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
Had a great days fishing with cousin Chris on his yacht yesterday. We were fishing just inside (out of the shipping channel) the guard bouy in Harwich harbour. It was a windy south westerly with a steady 20 knots.
Luckily we were not far off the pilot station, in the lee of the land. It was still a bit on the lumpy side, especially when the pilot boats came in and out. Half of them slow down and obey their own speed limits but the other half give it the full throttle and do about 15 knots or so.
The pilot cutters wash made the good ship Lollipop rock and roll. You get used to it after a while!
We were using Lugworm for bait that I had dug the day before at Earlams. I managed to dig around 180 worms in about 1.5 hours. As usual, we had plenty of worms and we didn’t get to use them all. I brought the unused worms back home and re-wrapped them for the next trip on the pier on Sunday or Monday
We finished up with about 8 whiting between us and I caught the bonus Codling. I didn’t even see it bite. I was just winding it in to check the bait! Sometimes you just get lucky. It was only lightly hooked in the bottom lip so I was lucky to get it into the landing net! The Codling weighed in around the 4lb mark. Not a huge fish but a nice size to fillet.
All the fish were filleted this morning and they are now in the freezer!
Thanks again to Chris for taking me fishing. Hopefully we can get one more trip in before the boat comes out for its annual scrub.
Had our usual (we we try to) bi monthly trip over to Fennes yesterday 24th Sept. The weather was beautiful for this time of year. Light westerleys with a slight ripple on the surface.
I fished two rods. One on the float and one out on the ledger. I started catching Perch almost straight away. I tried spam and strips of ham that had been in the fridge at home a day or two longer than it was safe to put in a sarnie!
I also had some large shrimp for bait that I had bought from Iceland, Dovercourt. Nice store.
Chris was fishing with his Maver pole. He was using the full 13 metre section.
We ended the day with lots of fish coming to the net. I had a couple of nice Perch, the largest being 2 lbs and a common carp around 5 lbs. I caught the biggest Perch on a ledgered shrimp!
Chris caught loads of silver stuff, some nice Bream and finished with a ugly carp!
We tried a Bass fishing trip on the 28th August out on cousin Chris’s Boat!
Big mistake.
The wind was gusting 35 knots so all our usual fishing spots were going to be too uncomfortable.
We picked up a mooring opposite Levington marina in the River Orwell. Chris and I used Lugworm for bait. I dug about 80 worms on the wednesday so we had enough worms. I also bought a back of prawns to try.
The trouble was that the wind kept swinging the boat about through 180 degrees and with the wind, it was nigh on impossible to register any bites. We persevered until about 3:15pm and gave up. Chris caught a small bass (on Lug) which went back in the water.
See photo to prove we actually caught one. It is the Royal ‘We’, because I only caught weed.
On the way back we saw some lovely storms (in the distance) but luckily managed to dodge them.
Chris and I had a brilliant days fishing at Fennes once again.
We met up at the usual time of 10 am and decided to fish the top lake for a change.
The weather was hot at about 25 degrees centigrade.
There was a small private match going on at one end of the lake with about 10 fishermen. We chose a likely spot at the other end and set up. I was into the tiddlers from the word go using sweetcorn as bait. I caught a nice selection of rudd, roach and roach/bream hybrids. I used a shakespeare 12′ match rod with some nice but ‘no name’ reel.
I used 7lb test line, just in case a large carp wanted to play. The hook was a size 12 barbless and I float fished just on the bottom which was about 4′ deep. The bait selection was mainly sweetcorn, luncheon meat, chopped up into small cubes and maggots.
After 30 minutes or so, I changed bait from the sweetcorn to the meat. I was only fishing about 15 feet out, next to the reeds. There were loads of hungry Perch that were taking the meat. I did not see them when using the sweetcorn.
At about 11 am, I cast out as usual to the same spot about 15 feet out, just as a carp was cruising by on the surface. The small cube of meat splashed into the water about 2″ in front of his nose and bam! . He was off and running, straight into the reeds.
Luckily the silly fish swam straight out again and after a few minutes, cousin Chris netted him/her for me. Chris took a photo and I put it straight back.
