Go West Young Man

The forecast for the whole week was dry and sunny, with light winds, so I headed off in the camper for a week in Dorset.

Bully arranged to meet me there, so he was free to load up his car with even more ridiculous amounts of gear than normal.

We found a nice campsite on Portland. Quiet, great views, with a fifteen minute walk to the rocks. Light rods and float gear was the order of the day and on the first afternoon we had lots of ballan and corking wrasse, with the occasional pollack. Nothing big but a bite a chuck.

We were using bits of rag and lug, but I added a second hook with a piece of brown Isome artificial worm, just to see how they compared. I was surprised, the lug/rag did outfish the Isome, but not by much. A very useful bait to have tucked away in your bag.

The following day we endured a very poor day on Chesil beach, with just a bream, a garfish and hideous conger for me and blank for Bully.

It was back on the rocks for the next session with similar results to the first day, lots of fish, but nothing big. Great fun though.

By the end of the third day, the rock hopping and traipsing across the shingle had destroyed Bully and by the evening he lay on the shingle, a broken man and dead to the world. He's 72 you know !

Bully left for home the following morning,  while I tried Chesil again, this time with slightly better, but unspectacular results, six bream and three turding conger.

I did manage to catch some bream with my feeder rod though, although it did groan a bit as I cast the 4 oz lead out.

I woke the next day to a gentle autumn mist and set off for the end of the Bill with my float gear. First cast, without bait, to plumb the depth, a garfish took the bare hook ! 

I looked up from staring at the float and saw one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen, a huge blue fin tuna launching itself out of the water whilst smashing into garfish. Not once but twice. 

Then, ten minutes later, the same thing. Wow.

In the afternoon I had a very long,  but incredibly scenic walk along the cliffs to the beach. I was hoping for some mackeral, but saw not a sign.

I did have a beautiful little gilt head bream and as dusk approached, hoardes of hopeful squid fisherman descended upon the beach. There were bloody loads of them !

The conditions looked perfect, but I only saw two caught and luckily I had one of them.

So, no big fish to report, but a lovely sun soaked week with plenty of action

White Water Bassing

I've not been feeling it since we returned from the European trip, nothing has really inspired me.

However, a mate in Norfolk gave me the nod about some potentially good lure fishing up his neck of the woods.

He picked the day, the tide and place. The only thing he didn't do was put the fish on the hook for us. Good old boy.

Me and Bully embarked on a very long and very onerous trek to reach the mark. It was a glorious September day, bright sunshine, mixed with intermittent cloud, with a moderate north westerly that gave the sea some real life.

It looked perfect and extremely bassy indeed. However, the first couple of hours were blank. Not a touch.

As soon as the tide started to flood a big group of terns started diving on bait fish, which were being driven to the surface by unseen predators. Unfortunately,  they were out of casting range....but not for long.

It was a real cacophony, as terns shrieked and dived, with the occasional skua harassing any tern with a fish in its mouth.

When the flock came closer in our lures were hit viciously, as the bass hammered the lures in the shallows, with white water crashing all round.

Out on the bar, we were hit with the water coming in from all directions.  At one point Bully was almost knocked off his feet, after which he retreated to a safer area.

The mayhem lasted for maybe forty five minutes, by which time I'd had over a dozen bass and Bully similar.

I was on my "last cast" when I turned round and saw Bully walking off, about half mile in the distance. That's unusual I thought, he's not the type to get the hump.

I caught up with him as he stopped for a breather. "I'm fucked" he said, "I didn't even have the energy to wade over to you and tell you I was leaving".

Poor old boy, the knees, neck and hip were playing Up. We made in back to the car just on dark and after a ten minute drive back to the campsite, dumped the gear under the van.

I crashed on to the sofa and cracked open a cold beer. Bully then stuck his head round the door and said " I'm just going over to the toilet block to wipe down my lures".

What!?!? Wipedown your fecking lures ? At this time of night, when you could only just stand up at the end of the walk ?

