Chris and I had another good days fishing over at Fennes fishery.  We fished the main lake, by the shop, not far from the car park.

I set up two feeder rods and Chris set up one Feeder and one float fishing.

The fishing was a tad slow especially for me as I elected to stay on ledgering all day. I ended up with four carp. Two nice ones and two small F1 carp.

Chris did rather better on the numbers side. He caught a couple of nice Bream on the float rod using maggots. He also caught a large number of roach, a couple of Rudd, some small Perch and a bonus surprise Gudgeon. We were both unaware that they were in the lake and it was the first Gudgeon that either of us had seen from Fennes.

He caught a couple of nice Carp on the ledger and lost a couple as well.  Bait of the day was Morrisons cat food biscuits, either drilled or on a lasso rig.  I caught my two nice Carp on cooked shrimp that I had earlier netted in the Dovercourt boating pond!

I left a couple of feeder weights in the trees!  Sorry Chris (they were his).

Hi All,

It has been a while, my apologies for not posting.    I have had a couple of good fishing trips just lately. One was on the Ha’penny pier with Mickey on Sunday 19th Sept. I caught a small schoolie Bass (which we threw back in) on Lugworm. If it had have been 4 cms longer and a pound heavier, I would have eaten it. I caught it at high tide, on Lugworm.

The next trip was with Cousin Chris over at Fennes, Braintree on 23rd Sep. We had a good afternoons fishing. Chris caught some nice Perch, on Maggot and Mussel.  He also caught a nice Carp on Maggot (I think) and the others on Morrison’s Catfood (see picture). I caught 5 nice carp . One was on a tiger nut boilie and the other 4 on Morrisons Catfood as well.

I have had 2 fishing sessions at Fennes with Cousin Chris and a sailing trip from Walton on the Naze to Ramsgate to Dunkirk, Niewpoort and then back to Walton on the Naze.

The sailing was at the beginning of the Month for 4 days. We had good sailing weather but could have done with a little more wind for the trip back across the North Sea. We caught one Mackerel between us which was cooked for lunch. We spent a little time in Ramsgate, Dunkirk and Niewpoort. Niewpoort was the best place for me.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a fishing pole. I bought a cheapo Ron Thompson 8 metre pole to see if I liked it.. It came with 6 made up rigs and a size 18 elastic fitted to it.

I am now a converted pole fisherman. Just have to save up for a lighter longer version. In the meantime, I will buy a longer power top and maybe an extension so I can fish out at 10 metres.

See pictures of sailing and fishing!

Well the weather was just about perfect but muggins here only caught one small F1 carp the whole day.   Chris did really well with the pole and had a good bag of F1 carp, bream, roach, rudd and tench.  He caught a lovely 16lb 6oz common carp and a nice tench which looked about 3lbs.

The guy next to us caught a whopper common carp. It weighed in about 28lbs 8oz. I say about because the scales were fluctuating a bit as the fish moved in the weigh bag.

The baits were mostly halibut hooker soft pellets for Chris.   Sweetcorn and soft liquorice for me and the guy who caught the whopper caught it in the near margins with a lump of spam.

Even though I only caught the one fish, it was most enjoyable. Loads of carp were splashing about, spawning in the reeds, right under our feet.

Must buy a pole for the next fishing trip.

More next time…..

Chris and I had our 3rd visit of the year to Fennes Fisheries, Braintree yesterday. It was out best days fishing so far with a good bag of Bream with a few bonus Carp thrown in for good measure. Chris fished mainly with the pole and I used a long range feeder method together with a float set up just on the edge of some reeds about 15 feet out.
I tried some soft liquorice bait for the first time with the feeder. I used a number 8 barbless lassoo set up. The fish seemed to like the liquorice bait as I caught a couple of nice Bream and a F1 Carp. I fished sweetcorn on the float rod and caught steadily throughout the day. Mostly roach/bream hybrids, quite a few rudd, one large Crucian and some nice Bream.

Chris caught more fish than me as usual using the pole method and soft halibut flavoured expander pellets. He caught mostly Bream, roach/bream hybrids, roach, some nice carp and a bonus tench.

All in all a good days fishing. Next trip is scheduled in 2 weeks.

Went to Fennes estates again last Thursday with Chris. We had quite a good days fishing in the top lake. Chris used pole and I used a match rod & reel. Chris caught a good weight of mostly Bream with a few F1 Carp and Roach thrown in. I on the other hand did not catch nearly as many fish. I caught a couple of Bream, a Rudd plenty of small Perch and some Roach. Oh yes, one of the Perch was about 1lb.
The lesson I learned is that the pole fishing is so precise when it comes to placing the bait and fishing in exactly the same spot, each and every time. The groundbait pot that can be fixed onto the end of the pole is also a good move. I am not so good at chucking in the groundbait to hit the same spot again and again.

Chris was using small expander pellets as bait which worked a treat. I used mainly red worms that I got from our compost bin. Only trouble with them is that the micro Perch love them.

Memo to me. Get myself a pole to try out!

Well, not much to report fish wise. Chris and I anchored the ‘Lollipop’ in the River Stour, just outside the shipping channel, not far from the end of the stone pier. We were hoping to see some nice spring Cod running up the river but all we caught were very small Cod and Whiting. They must have been last years hatch from the size of them. I won the smallest fish prize. It was a whiting about 4″ long. Shame really because I had loads of Lugworm for bait! The day was really murky but the sea was calm as you can see in the pictures. It started to rain at about 2pm and as we were only getting these small nibbles from tiny fish we up anchored and headed back to the marina at Titchmarsh. Oh well, better luck with the fishing next time!

Sorry for the long absence from this blog. I have not been fishing for a while. The cold weather makes me a bit of a fair weather fisherman these days. Apart from that, the Cod in and around Harwich have been absent for the last 2 months. Off chasing Sprats I guess.
Cousin Chris has put his yacht Lollipop back into the water at Titchmarsh marina and we are going fishing on Thursday, weather permitting!
I cycled down to Earlams beach this morning to catch the 10 am low tide. It was a beautiful day for the Human race. It took me 15 minutes or so to get there on my (t)rusty bike. I visited the usual spot and was pleasantly surprised to see that the Lugworm had multiplied since my last visit. I dug around 180 worms in just over an hour. I will report again after the fishing trip.

I had a few hours fishing on the Ha’penny pier yesterday afternoon. It was a calm murky drizzly sort of day. No one else was fishing so I had the pier to myself. I now know why. No fish, no bites, nada! I had the best sort of bait which was live shrimp that I had caught in the local boating lake. I use a small dip net and I can catch enough in five minutes for a few hours fishing.
I fished for about 3 hours and came home. It was all very pleasant but there was no activity on the fish front whatsoever. Better luck next time. I spent most of my time throwing a few shrimp at a tame Turnstone (see pics)

Had a quick trip down to the promenade at Harwich to use up the rest of the lugworm that I dug last Sunday. The worms were mostly half dead, limp and starting to pong so I thought it might be a waste of time. I arrived at the bottom of Barrack Lane around 11:10 am, just an hour before high water.

There was another Angler there who was just setting up. He was using Squid and Mackerel.

First cast, I get a small Bass which I returned safely. Thereafter I got bite after bite until about 12:15hrs.  All the fish caught after the Bass were Whiting and I caught about 12 in total. 4 were big enough and one of them went to 1lb 1oz and was 37cm long. Biggest whiting so far this year. The smelly worms did the trick and the other Angler caught nowt

!