My wife and I enjoy an afternoon walk and yesterday I suggested walking to Allsmoor Pond, not far from home. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, we also took my fully loaded fishing trolley for a few of hour’s fishing. I usually have plenty of swims to choose from, but today I had to set up on the narrow path along side the pond, with brambles behind. With my tackle box and my pole rested along side parallel to the pond, there was still plenty of room to pass behind, as tested by a few families with baby buggies, while I set up.

At this point there is a mud bank that extends from 6 inches deep to about two feet in the middle. This is just a guess, as plumbing the depth sees the plummet sink deep into the silty black mud. This pond was created by the local council as a balance pond to protect the new housing against flooding from the Bull Brook, which used to flow through it, however lack of maintenance by the local council has allowed the inlet and outlet to silt up, the mainflow is now directed through a culvert around the pond. When I first fished Allsmoor 15 years ago, there was slow flow from right to left down the middle, with a depth of 3 feet over gravel. There were few lillies and pond weed, now the inlet end is choked by bull rushes, reducing the pond by 40%, while the lily bed will soon extend from bank to bank at the outlet end.

The fishing back then was on the verge of too easy, with 20 lb nets of roach & rudd, tench, crucians and carp to be taken by the average angler on any day, even in winter. Today the tench seem to have gone, the roach and rudd reached 8 oz, then went the way of the tench, while the solid shoals of crucians are deminished. Some carp are close to double figures, but the good news is that they range down to a few ounces.

So how did I do on this sunny afternoon? I put in four balls of loosley squeezed up raspberry flavoured groundbait, along a line 10 metres out and finished setting up my 4 x16 antenna float rig ready to fish with a 10 mm punch of bread. Making my first cast, I could already see a dark stain in the water as fish were foraging over the area, where the ground bait had broken up on impact. That first cast and the next saw the float slide under with a small rudd on the hook. The next was different with the float antenna lifting and dropping, then gradually sinking lower. Striking brought a series of short runs, before the golden flank of a good crucian carp flapped on the surface. Bringing the pole back up into the brambles brought a problem, a family were walking along the path toward me and could not pass, until I had landed the crucian. I broke the pole down by 4 metres and layed it down on the bankside rest. I waved the family past, but they were now watching the crucian bulldozing through the mud a couple of metres out. My landing net was along the bank, when the family were standing. I politely asked them to pass behind me so that I could land the fish. The father ushered them past. The crucian now had it’s head in the mud and I scooped it and half the pond into the net. Even after dunking the net and fish several times, it was still covered in black detrius from the bottom.

This was a barrel of a crucian, hopefully full of the next generation in eggs. I had been lucky to land this fish, as the barbless 14 came out in the landing net.

Each fish meant running the gauntlet with cyclists, push chairs, walkers and literally, one man and his dog. I lost a couple of fish, one of them another good crucian, due to the interupted process of playing them to the net.

The float went under with no fuss from the carp, slow glide aways, or sudden disappearances taking line.

Two hours of interuptions were enough for me, the strangest being a middle aged lady that continued picking blackberries from the brambles behind me, regardless of my pole being shoved at high speed past her body, as I retrieved yet another fish. Time to go, an hour earlier than expected, my wife was surprised that I had stuck it out for so long.

It was hot and humid, when I arrived for a couple of hour’s evening fishing at Braybrook’s Jeanes Pond this week, walking past the shaded swims to fish in the open at peg 13, where I hoped for a few tench next to the lilybed. It was good to see that the aerator was on, putting much needed oxygen into the pond, which appeared to be down by about a foot, despite recent rainstorms

I made up a sweet groundbait of liquidised bread, ground hemp and pellets, with a liberal dusting of raspberry flavouring, making a firm mix, that I queezed into a bait dropper, to lower to the bottom of the drop off four metres out with my pole. My float was a 2g antenna, bulk shotted to a foot of the size 14 barbless hook. Line was 5 lb to a 4 lb hooklink, heavy enough to persuade most tench and carp in Jeanes out of the the lilies, I hoped!

