A clonking pair of perch at Irstead Shoals

In the last few weeks I have been fishing at a number of local places on the broads; Gayes staithe in Neatishead, Womack Water in Ludham and Barton Turf and Irstead staithes. It hasn't been easy going and at times rather frustrating. One of the places I like most is Irstead where the river Ant passes through some gravely bottomed shoals. Here the fishing does seem a bit more reliable and even though boats pass the staithe on a regular basis as they make their way to and from Barton Broad, there is enough slack water on the side of the river for peaceful fishing.

I was there yesterday morning from about 10am to 1pm. A lovely warm late summer morning with a bit of a breeze at my back. I was float fishing as usual and trying to use up the remainder of the maggots I had bought a week back which were rapidly turning into casters. Thinking that the maggots would work best I had been putting a pair of these on a size 16 hook and fishing in the shallower water of an inlet in the moorings. Initially things looked promising and I was catching a few roach, skimmers, gudgeon and one or two perch. However, after a while things began to go quiet and so I thought I would switch to a pair of casters instead to see if a change of bait would tempt a fish. I had been feeding in mainly casters into the water as they were what I had most of in my bait tin.

To my surprise I had a good bite and I pulled in a reasonable size roach. The bigger roach do go for this sort of bait. Again I was out with more casters and then I had something on the line which felt like a very good fish. To my utter surprise it was a very nice sized perch:-

This fish is about 10.5 inches and probably weighs about 14oz. I wouldn't have thought that perch would be interested in an inert bait like this. After a while, things went quiet again, and so I moved around so that I was fishing more in the main river. I began to have more bites and a few fish again and just before I had to go, this veritable clonker (in my opinion!) took my casters again:-

When I hooked this I thought I had got a small pike on the end of my line. This fish is approaching 11.5 inches and may weigh close to a pound.

Going back to discuss some of the other locations I have fished in recent weeks, I thought Gayes staithe in Neatishead was promising. The last time I was there I began fishing to the left of the promontory:-

Having been catching a selection of small roach, rudd and perch I decided to move over to the right side and this seemed more productive. The best fish I had that day was this small bream:-

This fish is about 10 inches in length and maybe weighs 9 or 10oz.

The other locations at Barton Turf and Womack Water were hard work. Long periods of not catching much and it is probably best to invest in some ground bait to attract in some fish.

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

A tench at Neatishead Staithe

It was a warm day yesterday and pushing 23 or 24C. I didn't have a lot of time to fish in the afternoon and so I went down to my local staithe for a couple of hours. There, at least, I could sit in the shade but, being the holiday season, the dyke was full of boats and there was a lot of coming and going, so not ideal.

I found a spot between two moored boats and where it was unlikely that the moving boats would interfere with what I was doing. I float fished with mixed coloured maggots and at a depth that was as near to the bottom as possible.

It was a bit slow, I have to admit. I did the usual thing of feeding a few maggots into the swim on a regular basis. After a bit I was getting a few bites but nothing was coming up. I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to go home having caught nothing at all! Eventually, I had a decent bite and was pleased to reel in a nice skimmer that needed a net.

A bit later I followed this first fish with a decent perch that gave a good tussle on the rod. Then I had my first surprise as, after what seemed like a normal nibbly bite, I struck into something very large that just took off and snapped my line. I suspect it was a pike. Embarrassingly, my expletive was noticed by a woman sunbathing on the boat opposite.

Finally, after more slow progress and at the end of the afternoon, when I was thinking one more fish and I will go home, I caught this very nice unexpected 10 inch tench:-

This is the first tench I have caught in the open waters of the Broads (as opposed to an inland fishery) and it makes me think that perhaps there are more out there that might be tempted by, say, a bait like luncheon meat. Food for thought.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

Holly Farm doesn't disappoint

Last week I headed back to Holly Farm Lakes in South Walsham for another enjoyable afternoon's fishing. When I arrived I was glad to see that a favourite peg of mine at the very far end of the 'canal' lake was free.

The weather has been sunny and dry recently and, although not as hot as some of the days we have seen, it was a pleasant 20C. The only problem about fishing on the sunny side of the lake is that eventually the sun is right in your eyes and you can't avoid seeing its reflection in the water.

I was using my new Maver Abyss X Series rod with 5lb line, a waggler weighted with 2 BB shot and a size 12 hook. I had sweetcorn and luncheon meat with me and I was finding that the sweetcorn was doing very well. Later in the afternoon I switched to the luncheon meat and started to hook some heavier fish.