I pulled rank and told him he'd do no such thing and he'd sit down and have a drink. He offered no resistance. 

An absolutely fantastic day.

Last Cast

It was our last evening on the river before having to catch the ferry home.

Me, S and a couple of Dutch friends sat on the beach in front of the camper chatting and drinking.

It was only a few inches deep in the bay in front of us, apart from a slightly deeper area by the inlet, which was probably eighteen inches or so.

Well, if we were sitting on the beach,  I may as well chuck a bait out.

I deposited half a tin of corn by the inlet, hoping that as the sun dropped an ide or two may venture in to the shallows. I left it for an hour before swinging the bait out a couple of rod lengths.

It hadn't been out long before the tip banged over and a big ide was lolloping about on the surface. I caught sight of it as it surfaced and it looked an extremely decent fish. Luckily it was scooped up first time and it really was a good'un, pulling the scales down to 6lb 6oz.

The rest of the corn was chucked in, the swim left for a while and then I lowered the bit in again. A few minutes later another fish was on, a big ide again, this time 5lb 2oz. Blimey. 

A brace of ide for 11lb 8oz, that'll do for the finale.

The rod was packed away and we sat there watching the sun go down.

On The Bikes

The fishing bikes were loaded, two "nod rods" in the holders, landing net strapped on, bait bucket and bits in the basket. That'll do.

The aim was to fish four djkes/canals and get fish from them all. We were a bit light on the bait front, sweetcorn, a few manky worms and a bit of mash, but hopefully enough for a bit of action. 

First stop was a decent sized "wetering" ( land drain ). A pinch of mash was flicked out and a tiny worm swung out under two inches of peacock quill. A few minutes later S struck and a small rudd was catapulted unceremoniously out of the water 

A couple of surprisingly decent roach of 8-10oz were caught on the next few cast before we moved on to the next venue.

This one was a bit larger, a proper canal. A plump roach first cast, then they started pumping and it looked like we were on the Wye.

No matter, crusty cheese and ham baguettes were greedily consumed on the bank, before we were on the bikes again.

I really liked the next djke. Maybe six metres wide, three foot deep with several lily beds.

We immediately had small perch, followed again by some very nice roach. I even caught a monkey goby ( I'd never heard of them either), another invasive species.

Last venue, a little tree lined, narrow, fairly shallow djke. 

More roach, a rudd and then some horrible signal crayfish. It was to head back to the van for a very welcome, very cold beer.

What a lovely  day.

Silver Monsters

Once again I was on the river before dawn.

For the first hour I was getting pecks and taps that I put down to small fish, probably incorrectly. 

The first proper bite resulted in a beautiful silver bream of 2lb 4oz, a cracking fish in mint condition.

A few minutes later the tip pinged back and what felt like a larger fish bored away in the fast water. When it surfaced I netted it first time and I could hardly believe my eyes, it was a truly monstrous silver bream. Massive.

On the scales it went. 3lb 7oz.

I'll probably never beat that.

What an extraordinary fish. To put it in perspective, my biggest in UK is 1lb 5oz ( the British Record is 3lb 4oz ) and anything over a pound is a corker.

These fish are in different league entirely. 

After that, a few bream and ide were landed, but then it was back to the weird bites. The corn was removed from the hook four or five times on the trot, before I rigged up a bit of fake corn on a push stop. That'll keep on the hook, if nothing else.

The feeder hit the bottom and about five seconds later the tip whacked round ( whacked round, pinged back, dropped slack, how many ways can you describe a bite ? ) and I was in. The fish surfaced in the slacker water and was scooped up in the net. A big roach of 2lb 10oz. Blimey.

More fish fell to the plastic corn, mostly bluenose and bream, the biggest bluenose going a respectable 2lb 10oz. 

Although the bream can be pests, they are in pristine condition, are beautifully coloured and fight like mad. Obviously,  you get covered in stinking snot.

What can I say ? Another fantastic session on The Mighty Waal.