An 11 mm punch of bread was punched through to the raspberry groundbait, the coated disc folded round the hook to form a fruity sandwich. It sounds bizarre, but it works, as proved by my first cast. The float, overdepth by a foot, was dropped in over the groundbait, going straight to the bottom. Minutes later, a slight lift was followed by the antenna gliding under, being met by a solid raise of the pole, the heavy elastic stretching down into the water, as I made contact. The elastic sped out toward the open water, much to my relief away from the lilies, as a heavy fish woke up, fighting in a figure of eight motion, definitely a tench not a carp. Keeping the pressure on, the tench rolled and gradually came close enough to remove one length of pole, before guiding the big male tench into the landing net. Lightly hooked, the barbless came out in the net. Photo done, I walked the fish in the net to peg 11 and turning the net upside down, released it.

 Filling the bait dropper, I dropped more groundbait over the shelf, followed by the float straight down  to the bottom. A burst of bubbles came to the surface, the float wobbled and sank. Another tench? No a smaller fish had taken the sandwich, a rudd, that had managed to swallow the big bait in seconds.

At least it was not one of the micro rudd, that are now plaguing the pond. Rebaited, the rig was plopped in again for another try. I noticed that another member had set up in peg 16 around to my right, fishing a method feeder under overhanging trees, he was into good fish first cast! My float bobbed and sank. Tench number two was battling away mid water. Much smaller this time, about a pound, the heavy elastic soon bringing it to the surface ready for the net without too much fuss. A young male with large pectoral and pelvic fins, ideal for gripping a female during spawning!

The rudd had sniffed out my groundbait and more of them were swinging to hand, until a small jack pike nosed out of the lily bed in attack mode, grabbing one and hanging on, pulling it off the hook. The jack was a skinny fish of maybe a pound. Too many of them them here now, but at least they may keep the rudd in check. I was surprised that I’d had no roach off the bottom. The angler in peg 16 continued to catch nettable fish from wherever he cast, including what looked like a 6 lb common carp, which stripped line from his reel.

Fed up with trying to avoid the little pike in my swim, I switched to casting under the bush to my left, having scraped up the last of my groundbait for one firm ball for the shallow swim. Another 3 oz rudd. Next cast, the float was gone and the elastic was pulling out of the pole. I struck to the right against the elastic, missed it! I thought that it must have been a carp, but it was more likely that pesky jack pike!

It was time to pack up anyway. The onsite park warden locks the gates at 8 pm and F1 qualifying was on TV at the same time. I had hoped to pick the brains of the angler on peg 16, but his wife had turned up to help him pack up and was gone, when I passed the swim.

Most people are using boilies these days, but the raspberry sandwiches still work for me.

Despite recent rain, the rivers in my area of the UK are still at their lowest for years, with minimal flow, but the outfall from my local water treatment works is one place were flowing oxygenated water is guaranteed. The day had been humid, with light rain in the morning, but I waited until after 4 pm before loading up my car and heading off to the river a couple of miles away.

The swim was empty and I soon unloaded my gear, mixing up a sweet mix of liquidised bread, ground hemp and a raspberry flavoured groundbait, which  I squeezed up into egg sized balls, that were dropped to my left into the weir back eddy. The main river was so slow and shallow that my 5 No 4 stick float was overdepth at two feet. First cast with a 6 mm punch of bread put the float just short of the line of foam, the float ran a foot, then I put my finger on the spool of my ABU501, holding back hard, the bait lifted, while the float dived away. A lift of my 12 foot Hardy put a good bend in the rod and a nice roach was soon swinging to hand. A recent wrist injury has resulted in the need to wear a wrist brace, so I poured clean water onto the palm to avoid scale damage, when unhooking.

Next cast the float disappeared seconds after it hit the water, my reaction put a bigger bend in the rod, as a small chub ran back into the white water. Lifting the finger from the spool acted as a shock absorber, allowing line to come free long enough to check the running fish. Chub of all sizes run for the nearest snag on being hooked, but this one stayed on.

I now regretted not starting earlier, as my usual three hour session would not finish until well after Tea Time. The eddy hits the opposite bank and rotates toward my own bank, then turns to run parallel to feed back into the strip of foam. If the float is not stopped by a fish, it will travel upstream and up under the sill of the weir, snagged, or tangled. Fed groundbait lines the bottom, then is washed to the waiting fish in the safety of the foam. These fish will follow up along the groundbait trail. That is the “science” of groundbaiting and is dictated by the fish, too much and they will drop back to follow the trail, too little and they will lose interest, just enough small balls can mean a field day.

