myself and Allan fished the Sluice today and....

A new PB from the canal

I had to take my van for an MOT today, whilst it's being sorted out, I thought it sounded like a good excuse to go fishing, as it's not too far from the Leeds Liverpool canal, I decided to have a session on there.

I fished two Pike rods on deadbaits and I fished on my float rod for any passing bits. (I needn't have bothered as once again catching any such fish became an impossible task) JP made an appearence and set about giving me a masterclass in winter pole fishing, needless to say he blanked :)

Soon enough I caught site of one of my Pike floats, it was heading towards me - a take - I was in! I wound down to the fish and was surprised to feel a bit of a lump on the end and by canal standards I was rather pleased to see the scales tip at 9lb, and a new canal pb too boot, not quite the double I've been after, but you'll hear no grumbling from me with this catch.

We were joined by Allan in the afternoon, who tried his luck for Perch by fishing on the tip, once again the fishing was hard and he didn't get so much as a bite.

I stayed until sunset but the Pike I'd caught earlier in the day was to be my only fish

9lb Canal PB

Difficult conditions - JP saves the day!

Sunrise on the Sluice

The first drain Pike of the year

The drains are still not fishing very well. Several attempts by myself lately have yet to produce any fish. I'm blaming the current run of bad luck down to coloured water. It's still a very yucky brown - and not too far off the colour of chocolate. Nevertheless I still decided to give them a go today. I chose to leapfrog rather than stay static, the idea was to drop on to fish.

It didn't happen and a certain blank was on the cards but thankfully after meeting up with JP he came up with an inspirational idea which in turn resulted in my first drain fish of the year.

No records were to be broken with this one though as it was only around the 5lb mark. Who cares! As quite frankly it was good just to have a fish on the bank. Looking back on last years fishing at this time of year I was about to enter into a red letter period, lets hope the same happens again over the next few weeks....

Time on the river and a surprise catch

Today myself, JP and Allan set about fishing a local river, a change of scenery was very much appreciated. We arrived at day break and I set about setting my stall out - one Pike rod, one Tip rod and a ledger rod to hopefully pick up any passing Chub. I was the first to land a fish and what a surprise to see a Flounder putting a bend in my tip rod. They sure put up a good fight on light tackle. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and the next and last fish of the day came to JP and a good fish it was, a Chub that tipped the scales at 4lb 3oz. I'll head back to this river maybe as soon as next week but I think I'll head to a different section.

The first Pike of the year

It's been a while since my last report. I have been fishing on the drains a few times but I blanked each time. In my opinion blanking sessions aren't really worth reporting, but in the interest of fairness I believe that they should still be mentioned. I shouldn't be too hard on myself though as The conditions were far from perfect. The UK suffered it's worst winter on record for the last 50 years. The coldest I recorded was a chilling minus 6. As a result all still waters and even the drains froze over. We were even under a blanket of snow for a week or two - a fisherman's nightmare!

I decided to give the drains a miss today. I arranged to meet JP at a local still water. It was the afternoon before I got my first run and I was to be rewarded with my first Pike of the year. I didn't weigh the fish but I'd estimated it to be around 10 to 11lb's. I recast another bait to the same spot and an hour or so later I was into another fish this time only a Jack but welcome all the same.

So finally I have my first fish of the year on the bank - and two catches from the water that I joined in November. For the record both fish were caught on a paternoster about a foot off the bottom.

One of my local waters that was frozen over

Another victim to the big freezeThe coldest temperature that I recorded

Nice double from the lake

Suspended deads save the day again.

A lazy start today, I ended up on the drains around 10am and I was pretty surprised to see that it had coloured up since the weekend. We hadn't had that much rain so I take it there must have been some water pumped in from somewhere.

On the whole the fishing was pretty quiet. I did catch 2 Jack Pike though. I recognised the first fish as the Pike that Paddy had caught on October 10th, and that I'd previously caught on October 21st. The Pike is easily recognised, as when Paddy was about to land the fish a commotion followed and it sustained some severe damage from a seemingly much bigger and rather opportunist Pike.

I'm pleased to say that the nasty gash that it had - has healed up nicely. Both Pike were caught on suspended dead's. This method does seem to catch a few fish as opposed to laying baits on the bottom perhaps going unnoticed in murky water.

Damage 21-10-09

Damage 16-12-09

An end to a rotten month

Well it's been a while since I last blogged my fishing exploits. The weather throughout the month of November was absolutely terrible, records will show that November 2009 was the wettest since records began. The drains became completely unfishable, and coloured fast moving water does not make for good Pike fishing conditions.

I did spend some time fishing though, I fished my new water several times, but I didn't manage to winkle anything off.

This week the weather eased off and finally the rain that has plagued our skies came to an end.

I fished the drains a couple of times this week, I drew a blank on my first outing - but I finally put an end to my barren spell on Friday by landing three fish to 12lb 2oz.

Saturday :
I arranged to meet Ben for a session on the drains. But A rather uneventful day wasn't what we'd planned. We didn't get so much as a dropped run between us. We were not alone in our failings though as everyone else that was Piking also struggled to land fish today. It's a funny old game this piking lark isn't it!

The best thing about one of my blanks

Back on the Pike 12lb 2oz

Around 9lb's
The fog descended in minutes