Anybody Catching???

fatcaff wrote:Had 3 out to 8lb yesterday whilst spinning for perch only managed small perch all day.

well done, certainly beats blanking.

Went out for two 2 hour sessions yesterday on surface lures. The first session ended in frustration when after about 20 hits on the mouse lure I was using, I didn't land a single fish. The second session, borne out of much whinging and stomping around the house whilst the missus was trying to catch up on corrie, ended much better with a fish just shy of 15lb and a jack of about 4lb on a weedless frog. The fish all day were verging on suicidal, some completely exiting the water like Exocet missiles. I probably had 30 takes and only managed to bank 2, but this is the fourth visit to this water and at least now I've bank something of size. If I can get the fish banked to takes ratio up, I'll be onto a winner.

Went out today only managed 3 small jacks all less than 1lb and this perch all caught on my home made spinners.

The spinners that done the damage.

Nice one mate,after your 24lber PB its back to reality with 3 micro pike  ,nice perch though.

steve.w wrote:Nice one mate,after your 24lber PB its back to reality with 3 micro pike  ,nice perch though.

  

Me and Ian spent a couple hours yesterday discovering a new part of the R.Trent that belonged to a club we'd recently joined.



I myself used these minnows that landed in the postbox last week after being sprayed by Mark Houghton. Over the weekend I had been glued to youtube watching many videos of our American counterparts ''jerkbait'' fishing, I was particularly interested in the retrieves they were using when fishing minnows/slashbaits as such, so that it'd give me a good idea on how to go about it.

At first when we started fishing, I had a small perch follow the spinnerbait I had started off on and as we moved a few swims downstream/upstream? I swapped to the 'baitfish' pattern minnow (top right) and after 2nd cast I hooked into a small perch. Happy to see that whatever I was doing worked, I carried on using the minnow. Ian shortly had a jack inhale his soft 4play just before the heavy showers came.

About 10/15 minutes later just as the rain began to get a little heavy this perch nailed the 'baitfish' minnow!



After the unhooking, picture and release we both took shelter from the heavy downpour under a couple of trees before deciding that we'd call it a day.

Well done m8 a cracking perch there.

 Nice one Alex,I'm very envious of your lure collection  .

Ta chaps,

steve.w wrote: Nice one Alex,I'm very envious of your lure collection  .

haha,

I've built my somewhat moderate collection of bait over the past few years, I bet you there are chaps out there that put my collection of baits to shame.

Also in the blog - http://www.alexmakkfishing.com

Me and Ian fished this part of the R.Trent again back on Sunday and we certainly had a good days worth too. Off the top of my head I believe Ian had three fish which consisted of two pike and a perch caught using on of my sinking minnows. whereas I have about five fish with 4 being perch the biggest around a 1.2lb and the last being a pike of a couple lbs (the first pike on my minnows).



Perch of 1.2lb



Ian Jack of a few lbs



The gold green Mackerel was the bait of the day, all the fish that I caught was on this minnow



When I flicked the minnow along the margins I had a small shoal of perch following and attacking the minnow, then this slightly larger one bursts out from the depths and gobbles it!



The biggest fish of the day falls to Ian with this stunning yet thin pike of 9lb, I myself was more awed by the size of its head, probably when it gains more weight it could certainly be a double.



The last fish caught, we have a feeling that this young pike was the one that struck for Ian's bait a couple of times and missed. After about 10 minutes of us two trying to tempt it, it bursts out from the margins from under where I was stood and came to see the minnow I was using, a few gentle taps of the rod was all that was needed to get the young pike to nail my minnow.

Great stuff Alex,good report and pics.as always.

Also in the blog, www.alexmakkfishing.com

I had another few hours yesterday evening spent fishing the R.Trent with Ian. I myself was using the minnows/slashbait yet again with a few nice results. The tally for that session was 5 fish 3 of which were perch, 1 a pike and a small gudgeon!


This Pike certainly liked my minnow as it gave a really good scrap on the Sakura Shinjin baitcast rod I have been using of late.


Such beautiful markings on the pike.


