it's cold up north ....

I do it all of the time and I should learn , I really should . I spent last winter trying to catch a big perch and set myself a target of a 2lb'er , ok I know by national standards thats not a big perch but what's the point of setting myself an unrealistic target ? Anyhow , I managed a 2lb'er in fact 2lb 12oz would you know . It was generally a 2 rod approach , legering with bite alarms . Lobworms and prawns were the successful baits and 1lb plus fish were caught on most trips . So why oh why did I think that doing something completely alien to me would be a better bet yesterday ?
I am sure that a lobworm fished under a carefully plumbed pole rig coupled with accurate baiting via a pot would be a far superior way of catching large perch , course it would . In the right hands ! So why I why did I attempt to such a thing yesterday ? My attempt at pole fishing was a disaster , I sat with pole in hand pretending to be a match angler but with none of the grace as I messed it all up .

One I caught doing it they way I know how

Needless to say , fishing outside my comfort zone I blanked . And to top it all off I had the Flying Fisherman for company all day , the sod sat by me (not fishing) and almost froze to death which was a small price to pay for taking the piss all day . Well it was a lesson learned and I will in future save the pole for dropping rigs in place on my favourite barbel swims and leave delicately shotted float rigs to those that know how to use them .

Have a look at the youtube videos , you will piss yourself .I guarantee you will watch it and think to yourself "what a cock!"

On the blob !

I love rivers , in fact I caught my 1st sanitary towel on a river a . I don't know what it is about my local rivers but they are teeming with them (much to the disgust of an aeronautical friend of mine ), anything hair rigged seems to work . A couple of foot of flood water always seems to get them moving ,in fact many a barbel swim on the river Don has been spoiled by a shoal of jam rags . They aren't solely confined to the Don either , infact I caught one today on the Dearne . I don't know much about them as a species other than they must be some sort of flat fish  , their fighting qualities are poor but I reckon a good match angler ( or Adi Berner ) could put weight together quite easily in the right conditions . How long before commercial fishery owners cotton on to this and fill their stew ponds with them ?

I much prefer catching barbel and chub , which are rather more pleasant to unhook . Stupidly that was my aim this morning , but there was just too much crap coming down to keep even 6oz of lead in place for longer than 5 minutes . Releasing my third ladies hankerchief of the morning was the final straw , I packed up feeling that I would be much better coming back on monday or tuesday .

Before I go on I will say that any barbel that appear on this blog will be more than likely to have been caught on the Don or the Dearne , I make no apologies for admitting that . I can't be arsed with calling it a tiny local river or some other name in a vain attempt to hide its identity . Everyone knows that these two rivers contain barbel , but I won't say where I caught them . Guess where I caught the one in the photo ? I bet the background gives it away ......

Carping on ...

I had a love affair with carp , but you know how it is . It all starts off great , you spend all your waking hours thinking about them while you're not out there spending endless nights chasing them . Then the enevitable happens , you realise they're are fat pigs and you wonder what you ever saw in them ?
It wasn't all bad though , carp and me had some great times together . Many an evening would be spent at Ravenfield chasing them , now this little pond is deceptive . Now let me say I love this place and anyone would do well to apply for a ticket , you will learn a lot and become a better angler for it .
The water is crystal clear most of the time and the carp can be easily seen from the bank , quite often sun bathing in the shallows by the car park . It wasn't rare to see new members lean over the fence and look into the shallows and spot 20 carp with ease "fucking hell ! there's loads of 'em" I would hear bellowed from the car park . You could hear them telling each other how they would take the place apart " gonna be a piece of piss this " was just as common to hear .
To be fair it must have looked easy , and it did at first to me too ...
 A few of those who joined after me have actually taken the place apart , I know a couple of them have gone to the effort of creating their own bait and putting the time in to getting the carp on it . Good angling I say and just reward for all of the effort !

You see it's only a small pond and as such it needs a stealthy approach , I would say that 90% of my catches were from the margins . Now this meant being quiet and keeping out of view from the carp , if you did this you were always in with a shout of a pick up , on the other hand if you wanted to bivvy up and listen to the radio at full blast while you sunk enough Stella to kill an elephant and supplement that with herbal roll ups it isn't the place for you . The committee quite rightly won't tolerate such behaviour , as a few have found out .
    Saying that , there are couple of regulars at various other places I've been who catch a few doing just that .However , they tend to spend longer trying than most but I suppose you have little concept of time when you're stoned . Each to there own , eh ?
The problem here is that carp anglers can all get tarred with the same brush and I think that kind of behaviour finally saw me fishing for carp less and less , you see I don't want to associate myself with anglers who treat their bivvies like crack houses or drink so much they piss the bed . I still want to catch the odd carp but I no longer want to be a " carp angler "
I shall still drive down that narrow lane to Ravo this spring when the rivers close , I plan to try catching one on the float using my new centre pin too . Keep you posted on that one ...