Out with the old

It's showing my age but I can remember when Fuji rings (or guides if you prefer) came on the scene in the 1970s and made hard chrome rings obsolete for specimen rods. I can't recall when it was that Hopkins and Holloway introduced their Supaglide rings, but I do remember using them on my rods in the 1980s. My first carbon pike rods, built on the Graham Phillips Express blanks (same as the Hutchy Horizon) were built up using the GHI/E pattern. Tri-Cast fitted them to their cult range of specimen rods at the time, too. When I started building rods for a living Harrison's were using the rings and I fitted them to my early DLST rods.

By that time people were getting into 40mm butt rings which meant the Supaglides were out of the question; the largest they were available in was the equivalent of a Fuji 30 (for some reason Seymo sizes were all one down from Fuji and everyone else so that was a 25).

The selling points for the Supaglides were their double-leg frame which was touted as being lighter and more flexible than the Fuji braced or three leg frames, and the way the ceramic liner was shaped so that it was flanged and less likely to pop out - the liners are glued to the frame around the non-flanged side. In practice the smaller sized rings had quite flimsy frames making them a little prone to bending, and the largest size frame was over-robust. I still have one old rod which I use for wobbling deadbaits on rare occasions which is fitted with Supaglides.

The original braced stand-off Fujis were discontinued some time back and now I hear the GHI/E is to follow suit. I found this out when asked to match a rod to a pair of P-1s that must have been built a long time ago which had the Supaglides fitted. There are still some GHI/Es available, but when they're gone Hopkins and Holloway will be making no more.

Over the years many old rod building favourites have bitten the dust. It was a sad day when The Celebrated Talbot thread was no more. Made in the UK by Worthington there was a limited range of colours compared to overseas manufactured threads. I always liked Talbot thread. It is easy to work with, and when varnish is applied it darkens with an even, solid colour. A lot of coloured threads of other brands become slightly translucent when varnished. Some darken unevenly. When a local tackle shop closed down I bought up they're stock of Talbot. The range of useful colours was limited (I can't remember ever whipping a rod in red!) and I am now almost out of most of them. I still have quite a bit of a bulk spool of the 'wine' left, but the 'ruby' is almost all gone now, as is the brown.

Once the world wide industry standard, Gudebrod is another brand of thread which has disappeared. Not only did Gudebrod make thread they were renowned for Dacron lines too. With Gudebrod threads no longer available, and again my stocks dwindling, it is becoming more and more difficult to match thread colours when doing repairs.

While I preferred working with Talbot, Gudebrod was also very good to handle. What is readily available in the UK at the moment isn't a patch on either in my opinion. The end result looks fine but the threads are not as user friendly.

I apologise if this is all a bit 'anoraky' and of interest only to other rod geeks! I have been fishing this week, for a few hours. Alas my run of failure continued. Right on cue as dusk approached one of the floats fell over and waddled away. Then stopped. The lead had been dragged into weed and the pike had dropped the bait....

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New Year Blues

When I'm not in the mood for fishing these days I don't go. Whether the resounding four swim full day blank on the second day of the year deterred me, or the never ending rain (on days when I had spare time), is hard to say. At least I saw a pike on that session. I'd stuck a lure rod in the quiver and one lure. A weighted Squirrely Burt is as safe a bet as any in my book when it comes to picking a banker lure, so that was what I packed. Indeed a small jack showed up as a late and lazy follower. Nothing touched the deadbaits despite the conditions looking and feeling great.

It wasn't until mid-morning today that the urge to fish washed over me again. Must have been the sun breaking through on a day with little wind. This time the Burt was ignored. I'd given it a try in a couple of swims before breaking out the deadbait rods in another. Two cups of tea after settling in I needed to empty the bladder. No sooner had I zipped up than the sounder in my pocket began to burble.

With the sensitivity turned up on the Delkims every run sounds like the fish is rocket powered. When I got to the rod the spool was turning quite slowly. Pick the rod up, tighten down. Wind the bait in. I never felt the fish. Tiny teeth marks suggested it was a little nipper. The bait was dropped back in the same marginal spot and the other bait given a twitch.

Half an hour later and the margin float fell flat before moving slowly and steadily to the left, turning out then stopping. I'd crept to the rod as the float was less than a rod length from the tip eye. The float dithered and I wound down again. This time I felt something before winding the bait back in yet again. There was a slice mark in the lamprey, but I reckon that was caused by me pulling the bait through the jack's teeth. the weight I felt was minimal.

