blowing away the cobwebs

Cabin fever has well and truly set in over the Christmas holidays, we had hoped to get out for a grayling trip or two but with the constant wind and rain that's not been possible, on some days taking the dog out for a walk has been a thought to be honest, but then it is winter i guess. Anyway with the weather not looking too bad today Col and i decided on a wee coarse fishing session at Eliburn res.

 the rain still managed to put in an appearance

it took a while before our floats registered a bite, which turned out to be a lovely Roach to start of 2014

a few more Roach followed soon after the first and also an Ide

  

 after that some missed bites and long periods of inactivity before Col landed a Roach and another Ide

 so not the most productive of sessions but it was great to get out fishing again after a long month of no fishing.

on coarse for the new year

Yesterday we went to Eliburn reservoir for a spot of coarse fishing to end the year, Col got of to a good start with a nice Ide

After a wee while with no further bites we decided to move to a deeper swim and  settled down for the afternoon. The fishing was very slow but we were entertained by a kingfisher on the opposite bank which was having more success than us by the look of it. if the fish weren't showing any interest in our maggots a cheeky wee Robin certainly was!

 he was well fed for the rest of the afternoon

Col changed his shotting so the hook bait was taking longer to reach the bottom, this seemed to work and we started to get a fish or two.

a wee Perch to save the blank for me

a good sized Roach for Col

a wee Bream

    







the beautiful Roach are my favourite silverfish

I hooked into something which felt quite big near the end of the afternoon, it was taking line from the reel and staying deep,  i never got a glimpse of it before the size 20 hook sprang back at me, never mind! 

All the best for the new year.



shiver me silvers

With cabin fever setting in and no fish in over a month i needed to get out fishing, the weather as usual was pretty miserable so a local reservoir for some coarse fishing seemed like the safest bet for the chance of a fish  . At my chosen swim i  set up with a loaded waggler with maggots for bait, introducing some free offerings every other cast to try and get the fish on the feed. An hour or so into the session my float still hadn't  registered a bite and to make matters worse it started raining heavily . I was shivering away feeling pretty uncomfortable when the float finely slide under and a wee perch was brought to hand



normally i would curse the pest wee perch but today i was so pleased to catch him, this spurred me on a bit and i forgot about how cold and miserable i was feeling, for a while anyway! i was beginning to get the odd bite and soon added a lovely roach to the catch











followed by a wee bream or bream hybrid of some sort?

 

i noticed an angler on the opposite bank from me catching the odd Ide and was hoping they would put in an appearance in my swim too,unfortunately it wasn't to be though, but Inbetween shivering away a few more of the above three were welcome captures before the end of play in the late afternoon.     



Going off-coarse! 6th Jan

Into a Carp

I'm mainly a fly angler but now and again i do a little Coarse fishing and as the rivers were still high for doing our preffered grayling fishing  , Brian suggested it would be a good option . So it was off to Eliburn reservoir was fair looking forward too it, on the way we planned to get maggots, but the tackle shop at broxburn didnt open , so it was a drive into edinburgh to country life , after buying a few floats , hooks and the maggots , we eventually found ourselves setting up.Gradually the loose feeding began to kick in and we were into fish, first a perch each,

Perch

Ide

then an ide each ,then i lost a carp, infact i hooked two , lost both, in the session, mid way through the day the gudgeon joined the perch in the  feeding  spree,

Gudgeon

and even the roach put   in a appearance ,the ide put in a late appearace again.

A shocked looking roach

a fine way to spend a day.

A few brief flings on the canal

Had a few wee casual sessions on the canal , jabbed  lost some very  good roach, the hook just didn't quite catch hold, had my first Rudd on the fly on Friday.

 

Today was the better day the sun was out .Here's the best i landed. I took the longer 7ft 6" rod and got on better with it, more accuracy and easier to avoid the bank side vegetation!

fat roach

Roach in the sun

2nd,3rd

The dog needed walking the sun was high in the sky, so i grabbed a few hours. Roach a plenty were in there shoals, the nymph scored well.

 

I really enjoy fishing for them , i think there a worthy quarry for the fly fisher.

My New Addiction!

Sun was out today, had to satisfy my new addiction. Some wee size 18 kamasan B410 arrived in the mail, so I tied up some tiny nymphs. They did work but not on the big fish, i don't think the slow descent attracts them like the size 14 turkey biot nymph. So ive decided this is going to be my go to fly despite the lack of hook-ups with smaller fish, in anycase i'm not really interested in catching the wee roach, if i wanted to do that i'd just fish with a waggler float and some bait. For me this is becoming a selective method, a way to get the better fish, and how satisfying it is when all go's to plan!

On the Cut

As luck would have it i had the afternoon to myself. So i decided to go and See if the roach were up for it. It was a overcast day with occasional light showers and occasionally the sun would come out. The sun  is useful for spotting the shoals, the cloudier it gets the deeper the shoals seem to go.

Theres plenty perch amongst the shoals they behave exactly like the roach until the nymph is presented and on the retrieve they have a go.

Jack pike

I had plenty roach most took on the descent of the nymph missed a big one, in fact when a decent roach shoal came into view it was exciting these roach seem to take a nymph fairly confidently, i did manage to get a substantial roach plus a few good quality ones and a few wee ones. It's a very selective and effective way of fishing , cant wait to get up there again. Some pics:

wee fellae

fin perfect (looking at the anal fin looks like it has a bit of bream in it)

specimen roach

A wee handful

A change of Coarse

I walked the dog along the canal today, where i spotted a few shoals of roach here and there ,a  few perch amongst them and the usual jack pike in the margins. Was thinking about going for the pike but decided it would be a nice change to target the roach.  So at 2:30pm i grabbed the gear and had a go. I tried the dries, first  a shuttlecock buzzer i briefly hooked into one, but they quickly sussed it out. so tried a few various dries , including a size 14 black klink but they weren't fooled, so into the fly box and i selected a small size 16 brown turkey biot nymph with a black(actually called gunmetal) 2.4mm bead. With instant results.

Shoals that seemed to be sleeping suddenly woke up there was a good mix of sizes with a few big ones amongst them. The important thing was seeing the fish take the fly so Polaroids were essential , this would be either by seeing a flash of the flank or one in the shoal shooting forward out of suit with the rest of the shoal. I'm convinced the plop of the fly was a trigger as was the decent as i further experimented hanging the fly off a large klink , the minute the decent stopped the fish lost interest  the , klink you might think would be good for showing takes but if i was looking at the klink i would have missed fish it never moved though a few fish did show interest to the klink , they did not take it properly a bit like mullet mouthing bread, a better presentation was a single nymph, takes were within seconds of it hitting the water.

A few fish. I reckon fly fishing is a good way of getting the better roach . Or atleast it was the case today. 

A good one!