2lb 2oz perch! My second 2lb fish within a week.

That evening once I was home I had the grin of the Cheshire cat for the rest of the night, whatever I'm doing with the minnow/slasbaits I don't know, but it seems to be working well especially on this stretch of the river.

Had a Perch recently myself. I bet Mr. Makk can work out which peg this fish was caught from! Its Perch city at this peg at the moment, BTW caught on a lobworm and not a lure   

Alex Makk wrote:Also in the blog, www.alexmakkfishing.com

I had another few hours yesterday evening spent fishing the R.Trent with Ian. I myself was using the minnows/slashbait yet again with a few nice results. The tally for that session was 5 fish 3 of which were perch, 1 a pike and a small gudgeon!


This Pike certainly liked my minnow as it gave a really good scrap on the Sakura Shinjin baitcast rod I have been using of late.


Such beautiful markings on the pike.  


2lb 2oz perch! My second 2lb fish within a week.

That evening once I was home I had the grin of the Cheshire cat for the rest of the night, whatever I'm doing with the minnow/slasbaits I don't know, but it seems to be working well especially on this stretch of the river.

Yeah great fishing Alex   

fatcaff wrote:Had a quick session resulting in a new pb of 23lb 8oz on a savage gear 19cm swim n jerk.

A perfect looking Pike mate

Bazz wrote:

Had a Perch recently myself. I bet Mr. Makk can work out which peg this fish was caught from! Its Perch city at this peg at the moment, BTW caught on a lobworm and not a lure   

I have a rough idea,

(If) it is where I think it is, I ain't been down that end for a while now. I still need to have a good dabble down there anyway.

Out for a couple hours spinning for perch and ended up with this at 10lb 2oz.

fatcaff wrote:Out for a couple hours spinning for perch and ended up with this at 10lb 2oz.

well done

Cheers Alex. It was quite a battle getting her in on my light spinning tackle.

fatcaff wrote:Cheers Alex. It was quite a battle getting her in on my light spinning tackle.

stunning fish pal
you cant beat taking a good fish on a lure ....well in  

Also in the blog - www.alexmakkfishing.com

I have been catching a mix of fish from the river consisting of a chub, half a dozen perch and a couple of pike. Yesterdays afternoon session with Ian saw me bank just the one fish which in turn has resulted in a new river PB.

A few picture of some of the fish I had caught within these past couple of weeks:

31/07/14 - With the water having a clear tea like tinge to it, the perch seemed to be more on firetiger pattern baits. Before I took this picture of the perch with a firetiger minnow, I had a smaller fish on a lipless firetiger bait from this very same swim  If you tried anything of a different colour or pattern such as gold or silver the perch didn't seem to be interested.


06/08/14 - ''When predator becomes prey'' A week later saw me and Ian on a different part of the river for a few hours during the afternoon after a morning spent blanking on a stillwater. Once again perch seemed to be the species of the day.


06/08/14 - Just before we decided to call it a day, I had a touch of the last cast magic thanks to this firetiger lipless bait.

16/08/2014 - Yesterday afternoon was spent roaming a different part of the river as there was a match being held on the usual stretch me and Ian had been fishing. We had anticipated that the heavy rain we had here Friday afternoon would cause the river to slightly rise and gain colour overnight but much to our surprise when we arrived the river was crystal clear.

After heading further along blanking at every swim I tried, I soon stopped off at a swim where I had several follows from a nice sized fish but stupidly of me I actually made the minnow bump into some vegetation and that seemed to of spooked the fish. So I decided to leave it and move further down concentrating on other swims. after a couple hours I met back up with Ian whom was fishing a swim further up from where I had just been. We had a breather to see whats what and who'd had some action, so far Ian managed a couple of small perch, a follow of a larger perch at about 1lb and also a couple of small pike. I told him that I myself so far was on a blank run but had some signs of a few smaller fish and also the larger one earlier on.

It was getting on for around 1600hrs and we decided to make our way back to the car, I told him I wanted to have another go at this certain swim where I seen this fish. Ian went a couple of swims further upstream and as I cast slightly left working the minnow I felt a sudden thump and a shake, I gently lifted the rod to set the hooks and asked myself could this be the fish I saw earlier or a different one?