Chris mostly used the pole and caught some nice Bream and a couple of F1 hybrid carp. He was using a Maver 10 metre pole. I cannot tell you the model . I will put in some photos and a short video of him catching the carp. If you are in the market for some poles then please visit polecarp where you will find a nice selection of poles for sale on eBay.
I go freshwater fishing every other week at present. That is why I do not update the blog quite so frequently.
My other project is putting in a new kitchen for my missus. That is also taking up a lot of valuable fishing time.
More later………………… Tight lines to all you fishing folk.
Met up with cousin Chris on Wed 17th April for a days fishing at Fennes. It was to celebrate his birthday!
This time the fishing was much better. The weather was warm at about 20 centigrade and cloudy with it. We both had a good day with plenty of Bream showing and some very nice Roach. I caught a Crucian carp for the first time at Fennes and Chris had 4 or 5 small carp on the pole. Sweetcorn proved to be the bait of the day.
The carp are still not really feeding yet but I think it will get better in the coming weeks.
Now that the warmer weather is here I thought that a day out to Fennes fishery near Braintree would be a nice change. I met up with cousin Chris at the fishery around 10 am. The weather was cool and cloudy which was just about right. We headed off to a couple of nice looking swims and set up our tackle.
The fishing started slowly with Chris catching roach on those soft halibut flavoured pellets whilst I persevered with sweetcorn. After about an hour of chucking in the odd handful of groundbait and sweetcorn the Bream started to appear. Nothing huge, the biggest being around the 2lb mark. I also had a small arp. Chris took a bit longer to find the Bream but they came into his swim eventually. The other Carp fishermen where having a real quiet time of it so Bream bashing was the best idea for us.
Unfortunately the heavens opened up around 2pm and it pi**ed down until we packed up at 4pm a bit damp and cold. We would have stayed much later but for the weater.
I had a great days fishing with Cousin Chris on Thursday 19th March.
I drove over to Titchmarsh marina and arrived at 07:45hrs. I was a bit earlier than last time because Chris slept on board the night before. Rather him than me as the overnight temperature was close to zero and whilst it is nice and warm in the bunk with the duvet on it is freezing when you have to get up for the inevitable pee in the night.
We had a nice cup of coffee and caught up on the family news and then cast off at 08:15hrs. For once, we had the tide ebbing with us as we left the Walton backwaters. Because of this we got to the fishing spot shortly after 09:30hrs.
We fished in the usual spot between Felixstowe and Harwich.
The weather forecasters got it wrong again. (I wish they were paid on performance). It was supposed to be a nice calm day. I don’t call 18 knots from the North East calm! Still, we were in the lee from the container docks so the sea was not lumpy.
For bait we used the Lugworm that I had dug the day before down at Earlams beach. I dug about 100 Lug and they were big ones!
I also wanted to try out the new rod and reel combos that I had recently purchased. I bought them from Lidls and they were the princely some of £16.60 each. They came loaded with line and even had a pirk and some plastic eels included. The rod and reels worked a treat. The rods were a little bit on the sturdy side but did the job nicely.
We started fishing the last hour of the ebb and the only bites and fish were tiddlers. Small whiting, pouting and even a couple of stray school bass which is very unusual this time of year. The water temperature is still only 8 degrees.
The bites started around 2 hours after low water when the Codling started to move back into the River mouth with the flood tide. The bites were gentle and not fierce lunges like they can be. The sprats seem to have gone as well because the Codling we caught we not coughing them up like last time. We fished until 3:30pm and ended up with 8 codling between us.
Chris got 5 and I got 3. Not a huge haul but the fish were around the 2lb mark so quite nice. Anyway the more fish you catch, the longer they take to fillet. It was another fine days fishing using specimen lugworm as bait.
I filleted the Cod on Friday morning in the back garden. I thought I was still at sea with all the seagulls wheeling overhead and screeching at each other. I admit I teased them with the left overs before putting them in the compost bin!
The weather is beautiful. Life is good. I am going fishing again this week. We currently have a high pressure sitting over us here in sunny Harwich so the weather is nice and calm.
I will go and dig some lugworm tomorrow down at Earlams.
Cousin Chris and I will be fishing on Thursday out at our favourite spot in the River Stour. Hopefully there will be some Cod around still. I will report back!
Boy there is so much to do this time of year. Dig the veggie garden and plant spuds, carrots, beetroot, etc etc.
