The draw of Pike fishing

I am still what I would class as a novice angler and have yet to catch many types of fish. I would love to go for an early morning session for Chub or Tench and I have really enjoyed trotting a float down a river. But the type of angling that has really got me hooked? Pike fishing. I'm not going to try and analyse why Pike fishing over any other type has got my interest, all I know is that it is a great experience and I am eager to get out and wet a line at any opportunity. Being a novice however I don't have the confidence of handling Pike, so the recent trip to the Soar when we landed a deep hooked fish was good experience to be able to deal with that situation and return the fish unscathed. I do rely on my fishing guru for his skill, knowledge and Pike fishing equipment (e.g. Fox long nose pliers, large landing net etc.).

I have been doing a lot of reading on the internet and have come across some good sites. Pike Angler is a great start, it has links to many different blogs of like minded pikers and offers tips for the novice and experienced angler alike.

So the next trip out for Pike is planned for later on this month at Thurlby Gravel Pits near Newark. It's a Notts AA water and their website specifically mentions Pike to 20lbs. Tactics have already been discussed and we will be fishing various different methods, dead-bait, spinning and my angling companion/guru will be trying out drift float fishing. It looks like an excellent method to get your bait to different spots of the gravel pit, a field report will follow

A trip to the Soar

So again it's been a while since my last post, and this one brings news of a trip to the River Soar in Leicestershire. A windswept Saturday morning found me and my angling guru trudging along a beautiful stretch of riverbank not far from Kegworth. The Soar is a relatively small river that is deceptively deep, particularly on the section we decided to pick on a bend in the water. The approach was to trot a float down in what was a relatively fast flow following some recent rain. Red maggot on waggler was the order of the day and in total I got 21 small fish, mostly Bleak, skimmers and Perch. The only other notable fish was a 6.5lb Pike that we landed after a damn good fight. Unfortunately it was deep hooked but thanks to the skill and experience of my fishing guru (with a little assistance by myself) the fish returned to the water unharmed.

Baits and tactics for fishing the Trent in Summer

So it's been a while since my last post and a while since my last fishing trip way back at the start of June. So it is with eager anticipation that I look forward to a day fishing the Trent at Bleasby tomorrow. Weather looks ok which is good considering the rain we have had recently, that said the rain has done little to raise the level of the river which is currently quite low following the weeks without rain we experienced in April, May and June.


As with any trip out, email conversations between me and my fishing guru turn to bait and tactics. Bleasby is a Notts AA stretch of the Trent and one that Col has fished before so with his consummate knowledge of water craft he suggested a spot of feeder fishing. We used feeders on the Trent when we fished at Gunthorpe weir on the last day of the 2010-11 season and that stretch was full of snags so we lost a lot of gear and had no fish on the bank. I am assured that the Bleasby stretch is more forgiving and has less snags. We are also going to take a pike setup and see if we get any tugs on that, an opportunity for me to finally try out my Okuma Interceptor reel I posted about previously. Will let you know how that holds up if it comes into play.


OK so we know we are going to use feeders so what baits are we going to use? So to keep the fish interested we need to 'lay the table' and it was suggested that we use a groundbait that we can ball into the river quite regularly that will hopefully entice the Chub, Bream and any other fish that fancy a feed. So Col has made a foul concoction of "brown crumb, crushed marine halibut pellets, the aforementioned liquidised Spiny Eels, hemp, hemp oil, sweetcorn, liquid worm, trout pellets and horse molasses all mixed up with pond water.  Should be absolutely humming by Saturday morning."


A note about the Spiny Eels, he told me got them from an Asian Supermarket a few years ago and thought they may work well as deadbait. They have languished in his freezer ever since and so they make a guest appearance in the groundbait mix for tomorrow. It sounds like an absolutely minging mix and hopefully it will prove to be a winner with the fish.


The other bait we talked about was cheese paste and the methods to make it. A quick search on the internet comes up with many varied approaches some people even favour molding processed cheese slices onto their hooks. We decided on blue cheese as the base flavour, the smellier the better and it is at this point that I hand you over to the cheese paste maker himself:

You will need: 

200 to 250 grams blue cheese, the smellier the better  

A drop or two of vegetable oil

Plain flour

If interested in colouring your paste, the food colouring of your choice, available from the baking section of your supermarket 

Disposable latex gloves

Everybody tells you to grate blue cheese – have you ever tried it?  It’s like knitting fog.  I just get a large plate and a fork and keep stabbing away until it’s all crumbled.  If you don’t mind washing up, you can whizz it in a liquidiser/food mixer.

Put your gloves on and pour on the plate a drop or two of vegetable oil – this makes the paste flexible, not vital this time year BUT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY in Winter when the water is so cold it makes the paste brittle if no oil is added.  (It should be noted at this stage that cheese paste, with liquidised bread in the feeder, is a classic Winter Chub bait).  Sprinkle over the crumbled cheese 5 or 6 teaspoons of flour and start kneading.  (It’s not really kneading – it’s messy – just grab and mix up everything on the plate and keep squeezing and pumping and mingling together for a minute or two.)

By now it will be similar to putty in texture.  Flatten it out and add food colouring if you’re going to.  Then knead and squidge some more.  Value judgement required at this point… is it too squidgy?  If so, add more flour and get squidging.  Is it too stiff?  A very small drop of vegetable oil can be added, or, if you’d rather not and probably better, add more colouring. 

When you are satisfied with the texture, put away.  The smellier the better so make it at least three days, preferably more, before you go fishing, and at no point refrigerate – room temperature will really boost the bait’s appeal.  If you have no shed put it in a sandwich bag or foil then in a carrier bag and hang by a window so the Sun can get it baking. 

