Neatishead Staithe

I haven't been fishing for just over two weeks and so I was pleased to get away to the waterside this morning for a couple of hours. I have moved to the Neatishead area of the Broads and so I was keen to try Neatishead staithe which is on my local patch. The staithe is on Limekiln Dyke which feeds into Barton Broad. The village is at the end of the navigation and so is quite a way inland from the open water. The weather today was sunny and still and, even though still cold, it felt warm in the sunshine.

When I arrived about 10.30am there were already a number of fishermen strung out along the water. I had wanted to fish near the main channel and there was a space on the left-hand side near one of the waterside seats. I was float fishing as usual with a waggler weighted with five number 4 shot and a size 16 barbless hook. As soon as I arrived I scattered a few mixed coloured maggots into the water. I hadn't been fishing long when I had a good bite and to my surprise reeled in this nice bream:

It is difficult to tell whether this is a silver bream or a common bream. At this size they are known as skimmers. This one is about 26.5cm long or 10.5 inches and may weigh about 14oz. I suspect that I appeared to be a bit of a smarty-pants for having sat down for five minutes and then pulled in something that needed a net.

We had some other types of fishermen hanging about the waterside. Briefly on the opposite bank was a kingfisher. It made me look up as I heard that distinctive plop in the water as it dived for a fish. There was also a young heron that was hanging about, presumably waiting for a kind fisherman to chuck him a fish. He did an interesting manoeuvre as he picked up a fish from the surface of the water - a sort of flop onto the water surface and then a rapid take off.

I was surprised at how deep the water was. Having plucked out a bream I decided to fish deeper and deeper and got to around five foot or more. There were quite a lot of ruffe at this spot and I caught perhaps five or six of these:-

Funny little fish these. In response to being caught they puff up their gill covers. They also have a spiny dorsal fin like a perch. This one is about 14.5cm long or 6 inches.

I also caught a roach, a gudgeon and a perch whilst I was there for those couple of hours. Having spoken to a couple of the other fishermen I learnt that the inlet for the mooring was a better place to catch skimmers and avoid the ruffe. I also found out that this was one of the fishermen's favourite locations for catching pike in winter (up to 28lb) and big bags of roach and perch. I am looking forward to it!

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

Nice little fish as dusk falls

I had an hour or so at sunset this evening to fish the dykes. We started the day with a heavy frost but lots of sunny weather meant that the temperatures rose to about 8C in the afternoon. There was little or no wind which was nice. The water is still exceptionally clear and I think this puts fish off feeding during the day, but as the sun goes down, I think they feel safer to venture out into open water.

I was using the same equipment as last time and I had bites straight away. After a few roach, I had a small perch and then there must have been a shoal of rudd as I was catching one after another. They were of a reasonable size too and one required a net and must have been about 8 ounces. A very nice fish and the largest rudd I have had so far I think. I sat there in the gathering dusk but eventually it became impossible to see my float, so I gave up and went in.

A 31 inch pike!

I have been fishing on and off over last week without catching anything of note. I noticed that it became appreciably harder in certain spots to catch anything at all and I found myself moving round to parts of the dyke where fish could always be found. It was cold at times and the water had become exceptionally clear, so perhaps that explained why the fish had been reluctant to feed. There were certainly no big perch about, although a friend nearby caught a good one but didn't get a picture of it. I did purchase some worms for bait, but didn't have much success with them. Perhaps it is the way I present the bait. I did get bites but I think this was usually a fish taking the worm at its end, away from the hook.

Today it has been about 9C or 10C but extremely windy as storm Imogen has been crossing the country. I have been avoiding really windy days for fishing as it is such a pain having tackle flying about, but I had some extra time today and so I thought I would go to the dyke at the back of the house which provided a bit of shelter. I changed my tackle to a slightly heavier waggler (taking five No. 4 shot), a barbless size 16 hook with a 3.5lb leader. I always tend to put the shot nearer towards the end of the rig, but leaving the leader virtually free. I think fish prefer a naturally falling bait.

