Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

Freshwater Fishing

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 several 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. As you see I also add the odd piece from my friends and correspondents if I've not been doing much. 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).

Blanks.

Like every other angler I sometimes have blank sessions. Recently I seem to have had more than my fair share. The good old reliable pike have not been in a cooperative mood, and even an attempt to catch a perch from my local lakes had failed to produce a bite. It was so bad that I decided that I'd try float fishing with maggots just to see how many species I could catch from the pool where I generally seek my pike baits.

The pool in question is a couple of feet deep and quite slack apart from the inflow of water from the crack at the bottom of a steel hatch. I was using double maggot on a size sixteen hook (you can tell how desperate I was from the fact that I mentioned this).

On the first cast I had a bite with the float shooting under at speed. Minnow1 I thought. Sure enough, on the next drop I hooked one of the little devils - better than nothing! I threw in a couple of dozen free offerings and followed them with the baited hook. Under went the float and I was into a roach, not a two pounder but a beautiful little blue-backed, red finned creature. This was followed by several more roach - perhaps that was going to be it for this afternoon? I baited up again and lowered the gear into the flow. wallop - a decent dace rushed about the pool before being landed. I was just popping the fish back into the water as I caught them but it did not seem to deter others from biting. The dace was followed by a tiny chub. Despite it's small size it was really obvious that it was a chub from the huge mouth. Next cast produced a perch, even smaller than the chub and then I hit something heavy (possibly a grayling, a trout or a big roach?) but before I saw it, it came unstuck. Another perch followed then a trout which jumped a couple of times before escaping. More dace and roach completed the session. I took a picture of a few typical fish just to liven up the web page and at least I didn't have to write BLANK in the diary.

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

Roach.

Dace.

Chub.

Perch.