BRYANS ANGLE

 So last Wednesday I finally got my wish and loaded the van and headed to the big water for a day chasing 'Old Esox'. Weather was forecast to be sunny, cold and very little wind, which is not my favourite conditions to be fishing in, but 'sod it' said I, I'm still going. Arriving at first light I could just see that the area of lake I had chosen was teeming with silverfish dimpling all over the place. Especially along a line about 50yds out from the banks, I believe this is probably where the marginal weed thins out, not that there is much around at this time of year. Barrow loaded and off I went to find the first swim along the bank that I had chosen, one which I have not fished before. I've fished the opposite bank a fair bit but haven't done so on this side, all I have done is have a little lead around, a couple of years ago, just to get a feel for the topography of the bottom, it doesn't vary much until you get further up the bank but more of that la...

 As the title suggests its been quite a while since I posted my last blog so thought it best that we have a little catch up and I explain why I have been so quiet of late. I think my last post was back in July when I had a night trip after smoothound, I didn't catch any but I made up for it by bagging up with bass including a couple of nice size keepers. I've had one overnight session fishing for carp on the big water, between now and then, which was fruitless, not even catching any bream which seem to have been taking anything fished before them. Other than that all I have been doing is thinking off, not actually going,  fishing. I,m still finishing off the work that needs doing to my house, currently in throes of completing the upstairs bathroom after a complete rip out and re-design/re-build over the past few weeks. The house improvements have taken a lot longer than planned but we have been adding to the 'TO DO' list very heavily, but the end is in sight now. I have...

So i,ve been suffering from an Incasserated Ubilical Hernia since christmas which basically stopped me from doing much, fishing, walking, working, so i have basically been moping around the house. Fortunately i had an op to repair the hernia mid January which was good but meant that for a couple of weeks i was even more house bound as the wound healed up. I was meant to stay of my feet for a couple of weeks and no activities for a couple more, but i could,t wait and as soon as i was fit enough to walk i packed my pike fishing gear and headed of to a local water for a 'gentle' couple of hours dangling. Upon arriving in my chosen swim i dropped a float fished half herring in the near margins and turned round to set up my other rod, my rods were already tackle up but just needed the rod sections putting together a trace clipped on and bait hooked. I,d just finished hooking up a small roach deadbait, horizontally so it could drift around the swim, when i noticed my margin ...

 So since my last post not a lot has happened on the fishing front unfortunately. I have managed a few early morning 'before breakfast' trips in search of pike to a local and have blanked twice and managed a couple small jacks on a third trip. Its strange as the conditions seemed bang for all of these trips but the pike have had other ideas. Ive fished this water on and off for over 15 years and have caught on nearly every trip, even if it was just a small jack, but since trying back there over the past couple years i have been struggling. The only thing that i can think of that is different is that i used to fish late afternoons to last light instead of the first light sessions i do now. I reckon i,ll switch back to the afternoons and see if that will help me catch more than i have been. I know of a good few areas which i have pike in the past which i have been fishing again so maybe switching to the afternoons is the answer. I,ll keep you informed on how i get on.  Al...

Got these little beauties through the post this morning. I reckon they will be great for perch on a couple of waters that i know. Not bad for £3.50 of Ebay... Slow sinking with an internal rattle, got to have a fish or 2 on these. I,ll give them a try first to see how they fair and then might change the hook for a smaller size..........

 Last week the it snowed as predicated. The weather men had predicted heavy snowfall along with strong winds as a bad weather system was meant to be hitting the country. People started the usual panic buying of food in case we were going to get snowed in for countless days, and what did we get... Barely half inch... And guess what, this small amount of snowfall brought chaos to the country as it usually does. How come Canada can be under feet of snow and no one bats an eyelid and keep going about their business, but we get half a fookin inch and all hell breaks loose. This country is a joke sometimes. Now on that note i couldn,t work the first day of the snow as the boss pulled the plug on the building job we were doing. But this time i wasn,t complaining as i had deadbaits in the freezer and my pike rods were already set up and ready to go from a session a couple of days. So as the sun was rising i was crunching through the now thinning but frozen solid snow on my way to t...