I think the cover of having choppy water was enticing the fish out and I was catching a selection of roach and rudd really easily. I also had one small perch, but nothing else. I had been trying a worm again and as I was reeling in a roach that had successfully taken the bait, a pike made a lunge for it making a big splash. I decided to set up my pike tackle using a carp rod that my brother had lent me. This consisted of a No1 Drennan pike waggler, a single threaded weight stopped with two swivels, a semi-barbed size 6 treble on a 20lb trace.

I had just dropped my bait into the water, literally just beside where I was sitting, when the float disappeared under as soon as it hit the water. I had been intending to cast a bit further down the dyke where I had seen the pike and hadn't expected this sort of take. I sort of did a double take about the float, wondering if something had gone awry but I realised that this was a pike and struck into the fish. I could see its greenish sides as it twisted in the clear water.

It didn't take long to land. It was a fairly big fish and it ended up going tail first into the net. This is it:-

You can see it has a fairly big belly where it has probably been feeding on smaller fish. The forceps in the picture are 30.5cm and this makes the fish about 79cm long or about 31 inches! This is the largest pike I have caught since I have been down here and I reckon it was pushing 8lb  or more (I must get myself some scales). A nice way to end the day!

Sunday afternoon

There was a fine misty rain this morning that was being blown along by a strong breeze so I put off any idea of fishing until the middle of the afternoon. When I came out about 3pm, the wind had dropped completely and the water was beautifully still, which always makes float fishing a joy. It was pretty overcast but not that cold (maybe 9C) and it only started raining more heavily again when I packed up when it was getting dark.

The fish were hungry today and the water was clear enough that I could seem them attacking the bait as it sunk down into the depths. I know that I end up catching a lot of small fish, but I don't mind this as it keeps me occupied and there is always the chance that something bigger will come along. I was back at my usual spot, a dyke to the west of the village centre of Horning and close to the river Bure.

There were a lot of small roach again today. They are so numerous in these waters. One thing that concerns me is that a number of them seem to have some parasitic infection. They look like they are covered in black spots. I would say that maybe 20 percent of the roach and rudd have this problem in some way or other. I caught one reasonable size roach that was badly infected and I was going to photograph it but it wouldn't lie still long enough.

This was a rudd that was a reasonable size:

The rudd differs from the roach in that generally it has a more olive green colouration with redder fins and an upturned mouth (for surface feeding). However, it is not straight forward as the roach and rudd hybridise. This one has some sort of damage and/or infection to its flank and one of those black spots can be seen. This one is about 19cm long or 7.5 inches.

I also caught a different species today, a gudgeon. I used to catch these a lot when I was a kid. Again it was too wiggly to photograph.

I had been hoping to catch some more big perch but I was only rewarded towards the end of the day. I caught a lot of smaller ones first. This was the first of two that needed landing with a net:-

This one is about 22cm in length or 8.5 inches. Finally, I had a nice tussle with this specimen:-

This one is about 28cm in length or just over 11 inches, so about 14.75 ounces. When I was first down at these waters last year, I caught a much bigger perch than this but didn't have a camera to hand. I am still hoping to catch one that is maybe 2 pound. I think next time I am at the local tackle shop I will purchase some worms to see if this does the trick.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

Back for more perch

Yesterday I was back at the same spot that I have been to the last couple of times which is close to where the dyke meets the river Bure. It was colder today, something like 8 or 9 degrees C and a bit of a nagging breeze made it seem chilly sitting by the waterside. At least the strong wind had died down and it was dry and sunny for the most part.

I was catching plenty of fish again today but I found that they had moved slightly round the jetty. I don't understand why this happens but it must be something to do with the conditions or the tide. Why should one bit of water be somewhat dead whereas just a few feet away another bit provides plenty of fish? It just goes to show that if you aren't catching anything you should just move on somewhere else.

