Cringleford Bridge nr Eaton.

Lovely day. I went exploring in the car for a few hours Chub fishing. Found a great spot, looks like its been heavily fished though. There was too much litter lying around. I'll take a bin bag down next time and clear it up a bit. Fished with pellets. I baited around 5 swims, and then methodically fished them. Had a few knocks and missed a few fish. The day ended fine with a 1lb-ish Chub taken from under a weedly snag. Took straight away within 3/4 seconds of the bait settling. Lovely bend in the rod, it felt really good. I played it on the reel as the swim was very tight as there were low overhanging trees. I was happy to get it in the net.



















Nice venue. It is meant to hold good Pike, Tench, Roach, Chub, Perch and Carp.

Water was slightly coloured, nice gullies to explore and loads of tree overhangs.

I never fished it but the weir looks good...Barbel??? (probably not)

Ranworth Broad - Night Fishing

Made a quick decision to go night fishing at Ranworth Broad. Used bread mash, hemp, sweetcorn and pellet groundbait. I fished 2 sweetcorn on a 12 hook, 5lb ML, 2.4lb HL.

I wanted to have some proper practice at feeder fishing. I wanted to find my method and practice accurate casting. After setting up and preparing the groundbait, I cast a few times to get the feel of the feeder. I then filled the feeder and cast, lining up on a tree on the skyline. The line was then clipped and I reeled in, baited up and casted in again. I did this about 6 times to get some groundbait on the floor. I then baited the hook and feeder and cast to my target again. I felt my confidence build doing this. No bites came for around 2 hours, then they started coming every few minutes. Most of these were linebites, but to pull fish into my area boosted my confidence. I left shortly after as a freezing fog trawled in and I froze.

Lots of skills gained and lessons learned for future feeder sessions.

This venue feels like it will really produce in a few months.

New Mills - River Wensum

Decided to have a quick fish at New Mills on the River Wnsum in Norwich. This popular venue is just behind where I work, so I thought I would check it out. I fished for about 1.5 hours and the only bites I got were from babywipes and a rotten shirt. Not a pleasant experience really, I hope I was there on a "bad" day. I fished very fine, 2lb line, and 18 hook with magots...nothing!!!!! I'll try again when it warms up a bit.

Nicks Pond - Private Venue

Well what can I say. I was lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to fish a pivately stocked gravel pit near Norwich. My mate Nick has stocked his little 1/2 acre pond for years. Mirror, Common and Crucian have gone in. Perch, Roach, Bream and Rudd too. Nick said he had lost something BIG a couple of times and reckoned that it must have been a big carp. Started fishing in about 3ft of water around 3 rod lengths out directly in front of me. I was straight into the small stuff, Roach and Rudd. I decided to constantly rain maggots for the duration, hopefully feeding off the smaller stuff, getting some bait on the pond floor and bring some bigger fish in. After an hour my bait started to get through the top layers onto the floor and I missed a bite from something a bit more substantial. The plan seemed to be working and I constantly rained maggots over the swim. My bait was getting through more frequently now, I felt I had fed a lot of the smaller stuff off and bigger stamp Roach and Rudd were taking the bait. About 45 minutes before the session was due to end, I latched into something solid which turned out to be a beautiful condition 8lb Mirror male (never caught before), I quickly removed to 16 barbless from its mouth and returned him back to the water. Needless to say I was very happy as I was already perfectly content with some great Roach and Rudd fishing. The raining continued and 10 minutes later I was into another carp, this time a 4lb female Mirror. This fish, similar to the first had never been caught before and was in great condition.

Eventually it was time to go, I decided to catch one last Rudd, as I must of caught at least 50 over the course of 2.5 hours. So, after putting him back I started to pack away, whilst Nick cast into my swim. A few minutes later, his float dissappeared, he struck and reeled in the smallest Mirror Carp I have ever seen. It was around 4/5 inces long. Proof that the adult Mirrors had spawned last year or the year before. We decided between us that this fish was the best of the day!

Nicks Pond had proved itself to be a fine venue. I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to my next invitation.

River Wensum

Tried the wensum again today. I felt very positive after Monday. I thought that an early start would be good so headed off around 0630. I arrived at Ringland Bridge and was fishing by 0730. It was quite windy today and the water had a chop on it. I had a few bites straight away, jagged hits at the bait by Chub, trying to get the pellets out of the bands. They managed to become quite adept at this over the course of the morning. I decided to changed tack and reeled in to set up a chubber float. To my total surprise as I lifted the rod from the rest I felt a fish on the line (I had not even seen a bite), this was a small chub of around 1-3/4lbs. I continued with the plan to float fish, just off bottom, hoping that trotting through the swim would induce a quick take. This was uneventful and eventually the winds effect on the water condition rendered any float method useless, it was impossible to register a bite.

