Happy fishing at Cold Harbour, Ludham

This is not the first time I have been fishing this season but this was the more successful one. Friday I popped down to Neatishead Staithe for a couple of hours and it was really slow.

This was the view across the water. I initially had some old sweetcorn I was trying to use up but it was obviously not even enticing to fish. So I went to the shop in the village and bought some bread which I balled up and put on the hook. This was better but in 2 hours I only caught 4 fish; 3 small roach and 1 dace. I wondered if it was because of all the heat we were having. Somebody I spoke to on a boat said that the water temperature had been as high as 16C.

Today I went to the Bure at Cold Harbour near Ludham. There are a few fishing platforms there which are still open access and one of these was available. There used to be more spots but these have been taken back by the NDAA. I brought bread with me again and, as a back up, some red maggots. I tried the bread first but without much success. A few nibbles but not much more. I was float fishing close in. I then switched to the maggots and began to catch a few small roach and a rudd.

As per normal, the problem with fishing the Bure is that it is tidal and so the float began to pick up pace as the tide began to go out. I did hold the float back and this is often when you get bites. But today I thought I would switch to ledgering off the bottom. Nothing too complicated. One lightish ball weight held between to swivels. Wow, what a difference! I hadn't been expecting the fish to be so voracious. I had been feeding in maggots regularly as I float fished but now I placed the ledger further down in the swim. The bites were surprisingly strong. They really twanged the rod and I was pleased to pull in this nice bream:-

The disgorger in the image is 13.8cm in length which makes this fish 30cm, roughly, or 11.8 inches. Previous experience tells me that this fish will weigh about 1lb 3oz or so. I carried on and caught a few perch but nothing of any size. Then the last three fish I pulled in were all eels! Again, all quite small but quite vigorous. Fortunately, they were all lip hooked and so went back unharmed which is great given their protected status. It is good that the number of eels in our rivers is coming up again. I think I will doing some more bottom fishing!

Between fishing seasons I have been down at the local carp lakes a few times. On the 6th April I was at Holly farm and picked up a couple of carp, the largest being about 4lb:-

Both fell to sweetcorn. Then I also had a couple of trips to Dilham Fishery on the 8th May:-

Then on the 23rd May where I had a nice tussle with this 6lb common (measured):-

This fell to a piece of balled up bread. This is me unhooking the fish.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2023.

Where have all the fish gone?

Over the last few weeks I have made a few ventures out to do a spot of fishing. Three weeks ago on Valentine's day (14th February) I went along to Irstead Staithe and I was reasonably confident that I would catch something. Wrong! Despite it being a fine afternoon it was absolutely dead. Not a bite. This can happen in winter especially along the main rivers of the broads. Still it was pleasant sitting there:-

Not to be deterred I packed up and went to Ludham bridge but it was the same story. I had better success 6 days later on the 20th February when I went down to Martham. I had intended to fish at Martham Pits but I found that it was still closed to day tickets for the winter. Instead, I fished in the dyke by Ferrygate Lane:-

The weather was a balmy 16C but the problem here was that I had managed to put my back out and I could only stay for about an hour before having to go home (very gingerly). Still there were plenty of bites here and I caught about 4 roach. Last week (the 27th of February) having recovered I tried the river Ant at Wayford Bridge but it was becoming a familiar story of blanking. No bites here:-

Thinking that it might be the open river problem I went along to Sutton Broad. Here it is a long way from the river systems but it was as dead as everywhere else:-

You can see from this picture that the water was really brown and muddy and I wondered if this was part of the problem.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2023

Afternoon at the staithe

I had another nice afternoon at Neatishead Staithe over a week ago on the 26th January. It was quite a pleasant sunny afternoon and I got settled down on the left-hand side near the entrance to Limekiln dyke.

I had plenty of clothes on as usual so it didn't seem to cold. Bites were a bit sluggish but in the end I caught a few. I had passed one fisherman who was leaving just as I arrived who said he had caught 150 fish. I guess that is possible if you were there all day. During the two hours or so I was there I caught something like 5 perch and 15 roach with assorted others. No bream though! I don't know why they haven't been making an appearance lately. My main amusement apart from the fish were a pair of kingfishers who were fishing from perches on the bank opposite.

The staithe is now closed because they are doing maintenance work on it (redoing the quay heading nearest the car park). It won't reopen until the fishing season is ended (the work is scheduled to end on the 31st March 2023).

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2023

Freezing temperatures but enjoyable

I was down at Neatishead staithe again yesterday (Wednesday 18th January) and it was pretty cold. Fortunately, the latest spate of freezing weather hasn't closed off the water with ice but you could see it gathering further down Limekiln Dyke. The sun was out but this made little difference to the temperatures which were only just above freezing.

It was pretty as you can see from the picture I took above. I also had the place to myself apart from a spate of three visitors who chatted to me about fishing and wildlife. I didn't mind. It looked like the fishing was going to be hard work with bites few and far between but I had an early roach that at least needed a net to bring in. The pike were lively. There was one feeding voraciously in the water near the back of the boat in the picture. I kept seeing big swirls and it made me wish I had brought some pike gear.