I'd hardly sat down when the float fell flat once more. This time the pike had dropped the bait. Time for a move. Followed an hour later by a final move. Rain had been predicted for six o'clock by the interwebs. I was hopeful of getting away before it arrived with dark falling an hour before that. The interwebs got it wrong. The rain arrived fifteen minutes before packing up time. Thankfully it was no'but drizzle. enough to soak the landing net and brolly so they needed taking out of the quiver on my return home.

Given my dismal failure of late it seems a bit daft to describe the rig I've been using for my roving. But it's not the rig's fault I've been missing takes it's mine. I first mentioned the set up a couple of winters back but don't think I illustrated it. The following photos should be pretty self-explanatory.

This first pic shows it rigged to float leger a deadbait with a semi fixed lead, which is how I use it most of the time. You can use braid stops or tie stop knots. The choice is yours.

The stop below the float is to prevent the float tangling with the lead on the cast. It also stops the float and beads sliding off the line when changing traces - I hate attaching traces to the line with snap links as I find they always tangle.

My floats are simple sticks of one inch balsa dowel, shaped, painted and varnished. I find 'dumpier' floats easier to see than slim pencils and reckon they hold up better in a flow or a chop. As the floats are fished overdepth they rarely get pulled under when a pike takes the bait, so resistance isn't an issue. The fish will be towing an ounce and a half of lead around anyway! The swivel in the base is fitted on a split pin pushed into the balsa and epoxied in place.

Lead and float are clipped on using the Korum links which can be removed from the line. This enables the rig to be used as either a semi-fixed leger by removing the float, or a running leger (as in the pic below) by removing the float and repositioning the clip the lead is attached to.

If you think the lead might snag up then insert a silicone tube sleeved weak link between it and the clip, or maybe a paperclip.

To create a float paternoster rig remove the lead and clip, then tie a weak paternoster link between the top treble and the lead.

Want to float fish an untethered bait? Take the float leger and clip on a lighter bomb. I've even made a mini-drifter to use with the rig. More of which if I manage to get a take on it. It does drift though!

Fancy wobbling a deadbait? Take the lead and float off.

For drains, canals, and small stillwaters this set up has been pretty good to me so far. If the interwebs are right I might get to give it another go on Thursday. Should I be in the mood.

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That's that then

Christmas Day was good for birdwatching if not for pike catching. I'd never seen a pheasant in a hawthorn bush eating berries before. Not the most dainty of feeders, it looked to be in danger of falling out of the bush every time it leant forward to take another berry!

At least the rain held off and the sun shone - which wasn't what was predicted for the rest of the week. A few swim moves and eventually one of the floats moved. I wound down, connected, dropped the landing net in the edge ready for action and the bloody pike spat the bait out. Not that pike do spit baits out. I'd not actually hooked the fish, which was obvious when I checked the bait to see the top treble had folded over and masked the points in the lamprey's head. No matter. It hadn't been a big pike so I was saved the hassle of unhooking it.

Sure enough Boxing Day started dismally with rain. When the sun did eventually break through I couldn't be bothered giving the rods another airing. So it went until today. This morning was bloody awful. The rain was lashing down so hard at one point as I drove in to town it was like driving through thick fog and it seemed like the day was never going to brighten up. It came as a surprise when, just as I started my lunch, I realised the afternoon was looking promising. So it proved. As far as not getting sokaed went.

I had a couple of float legered deadbaits out by one and began work on a cunning plan to present a bait over the silkweed that is still carpeting the bottom in a number of places. As an area I've seen pike striking, and plenty of prey fish topping, it seems like a good idea to get a bait out there. My usual float leger rig just drags the bait into the gunge and a fixed paternoster is likely to cause other problems. Years ago I encountered a similar situation where the paternoster weight would stay put in the bottom weed and pike would drop the bait. A running paternoster sorted that out. So I sat down and cobbled one together. Having left the house in a bit of a rush for this unplanned session I grabbed the nearest tubed float I could find - and coloured over the bright yellow top with a marker pen to turn it into a sunk float!

By tightening up to the rig the overlong lead link is pulled down and the bait hangs close to the top of the weed. When a pike takes the bait the lead stays put and the line runs freely through the snap link. Not that any pike showed up today to put this into practice. Although I remembered this rig is an appalling caster ( the lead goes one way and the bait another) I'd forgotten exactly how awful it is. Some PVA around the snap would cure that ill, I suppose. Instead I'll be trying a different method next time out. Nothing showed any interest in my bottom fished bait either. My fishing year ended on a blank. One that I'd enjoyed and which had made me think a bit. Which has been the hallmark of most of my fishing this year.