I had a variety of species today. The ubiquitous roach of course and these were slightly better than tiddlers. What also turned up were one or two very small bream. They look a bit like roach, but they appear to be entirely silver in colour. They do hybridise so I wouldn't like to say for sure that they were pure bream but they looked like it. I also had a couple of rudd, one of which was getting to be something reasonable but didn't need a net.

The main attraction of the day was catching perch which seem to like this spot. I had four today, all of a reasonable size and all needing to be netted in. Here they are in the order I caught them:

This one (above) is 21cm in length or 8.5 inches.

This second one (above) is 20cm or 8 inches.

This third one (above) is 20.5 cm or 8 inches.

This fourth one was the largest and is 27cm or 10.5 inches.

Although the first three fish are very similar in size, they are not the same fish. If you look at the vertical dark bandings they are all slightly different.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016

Another fine pair of perch

Not a great day to go out fishing as the wind was blowing in strong gusts and it was hard to stop things flying into the water. I lost my hat twice but I caught it before it got wet. I went out a bit earlier than yesterday and back to the same spot I had caught the large perch last night. It is still mild (10C) but it didn't feel it. It was also very overcast.

I was fishing with the same light gear on a pole rod (which is difficult to handle in stiff wind). The fish were still there and I began catching a few roach which were a bit larger than yesterday (don't ask me why). Quite soon into my couple of hours at the quay I caught this lovely 27cm (11 inch) perch:

It gave a good account of itself and it felt nice to haul in with the flexible pole rod. It probably weighs about 14oz. A bit later I had this one as it was getting towards dusk:

This is very similar in size, perhaps half an inch shorter and probably weighs just over 13oz. I don't think it is the same fish as it has a less pronounced 'hump' on its back. As a guide for weight I have been using this table that I found on the internet:-

Inches .....lb ozs
9 ..... 0 12
10 .....0 13 ¼
11 .....0 14 ¾
12 .....1 0
13 .....1 4 ½
14 .....1 9 ¾
15 .....1 14 ½
16 .....2 5 ½
17 .....2 13 ¼
18 .....3 5 ½
19 .....3 15 ¼
20 .....4 9 ½
21 .....5 5 ¼

I must get some scales and weigh these fish for myself. For interest, the way I measure the length of these fish is to photograph them with the disgorger seen. Then in a photo editing package I measure the length of the disgorger and the length of the fish and knowing that the disgorger is 12.5cm long, scale up the size of the fish appropriately. For example, the fish in the first picture above was 1410 pixels long. The disgorger was 651 pixels. This means that the fish is (1410/651)x12.5=27.1cm. To get this to inches multiply by 0.394, so this fish is 27.1x0.394=10.7 inches.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016 (except for the table of perch length/weights).

Nice 11.5 inch perch to end the day

I was fishing again at the end of the day, starting about 4pm and finishing when it became too dark to do anything more. I decided to try on the dyke nearer to the entrance to the main river (Bure) to see if this made any difference to what I caught. I again used mixed coloured maggots (fishing with with two on the hook) and fed the swim with a few at regular intervals. I also tried to make a mental note of how many fish of each species I was catching.

As usual the most prolific fish was the small roach. I caught over twenty of these and none of a notable size. Later I started catching a few perch, starting with one of just about an inch long! Behind me there was a glorious red sunset and, although it was still mild (perhaps 11 degrees C), there was an irritating blustery wind. I then caught a small rudd, the only one of the day. As dusk began to fall I started to hook bigger perch getting up to six in the end and the penultimate one was a beauty, the second largest I have caught down here:

This fish is about 11.5 inches in length and probably weighs about a pound. I had noticed that the perch were taking the bait in snatching fashion making the float go under dramatically. I had a number of good sized fish in succession, showing that a shoal had probably gathered where I had been feeding the swim. It was so dark by the time I had caught this fish I had to use flash on my camera to get its photo. A nice way to end the day.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.