In the end I did ok. I didn't keep a tally but I had quite a few roach, about three or four perch and a ruffe. Nothing of any size to write home about. The kingfishers were busy flying up and down the dyke and had obviously been fishing nearby as I heard it plop into the water after a fish. There were also a couple of herons, one of which looked like he wanted to nab a fish from me rather than get his own. Just before I left I thought I saw a big otter heading out.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2023

New Year's Day fishing

 

I had a couple of hours of pleasant fishing last Sunday (New Year's day) down at Neatishead Staithe. I arrived about 2pm and set up near the entrance to the dyke (see above). The weather had been pretty still for most of the day and it wasn't too cold (perhaps 8C). The staithe does sometimes get quite busy with fishermen but there was only a couple of others there when I arrived. The guy opposite was fishing for pike and he did land one whilst I was there (probably not much more than 5lb).

I was 'fishing for silvers', as they say, using some red maggots which I had had some time. I had thought that the hard frost that we had before Christmas had killed them all off (even though I had kept them in the shed) but somehow they miraculously recovered. Saves having to buy more!

I had a steady stream of fish in the two hours I was there. I kept a rough count and it amounted to about 13 perch and 12 roach. The perch were not of any size but there was probably one that was that I lost. A couple of the roach were a bit bigger but nothing to report about until the end of the day. Some roach I think were probably roach/bream hybrids as they have that more slender look about them and aren't as coloured in the fins.

The best fish of the day came as it was getting dark (4pm) and was my last fish:-

Knowing the length of the disgorger shown (13.8cm) this fish is 23cm or 9 inches in length. It weighs about 10oz. It was a bit battered and looked like a pike had been at it.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2023

A nice couple of hours at Neatishead Staithe

I haven't been out fishing for a while due to bad weather and ill health but I finally managed to get down to Neatishead staithe for a couple of hours today. The weather was overcast and not too cold (7 or 8C). A few fishermen were about but some were packing up as I arrived about 2pm. The staithe has been pretty popular over the winter months as evidenced by the chewed up grass where people have been parking. Really this should be fenced off again as it looks pretty untidy. I went to the right side of the water near the mouth. There were a few boats about again which is only inevitable.

I had a good time during those couple of hours. I hadn't bought any bait specially, relying on some old casters and some worms I had dug up. I started with the casters and it didn't take long before I had a reasonable roach. I decided to record how many fish I had and of what type. After a few roach I thought I would give the worms a go and they were much more fruitful. I had few brandling worms from the compost bin and some small earth worms. The best fish I caught was this one, on a brandling worm:-

This is a small bream. The disgorger is 13.8cm long so this fish is about 28cm or 11 inches long. It probably weighs close to a pound. In all I had 2 bream (one of which was probably a hybrid), 4 roach, 5 perch (nothing sizeable), 1 rudd and 3 ruffe. So not bad for a couple of hours bankside.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2022

It's been a while

I haven't been fishing since before Christmas as I just didn't want to take any risks whilst this latest wave of the pandemic has been going through our community. Now that virus numbers have dropped significantly and the number of people being vaccinated is going up rapidly I decided to venture out again before the end of the season. As a group of people, we fisherfolk have been lucky to be able to carry on with our sport all through this lockdown. Last week and today, I just went along to my local staithe here in Neatishead.

A bit of a cold (8C) overcast morning but briefly you could see the sun through the low cloud. I arrived about 11am and rain was forecast about lunchtime, but it wasn't so bad that it had me scuttling off at its first appearance. I hadn't bothered to go out and buy any bait. Today I just used some sweetcorn that I had left over from last week. It was interesting that last week I had bites all the time with this but today it was much more irregular but some of the fish were a better size. I was sat near the car park where it is quite shallow. The water level has dropped quite a bit from its over-winter highs.

This rudd was one of the slightly better fish that I caught. It looks a bit like a female with eggs but I could be wrong. I had another fish like this but probably slightly larger. Though you get a lot of roach-rudd hybrids, I think this is more rudd from the upturned mouth. Compare this with one I caught last week:-

This one is very red in colour but is definitely more roach like.

There was a pike in the dyke hunting in the same area where I was fishing. I would like to say to pike fishermen to please be aware that over the last year or so otters have come to inhabit this area and they are taking fish put out as bait. Please, please, try to avoid this from happening as I don't like to think of otters caught up in pike gear and suffering the consequences. Otters are relatively easy to spot if you know what to look for. They spend a lot of time underwater but they can be traced by the obvious line of bubbles that they leave as they swim. If you see this, I suggest getting your gear out of the water pronto before they take your bait (and possibly your rod as well!). They are incredibly strong animals with a bite that could easily remove a finger if you tackled one, so don't. Just avoid the situation by being patient. They won't hang around for long and will continue their on way along their regular hunting route. They are appearing at all times of the day and just not dusk, night or dawn.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2021