I was getting troubled by very small chub and went up to a 7 mm punch, which made an improvement on the general size of fish, especially the roach.

Time for a cup of tea and a buscuit, while I knocked up some sloppy ground bait, enough for a pinch a cast, while the fish were still attacking the bread.

This chub took me on a journey around the pool and down into the weirstream, where I was able eventually to get it’s head clear of the water, before bringing it back up, every buck and turn could have thrown the size 14 barbless hook, but it stayed on.

These are just some of the fish taken, the groundbait kept trickling in and and the fish kept coming out.

Another good chub.

The roach were getting bigger.

Three gudgeon on the trot, a sign that the bigger fish were getting scarce. I checked my watch, it was just after 7 pm, time to pack up. This was intended to be short session and now it was. I’d caught plenty of quality roach and some of the chub needed another year, but I was satisfied and ready for some home cooked food.

The bread punch was all that I needed for bait, the ground bait kept the fish wanting more, but did not fill them, the ideal situation.

I pulled my keepnet from the edge of the flow and tipped the contents into my wet landing net. A quick photo and they were turned over into the river to swim free again.

After weeks of drought and unbearable heat, my part of Southern England finally recieved a decent downpour in the early hours this morning. Weather maps warning of thunder storms came and went, while we were lucky to get showers lasting only minutes of light rain; not enough to stop the grass from turning white, let alone put some pace in the rivers.

Fishing was not part of my plan for the day, but knowing that the local River Cut suffers from flash floods, due to it acting as a drain for the surface water of the town, I made an effort to get down in the afternoon, being disappointed to see that I had missed the main flush of water, when I arrived at 3 pm. The river was coloured, with a decent flow, but I could see that the water had been level with the bank and was now exposing the wet mud on my side of the river.

With my 12 foot Hardy float rod in it’s Fish Ready holdall, I was sorted and fishing by 3:30, a 5 No 4 ali stemmed stick float, following small ball of white liquidised bread over to the other side of the Cut. The float dragged under, float too deep? No a fish first cast, a small chub swallowing the 6 mm punch of bread. This gave a good account for itself, and was soon in the net. A smaller roach followed next cast, a sign that the river had perked up since the rain. Another small ball of bread went in and the float lifted and sailed off downstream, as a big roach put a bend in the little Hardy rod, needing a rapid back wind of the ABU501, to slow the running fish, before it turned and fought back to the landing net.

A quality roach. This alone made up for a blank on the season opening day. I added some ground hemp and raspberry ground bait to stretch out the liquidised bread, as I had not expected much today, and continued to feed small balls over to the run on the far side. A few more smaller fish followed and the Hardy was bending again, this time coping with the tumbling fight of a decent dace.

My float was only set at two feet deep and despite being held back to half speed, it was still dragging under on the bottom, although most of the time it was from fish.

Even the gudgeon were a good size, hugging the bottom before being swung in.

The river level continued to fall away and the float needed regular adjustment to cope, but a small ball of feed every other cast kept the roach coming, although they were boiling on the surface on the strike.

I mixed up another batch of ground bait, taking the opportunity to pour a cup of tea, before getting back to catching more roach.

I now had to move my keepnet upstream into deeper water, as the fish backs were visible. I’ve never seen the Cut this low and the run opposite had only about a foot left, although small roach and dace continued to attack the groundbait. I began casting further downstream for the better fish.

Another Clonker

This was my last fish, another decent roach bang on 6:30 pm, completing my three hour session. The colour had dropped out of the river along with the flow. Being next to a public footpath, I suffered two contrasting dog problems, a small spaniel that ran down the slope and dived in to chase the ducks, ignoring threats from it’s owner to return. At least she apologised to me. The other was a big black retriever, that dived in ten yards downstream to collect a yellow ball thrown by it’s owner, to much congratulation. At least it didn’t put the fish off. Also curious walkers stopped to ask about the fishing, unaware that this muddy looking waterway actually had fish in it. They also got a free tutorial on fishing the Bread Punch.

With another heatwave threatened for next weekend, I hope that the river continues to provide sport, although judging by the uncut Himalayan Balsam lining the banks, local anglers have already made their minds up to give it a miss. Maybe my catch in three hours might persuade a few to give it a try.