 I soaked a couple of deadbaits for a couple hours the other day at a local water hoping to catch a half decent sized pike.  It was a bloody cold morning and a good part of the lake was frozen but i found a nice looking spot and cast out my two floatfished deadbaits. One was a standard static bait, half a bluey cast to the far reeds. The other was a smelt hooked through the back so it sits just of horizontal in the water and was set up under a float allowing it to drift around the swim on the breeze. Expectations were high but the pike didn,t want to play ball. I left after a couple fo hours ready for a nice big fry-up at the local eatery........ I had a visit from a friendly Robin though so wasn,t all bad.

After taking a walk along my favourite marina and seeing the lock empty it gave me the urge to get up there at first light and have a wee dangle for the once plentiful perch that used to reside there. So the next day saw me sitting in the car park just before dawn eagerly awaiting the big ball of fire to rise over the tree tops. After what seemed like hours but was probably only 20 mins it was light enough for me to grab my kit, dropshot and light lure set-up this morning, and try my luck. Well i started of by using the drop shot method in between the moored boats in the hope of a perch or two as i,ve had plenty of action here in previous years. The drop shot is an ideal method for fishing in tight gaps as i was, because you can just flick the small weight and lure out and fish it in one position for a while, just giving the rod tip a little tap tap now and then to get the little imitation fish to waggle around seductively. I did this for 45 mins or so in various spots, all spots tha...

FAIIIILLLLLLLL............................. A couple of weeks ago in my infinite wisdom i decided to pack up my predator kit and head of to the local river in an attempt to bag myself a couple of pike and maybe a perch or two. The area i wanted to try was one i hadn,t fished before and it was a long hard slog through some slippery mud covered pathways along the river bank before i got to the actual spot i wanted to fish. It didn,t look that long a walk from the roadside but i certainly felt the burn in my legs and the thumping in my chest when i arrived at my swim. Before i set of from home the skys were just a little overcast, perfect for predator dangling, but when i starting to set up my kit the skies darkened and it started to rain. Great i thought as i hadn,t brought a brolly. Tackle all sorted and i had a nice sardine cast to just below a far bank tree and i also had a feeder rod set up with the idea of fishing mashed bread and flake in the hope of winkling out a resident ...

With the unofficial pike season just a couple of days away, although i won,t actually start to fish for them until the weather has cooled a bit more, i,ve been casting my mind back to the pike i,ve caught and the places i,ve fished for them over years. I,ve been fortunate enough to of caught some good fish in the past, but must admit that i havn,t been faring too well for a while now. My guess is because i,ve been too busy using my spare time setting up and expanding my tackle business,  WATERBOUY TACKLE      WATERBOUYS TACKLE on Facebook,   instead of being out in the cold fresh air hunting Esox. Another factor could also be that when i have been fishing there seems to of been a distinct lack of fish. Locally the waters that hold pike get hammered in the winter, not so much when its turned really cold, but i guess the public access fisheries always have been fished hard. The local rivers just seem devoid of any pike above 3lb in weight, but i have noticed an ...

It was my birthday a couple of Sundays ago and as a treat i thought i,d spend the day fishing the local River Chelmer for whatever happened to take  my bait. My trusty John Wilson Avon Rover rod, a light lure rod and all the associated tackle was loaded into the van saturday evening for an early start. Unfortunately the weather report was not too good as heavy rain was forecast for the morning so instead of the crack off dawn start i was originally planning, i opted for a more leisure get out of bed when i wake up approach. This actually worked in my favour as i managed to miss most of the rain, only most though as i,ll explain later. After a nice bacon sandwich for breakfast i surveyed the sky outside and saw not a cloud in sight, so much for the weather forecast. On with my boots, a quick drive to the local shop to stock up on water and a bit of nosh for later and i was speeding round the country lanes, well maybe more like ambling round the lanes as my old escort van has seen ...