Early Morning Frenzy

Back on the Waal for the last five days of our trip. This normally heavily coloured river was clear, properly clear. With the sun out I could see the bottom in maybe five feet of water.

A quick afternoon session resulted in an unsurprising blank, but I was pretty confident they'd be feeding very early the morning.

Arriving just before dawn, the first cast produced a bite within seconds, the fish was hooked and then promptly became snagged up in my hitherto unsnaggy swim. 

Snap off and retackled, I hooked into another. This time the hooklink snapped under very little pressure.  Then it happened  again !

I had a swim full of feeding fish and was cocking it up.

Eventually I sorted myself out and had practically a bite a cast for just short of three hours.

It started with silver bream, hybrids, a rudd and roach up to a pound. Then better fish moved in, two big ide, half dozen proper slab bream that fought like demons and three stonking roach all over 2lb with the best two both going 2lb 6oz.

I was back eating breakfast at the van by 08.30 and I'm now prepping the gear for a dusk assault. 

Got to make the most of it, it seems at the right times they're feeding well.

The Mighty Rhine

After a weekend around Maastrict on the Grenmaas, catching nothing, but having a couple of crashing surface takes from asp, we headed back in to Germany to fish the Rhine.

We'd tried to get in to what looked like a decent campsite, but unfortunately they had no space. It was on to Plan B, another site five minutes  away

After negotiating an unpaved, potholed road, we came to something that looked like a refugee camp, tents and campers squeezed in right next to each other and a three metre fence encircling the site.

Whether this was to keep people in or out was unclear, but our immediate feeling was that there was no way we were staying there. Plan C it was then.

I turned round the camper and headed to a small park up down a very quiet lane. Plenty good enough for a night.

"Kasper Lad", a great young German angler picked me up at dawn the next morning and we headed to a spot he knew well.  

It's fair to say he took quite a bit of gear !

I've fished over forty European rivers, but though the Rhine was more than four metres down on normal level , the pace and power of the river was incredible. 

Kasper cast his feeder well upstream, let a huge bow of line out and waited to see if it held in the flow. He moved to several spots until he was satisfied and only then did we start casting the baited feeders , which were stuffed with glued maggots and hemp.

The "glued" maggots prevented the maggots leaving the feeder on impact with the water and ensured a steady release when on the river bed. A great idea and very effective. 

It was only about five feet deep forty yards out, but we needed between 150 gram and 220 gram to hold bottom.  Even then , the feeder dislodged every now and then. It was brutal stuff, but if you don't master the conditions, you're not going to catch.

The first fish to show were bluenose, not big , but a sign something was on the bait.

A small barbel followed, then a bream and next cast I was in to a much bigger fish which was holding fast in the flow. Kasper Lad waded in with the net and scooped out an absolutely huge asp-ide hybrid, the biggest he'd ever seen, weighing in at 7lb 5oz. Lots of cheering, whooping and swearing ensured. 

Little did we know what would happen next cast. Kasper's rod hooped over, as he was in to what we thought was a barbel. It was my turn to wade out with the net.

"It's another ide-asp hybrid !" I said. I half joked it was the same fish. After a long fight, I peered in to the net. It looked massive, certainly as big as mine.

On the scales it went....9lb 2oz. Blimey, what a beast.

After that, the fishing tailed off, but it was job done, two cracking fish and two happy anglers.

Throughout the day we pulled in weed, which was crammed with all sorts of invertebrates,  shrimp, caddis, etc

Same thing if you looked under a rock, loads of life. It is obviously a healthy river with multiple species of fish of all sizes. This from a river that passes through Germany's industrial heartland and has half Europe's shipping passing along it.

A positive story but it does make you question what the hell has gone wrong in the UK.

Back at the camper, we had tea and exchanged beers and books and then Kasper went on his way.

Great angler and cracking bloke. I'm very grateful to him to showing me the Rhine.

Four of our five weeks out here have now passed and it's back to the Netherlands for the next few days, before getting the ferry home.

I'll be hoping for a big roach and maybe an asp or two.

We'll see.