Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

17 July 2008.

Little and large.

My grandson Ben has been staying for a couple of days this week. Whenever Ben comes over the main topic is 'fishing'. In fact, if I needed an excuse to get down to the seashore or the riverbank Ben would be it. This time it was no exception and the first day we decided to have an hour fishing a local lake. Experience has shown that Ben soon gets bored with sitting waiting for a carp to take the bait so we took a float rod and a few maggots to see what we could tempt.

At the start of the session I threw a few crusts into the lilies to see if anything bigger would turn up as we were fishing and then Ben began float fishing. It wasn't exactly hectic but sport was steady with a succession of fish coming to hand. He landed roach, rudd, gudgeon and bream and in the middle of them he had a small roach-bream hybrid but I didn't get a picture of it. At one point a decent carp sucked in a couple of the loose crusts causing a bit of a panic but before we could get a bait to it, it melted away again. Anyway, it was an enjoyable hour's fishing on a pleasant afternoon.

Two days later, when Ben came again, he wanted to try something different. We'd both have preferred to go down to the coast but everything was against it and we decided to try the river. We set up a spinning rod and a light trace of knottable wire. Our first spot was a deep pool with a strong flow down mid-river so we tried a small fat plug that dived to three or four feet - nothing! We switched to a J11 Rapala - always a good bet in my book - and sure enough, on about his third cast Ben was into a good fish. After a bit of a tussle we saw that it was a good chub, his first ever. We shifted downstream about thirty metres and it was not long before another big chub fell to Ben's Rapala - wonderful stuff! Next he had a small pike then we moved back to the deeper spot and tied on a little sinking plug. The smaller lure produced a modest perch which 'careless grandad' unhooked and dropped back into the drink without taking a picture. An excellent session of fishing and a complete contrast to the previous trip. I expect we'll be going chub spinning again before long.

Float fishing.

Gudgeon.

Roach.

Rudd.

Bream.

Chub.

Is he pleased?

-and another.