I was catching a series of carp from the word go. Early on I had this nice 15.5 inch mirror:-

Most of the carp I was catching were only up to one or two pound and nothing much of any size. They were a mixture of commons and mirrors. I also caught a few roach and a couple of very small tench. The nice thing about these waters is that the roach don't dominate the fishing. Most of what I was catching were carp (unlike at Dilham).

At the very end of the day I had a nice tussle with this 21inch 6lb fish:-

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

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

Return to Dilham Fishery

I have been back to Dilham Fishery a couple of times; once this week and once last week and had an enjoyable day's fishing each time. Last week I moved round to peg 8 or 9 where the water was slightly more clear of weed around the margins. Having lost sizeable fish that had shot straight into the weed I didn't want this to happen again. However, having said this, the spot wasn't as fruitful as peg 2 and I was catching mostly rudd and one or two crucian carp (see below). Later on when peg 15 became free I moved round to this as it had been recommended to me. Here I caught three reasonable size tench and this was one of them:-

This fish is about 13 inches in length and probably weighs between 1 and 2lb. I also had a very nice mirror carp to finish the day of maybe 3lb.

I also went down to the fishery on Tuesday afternoon and headed straight back to peg 15. The weather has been warm and muggy of late and it has been inducing some thundery showers. Before one of these curtailed my fishing in the early evening, I had one or two nice bream such as this one:-

This fish is about 13.5 inches long. It seems that the lake bream a prone to getting some sort of skin disease as this fish had sort of white nodules around its head and this is not the first time I have seen this. I also had a couple of crucian carp of which this is an example:-

This fish is about 10.5 inches. I had a brief take of a larger fish but it came off the line. I think one of the problems of this fishery is the quantity of rudd in the water. They are so numerous that they tend to snatch the bait before anything else can get to it and so is a bit of a nuisance.

All text and pictures are copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.

Dilham Fishery

Last Thursday I went to Dilham Fishery for the first time. I hadn't known about it until I had done a search online and it is even closer to me than Holly Farm. The postcode of the fishery is, if you wish to find it, NR28 9PZ. I turned up on a cold, blustery and slightly misty day. There is a single, attractively laid out, lake sitting in front of the owner's house. There is a car park and a toilet block. At first I decided to take one of the higher number pegs on the further side of the lake, simply because there were some water lilies there that looked promising for carp. Then once I had seen the lady owner, she suggested that the low number pegs nearest to the house did well (other popular pegs had been taken), so I moved. Up till that point I had caught a few small rudd.

I was fishing with my trusty old Shakespeare Eros Telescopic rod and, being windy, I decided to use a waggler float and a size 12 hook. It worked quite well, but casting in strong wind is always a pain especially as the surroundings were quite thick with bushes and trees. It didn't help that the best looking patch of lilies was near to the opposite bank. No doubt, if you stood anywhere nearby you would have heard me muttering under my breath about irritating wind.

I was fishing with cubes of luncheon meat again and using a can of sweetcorn to attract the fish. Initially, the bites were not very frequent, but I started to catch some reasonable size rudd and roach. The rudd were predominant and I had to put up with pulling these in all day, to catch other fish in between. The rudd were taking the bait in a classic fashion. Diving at it as soon as it hit the water and then swimming off with it horizontally, dragging the float behind them.

About 1.30pm I had my first serious fish and one of several bream:-

This fish is 12.5 inches long and may weigh about 1lb 8oz.

I had started to try and fish a bit deeper by then and I lost my first serious carp as it dived straight into the reeds. Just after 3pm I had my first common carp and these fish are very healthy and give a battle royal. I struggled to keep it out of the weeds:-

This 18inch fish probably weighs about 3lb.

About 40 minutes later I had another nice bream:-

This one is bigger than the last and is 14.5 inches and perhaps weighs nearly 2lb.

I think I lost another carp around this time as I just couldn't stop it as it went into the reeds. At 4.30pm I had the largest bream I had that day:-

This one is 15.5 inches and is probably 2lb plus. I carried on hoping that I was going to catch another carp and twenty minutes later I was successful and landed this big common:-

I decided to weigh this 20 inch fish because it was a really chunky fish and it came in at 5.5lb. So a nice end to the day.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.