Disappointing Dilham

I had an afternoon at Dilham Fishery the other day and I found the whole experience very disappointing. Now that it is high summer, the rudd are voracious and they were grabbing the bait before any other fish had a chance. Having become a bit hooked on catching carp, it is annoying to spend a whole afternoon catching rudd. I like to float fish but clearly this is not really a good option here. I tried putting the bait near the bottom of the lake like the owner suggested but the rudd take it before it has got anywhere near that depth. Still I did talk to one fisherman who had been there all day and he had caught seven carp. I did manage to catch one small crucian and a small bream. I don't think I will be going back to Dilham for a while.

I had an evening fish at Neatishead Staithe last night and had an enjoyable time catching a few roach, perch and ruffe. The staithe is very busy now with boats so there are lots of people about. I sat there until the dusk was quite deep before giving up.

I think if I fancy a proper tussle again, I might go back to Holly Farm! Another place that I haven't been to recently is Mill Road Fishery at Stokesby.

New Season

Well the new fishing season began on the 16th June and I have already been down to my local waters a few times. Neatishead Staithe is my nearest point of access to the broads and I had a couple of visits down there in the week after the season started. The first time I was there I sat in the middle of the dyke but things turned out to be slow so I moved a few yards to where the dyke joins the main channel and fished relatively deep. I caught quite a few small roach and one two small skimmers, perch and rudd. Nothing of any size. Another fisherman on the other side of the dyke did, however, reel in a very good size bream of maybe a couple of pounds.

I came down again a couple of days after my birthday and was trying out a new rod that I had been given. I have been looking for a river rod of something in the 12ft range and had settled on match class one (a Maver Abyss X Series) . It was a lovely morning and it was enough just to be sitting by the water watching the kingfishers flying backwards and forwards. They must have a nest up towards the village as they were carrying fish in their beaks as they flew past.

Last week I decided to head up to Barton Turf. On the Sunday afternoon I fished by the parish Staithe on the side by the boat yard. There are some lilies there and it looked like a promising location. Barton Turf is such a lovely place that you just want to soak it all up. It's quite busy at the weekend with hire boat owners worrying about getting a mooring for the night but everyone is very relaxed and friendly. I had a few small roach, perch, rudd and even gudgeon.

The next time I came was another fine sunny day. I thought I  would try a different location and headed to the left past the punt club moorings to the public moorings beyond the board walk. I chose initially to sit by water close to the end of the walk again because there were some attractive looking weeds close by the bank. In the end I was only catching small fish and it was far too hot in the full sun, so I moved on round the corner to some shade fishing in between some moored boats:-

I decided to fish deep here and started to have some success at catching some decent size roach on casters. The best of the day was this one:-

This 9.5 inch fish probably weighs 11oz. I will have to come back to this spot and try again sometime and see if I can improve on this.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016