Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle
Information Page
25 November 2003.
Fair weather fisherman.
Despite the fact that the Environment Agency are moaning about a drought situation, the recent rain has certainly curtailed my fishing. It's not that I mind fishing in the rain and I will even put up with the rain starting before I tackle up. However, the thing I can't abide is my gear getting soaked. I have never found a totally waterproof bag or haversack to carry my stuff in. It seems to me that it is a real pain trying to dry off, not only the bag itself but the spare spools, containers of hooks, etc. and above all the cameras in their own little padded bag. I'm sure that the hiking and cycling fraternity have waterproof covers for their back-packs. I must try to find one.
Anyway, I got up early twice last weekend to go down to the coast. On both occasions I dressed and got the tackle together before opening the door to find that it was already pouring down. Both times I chickened out and stayed in.
Of course the sequel to the rain was that the river came up in flood and coloured up badly so it was not until mid week that I decided it was worth a go. I opted to leger for grayling. With the best part of a pint of maggots I set off for the river. Now I'm not the world's greatest coarse angler but I can usually catch something so after I had tried two or three decent glides without a sniff I was beginning to get despondent. I decided to try a place where the river ran down the far bank in a fast, shallow riffle. On my bank was a slack about half-a-metre deep. By casting my shot leger over into the fas flow I could let it swing across and settle in the slack. I chiucked in a handful of maggots and started to fish. Within minutes I had a good bite and landed a grayling and then, next cast I had another. The third bite was missed and then there were no more. My pal Adrian says that I should use a swim feeder and I'm sure he's right but they alsways seem such clumsy great things to me. I do have such a gadget in the bag so perhaps I should have tried it.
Typically I was not satisfied with catching little fish so I decided to have an hour or so after pike. First cast the cork zipped under and a fifteen pounder roared away across the pool. It put up a fantastic show of jumps and rolls before it was banked. The next four spots produced another three pike, none as big as the first. I have to say that I always feel more at home when I'm after big, predatory fish, I suppose it's just the way I am but I must have another go for the grayling soon.
If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you.'get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com
INFORMATION SPOT
COARSE FISHING
November 25th 2003
The fast run.
My first grayling.
The second.
More my style.
The fish fought hard.
Wonderful!
Landed.