Turns out it was my new river PB for perch at 2lb 6oz being followed in by another perch around the same size which tells me that these larger fish are in small shoals?









During the unhooking I noticed and pointed out to Ian that this fish was a bit red underneath close to where the Anal fins are and we both wondered if this fish had spawned or getting close to it as I though the perch spawned late April early May? Anyway after I had released this fish, we decided to have a peek to where the match fishing was but they were just pulling their keepnets in and one of the chaps said they'd be another half hour as they needed to weigh in etc. So Ian and I decided to call it a day rather than wait.

Yes caught a few over the last couple of years, all on lures, savage gear minnows, rapala shads and devon minnows.

Also in the Blog - www.alexmakkfishing.com

Yesterdays session resulted in a couple of PB's between me and Ian,

The fishing for me was considerably slow throughout most of the day, at the beginning of the session we started out where the river runs a tad slower and is also deeper as I wanted to see how my Curado 301E goes with the likes of bigger stuff (glidebaits, replicants etc.) and even then I only had a few halfhearted takes from jacks. After covering this stretch within the space of an hour, we had a quick breather and assessed the situation and what we'd had between us I had sod all whilst I believe Ian managed a perch or two. The river was in good condition, the clarity almost gin clear and there were plenty of the smaller fish around. We decided to move to another part a couple miles away and rethink our approach. I decided to do a two rod approach with my shinjin b/cast and my 3g/18g bushwhacker, and Ian took his basspro b/cast and his dragon 3g/18g. Instead of going our usual way on this stretch, we decided to take a different route just for a bit of exploration to parts we'd yet to cover.

We both covered what we could as a lot of the bankside was a bit out of our comfort zone (high nettles and steep almost near vertical drop of several feet on some parts of bankside). I did have a couple of follow from a small shoal of curious perch followed shortly after by a follow from a larger perch. As we made our way to where we started, we bumped into a familiar face. Steve had been at this area a short while and had already had a few perch for himself. After a chat and a quick drink, we decided to carry on back to where we started with Steve accompanying us. The topic of chub came up and we stopped off at a part as Steve was teaching us a thing or two with chub i.e. where they most likely to be and some of their habits/traits such as patrolling a drop during their feeding spell or keeping tucked under the overhanging vegetation on the far bank.



I soon put that into practice using the little alphabet baits from Mark, and after a dozen or so casts towards the far bank. I soon had a sudden sharp tug and felt a tugging weight on the other end of my line, A quick shout to those two that I was onto a fish made them aware and Ian grabbed the net ready, I was soon graced with a nice new PB chub of 3lb 12oz.  


The new PB chub of 3lb 12oz



But wait, there's more...

I moved further downstream, swapping my little alphabet for a different patter and flicked it under some overhanging trees and felt another sudden sharp tug and weight pulling and lunging. Another chub! This time slightly larger that the previous one so I knew instantly that this is another PB. A quick whistle to Steve as he was nearest to me. As he asked what's up this time I told him that I'd like him for taking a couple of quick pictures as I've yet again broke the Chub PB in space of quarter of an hour.  


4lb 2oz Chub graces the net! New PB for me


4lb 2oz Chub

Ian came along to see what the commotion was about and he congratulated me on my new PB, I told him to start casting towards an area as I was packing the scales and unhooking tools away and instantly he was onto a fish.


Ian's PB Chub of 4lb 6oz

After the release of Ian's new PB I noticed his bait was back into the water quicker than I could say ''chub'' and soon enough he was on another smaller fish of 3lb 2oz. It soon went quiet and that was what we were left with the rest of the session.

I found it quiet unusual that there were no perch showing  any interest especially with my recent fish I've had but I guess they have their ''off'' days too. Hopefully now I properly know how to approach the like of chub, you should see more of them included in future posts.

Alex,

Went lure fishing with a mepps and it something I usually never do, but look.

Bryanmcdonald wrote:Went lure fishing with a mepps and it something I usually never do, but look.

at what