I read somewhere that when you start fishing you want to catch the most fish possible. As you progress you want to catch the biggest. As you mature it is the challenge of the most difficult that becomes the driving force. I might not be fishing for the most difficult fish these days, but my current ambition is to catch the biggest fish I can from waters as close to home as possible. Living in the north west of England those fish aren't likely to be particularly large by national standards. Maybe trying to get as close as possible to what might be regarded as a specimen 'down south' is fishing for the hardest fish to catch? By 'close' I mean no more than 20 miles as the crow flies from my house, preferably half that distance, and better still closer than that. This year and last has seen me increase a couple of my 'local bests', but there's plenty of room for improvement.

Customarily I look back at the year that's drawing to a close, and this one's been a strange one. The roach fishing I was doing in January should have been over by mid-March, but the lingering winter - which felt like it dragged on until May - kept me at it into April. Unable to get motivated for bream and tench I went straight into eel fishing. My chosen venue didn't live up to expectations. I'm not sure if that was because I started on it too early and didn't stick with it long enough, or because it wasn't likely to produce the goods. I rather suspect the former to be honest.

Getting things arse about face I left the eels alone in August, during the seemingly endless summer we'd been wishing for for years, to go fish for bream and tench. While this might not have broken any pots for me it did provide local bests in both species.

While spring had been a month or more late and hardly materialised, summer carried on into October and even now it feels more like autumn with reasonably high temperatures and only a few light frost been had so far. My piking was held back by work and weed in October and didn't kick off until over a week into November. It's been okay though, and has kept be from returning to the roach. The roach urge is still there, but when the pike bug gets me it seems to bite the deepest.

This year's list of 'big' fish isn't too impressive, eels to 2lb 8oz, roach 1lb 8oz, bream and tench to five pounds odd and pike to sixteen and a bit won't raise any eyebrows. However, for the first time in a few years I have got close to filling the annual A6 notebook I record my fishing in. This means I've done a lot of fishing, albeit mostly in fairly brief sessions, despite periods of absence from the bank through poor weather or falling over... In turn this means I've been keen to get out - which means that I've been enjoying the fishing. So this year has been particularly successful in that respect. Getting to grips with a new waters, or new species from old waters, has kept me thinking all year - and that's what it's all about for me these days. Doing the same old same old to catch fish without much effort doesn't float my boat.When the piking begins to pall I wonder what I'll fish for next? Here's to more new challenges in the New Year.

The Mug - what will she weigh next time?

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Season's Greetings

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I thought it was all over

It was all planned out. Work Monday, catch loads of pike Tuesday, send out the last of the pre-Christmas rod orders Wednesday, catch more pike Thursday and/or Friday. It worked. As far as Monday. Tuesday I intended to fish from dawn but couldn't be bothered getting up early, so I went for an afternoon session. Despite my usual lack of success fishing for pike after lunch I'd been catching enough in the last few hours of daylight recently it seemed like a percentage chance. Things didn't work out that way and I blanked. Someone else had caught in the morning, so maybe the pike had changed their feeding habits. Wednesday went to plan, unlike Thursday and Friday which got scuppered by the promise of deliveries. Sure enough the promises were met - with deliveries after five pm. So that was that.

By now I'd lost the will to fish so I went out with my camera on Saturday. Sunday could easily have headed in the same direction when I awoke to hear rain battering on the window putting paid to an early piking start. Yes. I am getting soft in my old age! The excuse being that fishing mobile in the rain means getting wet, and I didn't fancy sitting it out in one spot all day. After doing some work after breakfast the weather looked to be improving. A check on the interwebs showed that yesterday's forecast for today of rain later in the day had been modified to no rain until after dark. I hastily sorted the gear out and set out.

It was sunny but cool in the wind so I chose my first swim based on available shelter and past form. There's something bleakly atmospheric on days like this when you're out amongst the reeds with flocks of geese struggling noisily upwind that goes hand in hand with pike fishing.

With an hour and a half of light left I was about to put the rods in the quiver for a final move when rain blew in. Up with the brolly until it passed over. There were two swims I fancied, both were free. However there was another piker in the swim next to one of them. I could have fished my first choice swim without interfering with the other chap but decided to drop in the second choice. Partly because it's a swim I've been meaning to fish for a while.

I rarely use popped up deadbaits, but that doesn't stop me messing about with ways to easily get deads up off the bottom. So far all methods have been less than successful. My latest effort is pretty straightforward. The photo should be self-explanatory. There's a loop crimped into the end of the wire to allow it to be pulled through the bait with a baiting needle of some sort. The pop up float is held in place with a pellet stop. The bait certainly floats vertically on this rig, rather than flopping over as with my last hopeless rig. Not that pike are likely to be bothered!