So that sounds absolutely minging and hopefully it will stink to high heaven seeing as it has been 'maturing' nicely in a garden shed for the past 3 days.


So I look forward to the day by the river tomorrow and will post a 'match report' to let you know how we got on with our array of foul smelling baits.

Tying and connecting loops

I have been given some excellent guidance from my angling mentor that has really helped me. Basically he has had to start from scratch with me and has taught many different angling skills from how to plumb the depth to tying knots. When we were at Janson's he showed the correct way to connect a pre-tied 'hook to nylon' to a main line. I was going to write the method down but to go one better he said he'd do a short video on the subject as it was something that he said he couldn't find covered on the internet. Concise and very useful. Enjoy.

A difficult day at Janson's

 12 hooked, 5 landed.


A day off and the opportunity to sink a line at Janson's Fishery in the Vale of Belvoir.


The weather was good but the breeze that troubled our waggler fishing at Kodak was a feature again. Janson's is a small commercial on the A52 towards Grantham and has 3 ponds, one reserved for matches only. The match ponds are unusual to say the least, effectively quite narrow circular channels that definitely favour the pole angler. As my angling mentor pointed out it would be difficult to cast on a rod.

We picked our pegs on the west side of "Tomo's pool" which was already quite busy. Again this is a relatively small water with a small island in the middle, pole angles were fishing in the margins of the island so you can get an idea of the size of the place.


There was a huge amount of activity on the surface at all the margins, the owner telling us that the fish had just started spawning that morning. This in all likelihood contributed to what turned out to be a lean day, for other anglers too and not only us.


Employing the same setup as at Kodak, waggler and maggot, there were plenty of takes but many missed opportunities. This is only the second time I have used a float in over 10 years and so getting used to the strike was something I still need to work on. Many times I struck only find the float and hook length flying through the air! Similarly when I did get a fish on I lost more than I landed. Personally I think this was down to my eagerness to engage the bait runner for fear of snapping. There are reportedly Carp to 28lb and I was fishing light with 4lb line and 2.5lb size 14 hook to nylon so I mistakenly clicked the baitrunner allowing the fish to run. Ultimately the loose line and barbless hooks meant I lost 7 out of the 12 I hooked. It is all good experience though and every angler loses fish from time to time.


The wind made matters difficult and it became more like trotting as the float was blown form right to left across my swim. Tomo's pool is fairly uniform in depth, my swim was no more than 2 feet deep and this is the same even close in. So I opted to fish the margins where the float was a little more protected from the wind and got all of my takes in this region. Final count for the day was 3 small Chub, 1 small Barbel (not usually what you'd expect to find in a lake) and a Mirror Carp of about 4lb.


All in all a thoroughly enjoyable day and Janson's is a nice venue that reportedly produces big match weights. Definitely somwhere I will return to to get more attuned to waggler fishing

Kodak Lakes

So it was an early start for the trip out to Kodak Lakes near Annesley on Sunday the 22nd of May. The weather was changeable, very windy with squally showers blowing through to leave long periods of sunshine. We were at the bank at about 7.15 and there were already 4 other anglers on the 'bottom' lake. We were going to try out some float fishing (seemed like madness in such gusty conditions) and chose the pegs in the lea of the trees, pretty much the spot where the photo of the 'top lake' was taken on the Notts AA site. I am still learning the craft of angling and under the expert tuition of my mentor, we set about plumbing the depth. We were only fishing a couple of rod lengths out to take advantage of the protection of the trees from the wind. We set up a loaded Peacock with a number 4 a few inches down the line and then 2 number 8 Stotz weights spaced further down the line towards the hooklength. Having read many posts about Kodak we opted to try maggot as this seemed to be a safe bet. And the fish began biting. In the whole day I landed 28, all of them small, nothing amounting to more than a few ounces but it was an excellent experience and lots of fun. The majority of the fish landed were small Perch and they were lots of fun when hooked, quite tenacious, other fish caught were Roach and Pongos (Gudgeon). I did try artificial buoyant sweetcorn for a short while but to no avail. The maggots, particularly red ones were the hit of the day and constantly baiting the swim paid off. Other anglers appeared through the day  on the other side of the lake but we didn't see anybody land anything. My angling mentor opted for feeder for a while but nothing was taking. Kodak is a nice easy venue for the novice angler and there are tales of larger fish there, obviously it is a popular water so getting there early to have the pick of pegs is a good idea

Wildlife at the Finger Ponds

One of the things that I enjoy about going fishing again is being out in the fresh air, close to nature and taking in what's around you. The Finger Ponds are a great location, a few miles outside Nottingham.  They are secluded, quiet and relatively undisturbed. Not many people fish there as they are reputedly 'hard' waters. The few fishing trips I have made there recently have allowed me to take in the surroundings and note the wildlife present. As expected waterfowl predominate, with many types of geese and ducks present. Swans and Great Crested Grebes are frequent visitors and pairs of Oystercatchers are often seen flying over. Green Woodpeckers are seen and very often heard in the surrounding trees but the most unusual habitants of the ponds must be the Red Eared Terrapins. I was first told about them by a relative of a work colleague. A conversation about fishing at the Finger Ponds led him to tell me that once whilst fishing there he hooked a Terrapin. I had no cause to doubt him and when I got home I did a search and came up with this document. I then emailed my fishing guru and indeed he corroborated the story with a photo. I would have never believed that Terrapins could survive let alone thrive in such an environment. They are apparently quite a pest being detrimental to many bird species by taking eggs from nests and they also eat much of the dragonfly larvae.