Inglorious start to the Glorious 16th

So the new Coarse river season Glorious arrived and I had taken two days off work to start it off properly, hoping for that first Barbel or 3lb+ Chub.

Now I am a strategic optimist but tactical pessimist.  What this translates to in my fishing is; when I think about a fishing trip I am full of confidence that my plans are going to work and I am going to catch plenty of big fish.  However once I get bank side that confidence melts away within minutes.

I did not get off to a good start which to be fair is traditional.  I set my alarm for 3.30am but as I had a late night and early start on Saturday and not such an early night on Sunday I was struggling from the get-go.   I accept that fishing is sedentary but it is important to be relatively fresh as if you are jaded then everything from choosing your swim to casting and more importantly patience can be affected.

I was at he riverbank for about 4.30am and then spent a good 40 minutes fighting my way through nettles and willowherb to find the riverbank and a suitable swim.  I did my traditional lose-footing-and-slither-down-the-riverbank-on-backside early on so it was nice to get that out of the way.  

I picked a swim which I never really felt comfortable with and spent a long time baiting up before giving up on it quite quickly.  One reason was my casting was all over the place.  I used a bait dropper to put a bed of hemp down but my under hand casting was atrocious and I ended up pinging the dropper all over the river and so never really achieved that focused bed of bait.

A move up stream to a good looking swim fishing off an exposed gravel bar.  I had an easier time casting and picked what I felt was a fishy looking target; an eddy at the foot of a small weir on the far bank. After 3 hours without a knock, on maggot, bread or pellet, it was time to move and I dumped the majority of my kit in the car, tackled up a float rod and did some wandering up and down the river, trotting baits through likely looking swims.  My confidence was gone by then however and trotting is not one of my strong points so by early afternoon and about 7 hours on the bank I gave it up.

I have to say that I didn't really enjoy myself on Monday but this was mostly down to the fact that I felt very tired all day.  I had got up way too early with not enough kip which meant that I simply did not have the right mindset.   I really did not fish well on Monday so didn't deserve to catch.

Tuesday however was a much better day. I had a sleep in as I had my little boy and needed to drop him off at Nursery first.  I decided on the River Aire and got to the bank about 8.30am after a good nights sleep.  The banks are well maintained here and it was nice not to have to slip and slide down to the peg or parang my way through prehistoric nettles, thistles and bindweed.    I had a plan for the day, picked a bait and a target and feel I fished really well.  A good groundbait with hemp,and pellets mixed with maggots into a feeder and either a halibut pellet or maggot on the hook.  I had a nice roach on my first cast and cast to my mark repeatedly.  Unfortunately that was the only fish I had all day. (I missed a few bites).   I switched at lunchtime to luncheon meat on a ledger rig and placed the baits perfectly under overhanging trees on the far bank but still no luck.

I enjoyed myself much more however as I fished well which gave me confidence and it was just bad luck that meant no fish.  I left mid afternoon confident that on any other day my methods would have caught fish .  If I had to guess I would say that maybe the fish were in shallower faster running water than the peg I chose which was deep and slow. It may be a better cold weather spot.

One episode I do want to tell you about is Saturday when I was fishing the NewJunction Canal in Doncaster.  I was visiting a friend who lives along side the canal and she had got me a book for the local angling club. (she lets anglers park on her land so she blagged me one).    I had a good day pulling bags of perch, roach and bream out on a lovely stretch and saw Curlews, Barn Owls, Oyster Catchers and Mink.  While fishing I saw the biggest Perch I have ever seen!   It was oblivious to me and repeatedly chased the smaller fish I had on the hook as I brought them in. The water was very clear so with my polaroids on,  I got to watch it dart and chase the fighting fish as I brought it in trying not to let it gobble up my hard won quarry.  Twice it grabbed hold of my catch before letting go.   However on the last occasion I had a reasonable sized Perch on and needed the net.  As I put the net under the water, up came the big perch and it was so focused on the hooked fish,  it swam straight in to my landing net!!  Of course it then went completely mental.  I obviously will not count it as a fish I have "caught" but it was nice to examine and admire this monster.  I did not have my scales but I would guess the fish was at least 2.5 to 3lbs and fin perfect.  An absolute beauty!   A trip to that Canal with my predator gear will be following shortly!

Get some Aire Time

Now I am not going to suggest that the River Aire is up there with the Test, Itchen or Hampshire Avon as one of England's prettiest rivers, Indeed I do not think that it even beats it's sibling rivers of the Wharfe and Nidd.

It is however one of the most improved rivers in the country and still has some wonderful  stretches, of which some are free to fish and  even the controlled parts can be accessed at low cost from clubs such as Bradford City Angling and Leeds ASA.

I like the idea of rivers having personalities  and the Aire is no exception.  I always think that he (he is a he) is somewhat sulky and bitter about his treatment and looks jealously over at his beautiful sister The Wharfe, she never got the level of abuse that the Aire suffered at the hands of Industry.  While she danced and frolicked her way through spa towns such as Ilkley, Wetherby and Tadcaster,      The Aire was dragged through Keighley, Bradford and Leeds, treated with contempt, polluted and extracted to within an inch of his life.  And he has not forgotten.  Or I think forgiven. He is a brooding river that doesn't recognise that actually he may just be in his prime.

