Over the last few weeks I've struggled a bit with my angling, from losing fish to snapping one of my prized rods. I suppose its 'part and parcel' in this specimen hunting game, but its up to me to change this and get back amongst the fish. I also hope that my beloved Everton will not cock up again! I can honestly say I was heart broken when I found out the score of the opening game of the season. Losing to QPR at home is not acceptable in my (and the Goodison faithfuls) eyes but enough of my ranting and on with some fishing.
I've been hanging around various watery havens, usually accompanied buy either Moxy or Tyrone, (two of my skating friends) to which I must add are rapidly becomeing very handy anglers indeed.
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| Ty in action |
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I have netted some good fish for the boys this month, including a ghost mirror for Ty and 2 river Exe commons for that man Moxy. I'm glad the lads have brought some results to our recent sessions because I, (not for lack of trying) have not.
I blanked in style during my first visit to Emperor after losing a huge cat 20 minutes before i had to leave, but felt during my 24 hours there i had built a bit of an understanding of the venue and was confident the next trip would produce a fish.
Ty banked a stunning 17.08 ghost mirror which brightened up the trip.
Two weeks later myself and Ty were back on the banks of Emperor. I really must say I like this lake a lot! It is a very exciting place to fish; some of the splashes and big fish toppings I witnessed could soon con you into thinking your fishing a predator lake in Thailand.
We set up in the same swims as our previous visit. I knew where I wanted to fish and focused my attention to a long heavily planted island with lots of fishy looking gaps and over hanging branches; this is where I had previously hooked the cat. At around 100 yards it was quite a chuck but a few casts saw my double-fusion boilie hook-baits land amongst the carpet of bait I had catapulted to the spot.
The night remained biteless for both off us. At around 8.30am I had a take on my left hand island rod. As I struck I felt a heavy resistance, but seconds later my line went limp. I wasn't too worried as I had the whole day and night left, so time was still on my side. But, quietly I was a little annoyed and was desprate for a fish.
I reeled in my rods to have a stroll round the lake and got chatting to two guys from Cornwall; a really nice father son duo who had captured two cats during the night, one of them a bit of a lump at 41 lbs.
I had watched them baiting quite heavily the day before and explained to them I had been struggling to get pellets across to the island at such range and was fishing mainly boilies. With that the young lad Sam offered to ferry me out some bait via his bait-boat... Half an hour later the boat was loaded up to the brim with a pellet mixture consisting off 3 diffrent sized halibuts and a selection off CCmoore pellet baits, I glugged in half a bottle off predator plus, in went the rig and off it went!
Two boatloads with my hookbaits went out to the spot and saved me a lot of work. I must say I'm warming to the concept of these controversial crafts and in some situations they prove very useful.
Repeated spodding in my eyes would spook any fish in the area far more than a boat would, but enough about the boat and cheers Sam.
It was no longer than 20 minutes after the butt-load of bait went in when the left hand rod was away again.
I swept the rod over my shoulder and wound like hell. The rod tip bent in the manner of a match rod with a double figure barbel attached to it; not that this fish was steaming off like a Barbel, it was just a heavy weight plodding slow and deep. My first reaction was that it was another cat, but this fish must have eaten its spinach or something because it suddenly woke up after 5 minutes and went what can only be described as mental!
The beast came hurtling towards me and shot straight out the water like a flippin' Marlin...
It became apparent I was hooked in to a sturgeon. After a 20 minute guided tour of the lake I finally had the fish in the net.
The fish tipped the scales round at 35,02, to say I was pleased is an understatement. I had to cradle the fish in the margin for a good ten minutes before she swam from my grasp and slipped away back to the depths none the worse for wear.
During the night I had a go at catching a big eel as some very big snakes have been landed from this water.
I was fishing bunches of maggots and suffering from lots of dropped runs, after scratching my head a bit and chatting to another friend Neil who was also fishing that night; we devised a method that worked 1st time.
Fishing an extremely slack line with the bobbin resting flat on the floor I gave about 3ft of play to allow the eel to move with the bait and essentially hook itself against the rod. Naturally I was right on the rod in case of a big fish whipping it away. The eel was certainly around the 3lb mark perhaps bigger, we will never know as whilst he was in the net some serious David Copperfield shit occurred. Some how, whilst undetected by us the eel shed the hook and escaped through a hole in the net leaving a huge ring of slime that looked like a raw squid ring, Neil and I were impressed with the eels magical escape act, and he did put a proper bend in a 3lb test curve rod. An amazing creature and perhaps a big eel will be a target of mine next year.
Unfortunately neither Ty nor Neil made it onto the score sheet but hey, thats fishing.
till next time
go catch some FISH
