German Lane 22/02/11

Today I visited one of the lakes on my 11 venues for 2011! German Lane is situated just through Euxton and has two lakes one a match lake canal style and the other a medium sized lake with two islands in it. I heard a lot about this place through maggotdrowners.com and was looking forward to my day.

I arrived at 11am and decided to fish the main lake I'd heard this had lots of carp in and was a good all round lake, plus I knew the match lake was going to fill up later because there is a match on Sunday and a few Brig lads were coming down to practice.

I decided to start with the feeder rod and set up a medium sized method feeder with a really short hooklength of about 3 inch. I was using black breadcrumb and 2mm carp pellets on the feeder and I had maggots and corn for the hook.

First cast to the island/jettee and I was getting knocks and twitches on the rod straight away but no solid bite to strike at. When I brought it in the red maggots had been sucked to death! This persisted for the first 30mins I then tried corn but to no avail.

While I had the feeder rod out I was also feeding a close in line for my pole. I set my pole up at 11.45am the rig I chose was too short to fish on the bottom I was about 6inches off the bottom but too lazy to change it. I was into a small roach first put in on maggot. I caught about 5 small roach in the next 15 mins and decided to give it a rest but continue to feed.

The feeder line had gone very quiet so with a bit of deep thinking I decided to try a longer hooklength thinking the weight of the feeder might be putting them off. I was right! I put a hooklength on that was about 8 inches long first cast with corn on and I was in to this bigger roach.

Next cast same again. But then it went quiet. So back to the pole and I was getting a bite every put in but they seemed to be sucking the maggot and when I struck letting go but I still managed to catch steadily. I decided to come shallower to see if the bigger fish where up in the water and also started to throw in about 5-10 maggots with each put in. This seemed to work as the roach started taking the maggot rather than just sucking it and the size started to get better as you can see from these pics.

I decided to pack up around 4.30pm I probably caught over 30 roach but didnt need the landing net all day (a few of the bigger roach may have justifed using the net but I was saving it for a bigger fish!). I could have caught more if I concentrated on the pole but thought the feeder to the island would definately have produced a carp or two? I'm told that in the summer off the same peg I was on today fishing about 9m out using pellet and paste you get loads of carp so maybe they were just sleeping today??

I enjoyed my day and will definately give it another go in the summer but was a little underwhelmed just one carp or bream would have made it a great day but again at this time of year a decent days fishing I suppose.

Regards,

The Maggot Dangler.

A new venue visited

After last Sundays disaster on the canal and discovering the last match fished on that stretch of the L&L canal was won with 7lb, I bottled it and decided not to enter the match. I feel I need to get some more experience and maybe go watch a match before entering one.

I recently got back in touch via Facebook with an old friend that I used to go fishing with when I was around 13. He still fishes quite a lot and and is a member of a private lake in Wymott so we decided to meet up for the first time in many years and spend the morning fishing.

Wymott is a small lake and the water levels where apparently quite high because last summer there was a few lily pads in the margins and running through the middle but today I couldn't see any. The only features to fish to were some over hanging trees so we set up either side of the tree below.

I set up a dibber float and was going to fish under the tree about 2/3 metres out. The wind was blowing pretty hard at times and made it quite tough, I should have been using a float with a tip so I could see bites a bit better, but I still did ok.

I started off by feeding a couple handfuls of 2mm carp feeder pellets and was feeding maggots little and often. I had red and bronze maggots and within a minute I had my first fish.

A tiny roach, I was catching pretty regularly for the next hour and half and by 10.00am I had about 12 fish all small but some nice mirror and common carp that in a few years will be very nice fish.

A few skimmers of a better stamp to the carp had started to come out but by 10.30am the bites had dried up so I tried corn on the hook hoping for a bigger carp or bream maybe? But to no avail so I went back on the maggot and the bites started again, a better skimmer and a few more carp.

We packed up around 12.30pm we both had around 25 fish each with the biggest being this barbel that my friend caught, about 10minutes after telling me there was some barbel in the lake and me explaining how I'd love to catch one as I've never caught a barbel! The lucky bugger!

So a good days winter fishing with plenty caught shame we couldn't get anything bigger out but I'm told there is some bigger fish in but only tend to come out to play in the summer, so roll on summer when there might be some lily pads and bigger fish to see!

Regards,

The Maggot Dangler

What a 'orrible day!!

Managed to get out for a few hours this morning. Kind of wish I didn't! I went to the Leeds & Liverpool canal at Cowling Brow, Chorley. I'm thinking of entering a match on here next Sunday so thought I'd get some practice in.

I arrived around 10am and it was windy VERY windy! I set up my feeder rod with a open end cage feeder with black breadcrumb and casters in. On the size 16 hook I was to alternate between worm and caster. I decided to fish to the far bank as there was a few features that I thought my hold some fish. As you can see from the picture below.

It was very quite and at 11am I set my pole up. I decided to fish straight out in front of me at about 8 metres. I was fishing on the bottom with punched white bread on the hook and white liquidised bread to feed. The wind made fishing very hard the tow on the water was silly at times and I was fighting against the wind just to hold my pole straight at times! As you can see it was almost tidal!!

As I was shipping out the line went heavy, I thought it was more drift wood as there was plenty! But no it was a nice sized skimmer and it came to the net around 11.45am.

I decided to fish closer in and shallow up to try and catch more skimmers but to no avail. I was struggling to keep the punch on the hook, I think maybe the hook was too big far the size of punch? Either way with the strong wind, no action on the feeder line and my punch not staying on the hook I was getting very fed up. So at 1.30pm I packed up wet, cold and fed up but at least I didn't blank! So as a trial for next Sunday's match it wasn't the best but you never know the skimmer was a nice size and with this cold weather and low weights coming out I might get lucky!!

I hope you managed to get out this weekend and did better than me!!

Tight lines,

The Maggot Dangler.