It always make me smile to think that the owners of the newly built  riverside "des res" houses nearby with their Range Rovers and hardwood Patio furniture probably don't realise that no one would have dared live that close to the river in the 1980's.

When I was a boy growing up in the suburbs of Leeds,  the River Aire was a stinking sewer that one had to cross if you were walking from my house to theLeeds Liverpool Canal to fish.  There is a foot bridge across it in Bramley and you could smell the river from 100 meters away.  Giant bergs of yellowy foam would drift downstream from the foot of an enormous weir.  One never stopped to look over the bridge in to it's inky depths as firstly you knew there was nothing in it and secondly it took you about 45 seconds to cross the bridge and you could only hold your breath for about a minute!

If we jump forward to present day, some 25/30 years later and I have sat and fished that same weir, I have  seen trout trying to leap it and pulled good size grayling from just down stream. Kingfishers, Herons and Grey Wagtails abound.   

And it is the Environment Agency, The Aire River Trust and Yorkshire Water that need to be thanked for this.   Now I am a Socialist so totally against the privatisation of our utilities but I can not argue with the work that Yorkshire Water did in cleaning up Esholt Sewage works and the river downstream which contributed to the improvement of water quality.   The EA's program of habitat improvement, punishing polluters and re-stocking and The Aire River Trust's tireless efforts to improve the banks and water quality has gone relatively unrecognised.  but for someone who remembers the state of this river when I was a kid, the transformation has been unbelievable.

Trout (my largest was taken from the Aire) Grayling, Chub, Roach, Pike, Perch can all be taken along it's length and the EA even stocked it with thousands Barbel between 2011 and 2013.

Now don't get me wrong the job is not done and  EA have their work cut out to keep this river in it's current state.  It is surrounded by massive urbanised and industrial areas and keeping on top of the polluters and fly tippers is a thankless and impossible task. However, for now, as it stalks it's way through a world of slate grey and brick red, it adds a welcome splash of green.  There are great river walks, picnic areas and fishing spots and you no longer have to hold your breath! 

Come the Glorious 16th don't write off the Aire as an option.  If we can get more people fishing this river then we get more eyes and ears on it thus help the EA maintain it and hopefully, in the long run, earn the forgiveness of this once abused river.

 

 

How to fail and love it.

 
My Targets this year are unchanged to those of last year.  A reflection of my failure as an angler rather than unreasonableness of my ambition.   I have still to catch a Crucian Carp, a Barbel and "specimen" chub (in my book that is a chub of over 3lbs).  I had a week off work and  obviously the rivers are still off limits so I set myself to catch a Crucian Carp.....And failed.
 
Epically.
 
To be fair the conditions could not have been worse, lots of cold water from the incessant rain running in to the ponds and a cold North Easterly wind.  It appeared that my own personal rain cloud was calling the shots.
 
Indeed I scratched around of any fish at all  over the week,  I didn't blank on any day except Friday when I was pike fishing but never really got going either.  Taking a nice Ide here and 5lb Bream there but other than that a mixture of small perch, roach and skimmers.    That is not to say I did not enjoy myself because I did, a brolly and a thermos flask kept the elements at bay as I simply enjoyed being on the bank with a line in the water. 
 
Added to the enjoyment was the wildlife, It started with hearing a Cuckoo up in York and I saw Wrens, Kestrel's, Herons, Kingfishers and Woodpeckers.  The highlight was a Grey Heron taking up station on the opposite bank to my swim on a small pond and out fishing me for about 20 minutes!
 
The most fun I had however was lure fishing for pike on a large lake near Otley on Friday Morning.  I had just bought a floating frog....   Now before you judge me,  read on.
 
These lures used to great effect in the U.S. to catch Large Mouth Bass amongst Lilly pads.  The hooks are hidden and become exposed when the fish bites the lure.    Now this lake which is mostly fished by Carp Anglers is very weedy and shallow close to the banks but it has a lot of pike present.   I saw pike in very shallow water in  nearly every swim I peered into and they went nuts for this lure!  
 
Casting out, This piece of hollow soft plastic puts on a Oscar worthy performance of a hapless amphibian desperately making it's way to the shore, then, as you watch, a large bow wave forms a foot or so behind the lure and then with a flash of yellow and white and a huge displacement of water the pike hits the lure......Or at least try to.  I must have had 7 or 8 fish try and take this lure without a single hook up.  The problem is with the hooks being hidden the fish actually have to bite cleanly on the lure to expose the hooks.  Pike are fast, powerful and brutal but marksmen they are not.   I actually failed to catch but I was having so much fun watching the fish follow and the ferocious attacks on the lure that I did not want to change baits.  I have found a similar pattern that has a trailing treble hook which I think will make a big difference to hook ups but even if not I would really recommend trying surface lures at this time of year.  The acceleration and power of these fish as they attack has to be seen to be believed.
 
Next up will be a fun trip with my 5 year old to help him as he tries to catch some canal roach and then a trip to the Aire and Calder Canal, where I plan to use ultra light lures to try and tag a good perch or chub.