I packed up and moved into a more sheltered swim. I was hoping to catch a few roach on bread flake, but after around 40mins of being continually blasted by the wind, I could not really settle into a groove and decided to try the original spot again.

Nothing came again for the remainder of the session, and the weather grew steadily worse. So I broke everything down and went home for a nice cuppa.

Still enjoyed it though, and I didn't blank - although I claim no element of skill for hooking that Chub.

Chub - River Wensum

Fished the river next to Ringland bridge. Water was high and quite coloured. An overcast day, and quite cold. Yesterday was sunny and warm, but you can't win them all. This was the first time I have ever fished for Chub and to be honest I didn't think I would be successful. Pulled up next to the river and when I got out of the car, my first sight was a likely looking swim running parallel to the road. I could not help just running the float down the swim a couple of times, Ahhhhhhh!!!

I had taken a variety of baits; Hemp, Bread, Luncheon Meat, Paste and Pellets. I fed a swim with 6mm halibut/trout pellets about a crisp packet full. I spread them over an area about 2m sq. I estimated that they must be hitting the river bottom about 5m below this point, and then continuing down stream in the current. I fished a simple, half ounce, running ledger rig, straight through to a size 6 hook. The hook bait was two 8mm Halibut pellets banded to the hook, back to back.

I cast this mid way between the two points mentioned earlier and waited, and waited, and waited. 40 minutes later still not a sniff of a bite. I was thinking that it must take quite a while for the fish to come onto the bait. 5 minutes later and I started to get a bit panic stricken, "What if the bait is in weed?". I decide to reel in re-new the hook bait and re-cast.

Not even 5 minutes passed and I started to get some weird bites on the line. Unsure if this was just passing flotsam, I reeled in to check the bait, GONE!! OK whats that all about? I baited the hook again and cast to the same spot. After around 10 minutes I started getting the weird (line) bites again, not a definite take just some pulsing movements to the rod tip, like weed on the line. I left it this time and waited to see if it developed. It went quiet and after 10 minutes I reeled in to check to find one of the pellets had been removed from the band. ARGGGG!!!

What could it be? If I was sea fishing I would have screamed CRABS, but this was a beautiful freshwater river about 30 miles from the coast. Are there crayfish in the Wensum?

After a couple of repeat attempts the swim went quiet and I decided to bait the swim again, move onto somewhere else, do some thinking, then return later to fish from the opposite bank.

Roving about produced a couple of noteworthy locations for a return visit. One swim was beautiful, with a big overhanging tree at the end of it. Mmmmmm Nice......

Eventually, fish less, I returned to the original swim with renewed optimism...OK here we go "Chub, Chub, Chub." I chanted under my breath. Same technique, but this time I will strike earlier. Bait went into the water, with 4 or 5 pellets offerings. I sat and waited and almost straight away the same weird line bites I had previously. I struck and connected with nothing, Oh well try again. I checked the bait which was fine and re-cast to a slightly different place. Now in hindsight I must have put the hook bait in weed, because nothing stirred for about 30 minutes. I decided to re-cast to the original place and had a bite within 3 minutes. I struck, connected into a fish and then almost straight away the line went slack. Snapped line, weakness on the hook length. Check, Check, Check!!!! I was now quite low as you can imagine!!!

I tackled up again and cast to the same spot...5 minutes and the weird pulsing started on the tip of the rod. I waited till the rod tip pulled around a bit more and struck into a fish. YES!!! COME ON!! Carefully I played it to the side of the river, a lovely fight, very give and take, the kind I like. And then it was in the net, Phew!! My first ever Chub of about 3lb and beautifully marked in gold grains on its flank.

A great day and a great fish (which I really deserved).

First boat caught Pike

Caught a few hours today out on the River Yare in Schiehallion our 13' dinghy. I did not stray far from the "Woods End", just down river a bit. Only had a couple of baits with me (Roach and Smelt). I started trolling straight away at around 7' deep. Just a slow pace down river on the opposite bank. A small jack took near an overhanging tree, but it shook off next to the boat (a good thing really). I put on the smelt, trolled and caught bottom almost straight away. With bait lost, I put on the final small roach caught bottom again after a few minutes, so reeled in to find bait gone. Had a few casts with the lure, and then trolled with the lure up river back to the "Woods End". Another jack gave a quick take and I managed to land this one, (about 2lb). All in all, it was a nice few hours, I didn't blank and a learned a few lessons - More Bait and More time.