This bait was dropped in the margin in my final swim while I chopped up a fresh lamprey to use on the other rod. With that baited up I wound the herring in and chucked it further out to the left while the lamprey head section was dropped close in to the right. Things were looking grim given that evenings might have switched off. I sat down and got the flask out. It was warmer in this swim, being sheltered from the strong wind which was blowing from the prevailing direction. The tea was poured and the flask closed. I hadn't taken a sip when I saw the right hand float on the move.

I tip-toed to the rod so as not to disturb the pike and cause it to drop the bait. Then I wound down to feel the weight of the fish. An unspectacular fight ensued with the lamprey hanging from the scissors. In the net the flying treble tangled. It seemed like a good idea to flick the other hook out of the pike while it was still in the net in the edge. It seemed like a good idea.

Somehow the tangled hook caught one of my fingers when the pike woke up. Luckily, or not, the hook ripped out again. I left the still hooked pike in the net while I sorted out the mat, sling and forceps out.

The hook in the pike was easily removed. It actually came free when I tried to pull the lamprey off it to get a better grip on the hook shank. The pike was weighed, then sacked up while I sorted the chaos out and found a plaster for my now bleeding finger as I wanted a photo for comparison purposes as its weight seemed familiar. At this point the other angler arrived and did the photographic honours. After the fish had drifted back whence it came it was time to find a fresh trace. That done it was almost time to pack in but I gave it another fifteen minutes. Maybe the pike haven't switched feeding times after all. That suits my lazy old bones!

With the photos uploaded to my computer it was time to make the comparisons. The tail root area is always reliable for comparing pike markings. It didn't take long to identify a number of matching spots, wiggles and stripes. There were some other markings on the flank which matched too. That's the third time I've caught that fish now, from three different swims. Mug?

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More pike

One thing about doing frequent short sessions is that you don't mind the occasional blank. More so when you are on the move all the time. Sitting in one swim from dawn to dusk, especially on a cold winter's day, can be demoralising when nothing is caught. When you move ever hour or less there's fresh hope in each swim. Not only that, but you don't have to bother preparing any food or drink if the session is only to be a couple of hours.

Of course this sort of approach is only viable on local waters which can be reached within a few minutes drive. Round here that limits the expectations of what size fish can be caught where pike are concerned. One reason I have never amassed a huge tally of big pike is partly down to the poor (in relation to other areas of the country) pike fishing available locally, and also because, when I have my fishing head on, I prefer to fish more often than to concentrate fewer sessions on more productive waters.

I could save up my free time and spend one full day a week somewhere where a twenty or bigger is a possibility, but I'd rather pop out for a few hours three or four times a week these days. It's a return to how I fished when I started piking. Only in those days I was forced to fish locally for reasons of cost and lack of transport.

A nice thing about mobile piking is fishing with floats. It does away with the bother of getting two rod rests and a bobbin set up every time I move. A lot of the time the front rests stay in the quiver and the rods lie on the ground, propped up against the reel handle.

There haven't been many cold days so far this winter, but yesterday dawned with a cold south easterly pushing into my preferred swim. A couple of hours was all I could bear before moving to seek shelter. By then the misty haze was burning off and the sun breaking through as restless flocks of fieldfares kept taking to the air.

A float dipped, bobbed, fell flat. Then nothing. The bait was checked and there were small teeth slashes in the sides of the lamprey head. Jack attack. Another move was made and the lamprey recast in the general direction it had been picked up in, the herring dropped to my left in the margin.

Watching floats is a bit like watching a tennis match. Head constantly turning from side to side. Left float, right float, left float, no float, left... Zzzzzzzzzz! The lamprey float's gone and the baitrunner spinning furiously. I'm into the fish straight away as it tries to bury itself in the reeds. Being a little un it doesn't make it. A hook catches in the net and the fish unhooks itself. The lamprey was gone so I stick a joey on the hooks and drop it same spot.

After a cup of flask tea I move the macky further out. Sitting down after the recast I spot the margin float dither briefy then stop. Again the bait is marked by tiny pike teeth. I swing it back out and it's taken more positively within minutes. Another jack hits the net.

The wind seems to have eased, or maybe swung to a less penetrating direction and the sun is warming the day. When two o'clock comes the heat is going out of the sun while I move again. A final unproductive move for the last hour is spent watching the sunset from behind the brolly I'd put up to keep the wind off me. Only my second full day pike session this winter and I'm ready to get back to the short sessions. I'd caught just as much from three moves in two and a half hours on Monday! It might be time for some roach fishing. If the cormorants haven't had them all.

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