June has come and gone, at least the sun made a very welcome appearance and the weather became very warm for a few days. I have been a bit slow getting the page updated, so this info will be from memory and I might miss a bit.
So in no particular order here goes.
Although the weather has improved and the days have been longer I have not fished that many matches. After a chat in the pub one night I suggested a couple of evening matches on Meadow View near Lymm. Following the Supercup practice match at the beginning of the year I felt that with the size of fish it was possible that someone could get get a good weight and hopefully break the magic ton. So a mini league of 3 matches was organised on Sunday evenings. The first match got off to a good start with John Bryan netting 87lb on pellet at 4 metres from peg 4. I was on peg 6 and managed 28lb on meat for 5th place. (battered off the next peg, I know) The second match, a week later I faired a little better getting 47lb on meat fished shallow at 13 metres or at 5 metres, from peg 20. This weight ended up third in the match. 51lb won so it was a little closer. My thinking after the first match that fish would be caught shallow, so my main lines of attack were to fish meat shallow and feed 4mm pellets at 13 metres and then feed a line a 5 metres with 6mm cubes of meat for later in the match. I got a fish straight away at 13 metres, but was quiet after that. I tried changing depths and feeding, but all I got were a cluster of bubbles in the peg over the feed. I tried on the deck, and managed a couple of fish and caught a couple more shallow. It was very frustrating having fish fizz in the peg and not be able to catch regularly. However switching to the 5 metre line I caught fish a bit better by feeding around a dozen cubes of meat and fishing a single cube on the hook.
I think my main problem was trying to make meat fishing work, thinking it would sort out the better fish. However in reflection I feel I would have caught more in each match by fishing the same way but with pellets as bait instead. This was a lesson I was to ignore as you will find out in July.
To take advantage of the lighter nights and an early finish from work I fished a Warrington AA evening match on the Bridgewater Canal at Stockton Heath on the pegs at Beech Road. In order to win the main line would be catching skimmers on pellets, not exactly traditional canal fishing. but when in Rome. So I set up a pellet rig for 11.5 metres, which would be fed with 2mm pellets and some fishmeal groundbait with a 4mm expander on the hook, and I also fished a light rig with pinkies at 4 metres. At the all in I feed the pellet line with a cup containing pellets and groundbait and started on pinkies while that line settled. After 20 mins and only a couple of small perch on pinkie I tried the pellet rig. Much too my surprise after a couple of minutes the float sunk and I lifted the pole to be met with...nothing. After that I could not get a bite! I re-fed at regular intervals but I only managed a small skimmer of around 6oz. The match was won from the end peg with 7lb odd. I did not bother to weigh in. Never mind.
I did manage to spend another evening having a pleasure fishing session on Budworth Mere, near Northwich. This is a very nice place to go with hopefully a few bream thrown in for good measure (see picture). Anyway I just set up a feeder rod and fished as far as I could accurately cast in line with the buoy in the picture. I set up a simple paternoster rig with a groundbait feeder and double maggot on the hook, with groundbait and casters in the feeder. The water on this bank is quite shallow but a good day can be had in the right conditions. Thankfully when I fished it was warm, overcast and a little breezy. From previous visits it seems the lake was down a little, and with shallow margins it is possible to wade out and set a platform up and fish away from the bank. Once the tackle was ready I quickly punched out six casts with just groundbait and casters to get some feed in the peg and hopefully the noise would bring in some fish. After that I tied on a 3 foot hooklength and baited with 2 red maggots and started fishing. I soon caught a few nice roach and the odd perch, and after a while I started to get some nice hybrids up to 2lb or so, which gave a good scrap. Unfortunately I did not get any bream. To be honest I think I bumped a couple off so I could have spooked them in the shallow clear water. Bad angling! At the end of the night I think I had between 20-30lb, which was not too bad. In the past I have managed a few bream towards the end of the session, which average around 4lb. I would like to have a proper day on the venue to see if a bigger weight is possible, by fishing for longer. That's hopefully for another time soon.
The last match was an open at Brookside near Stretton outside Warrington on the Snake. I have not fished here regularly for a couple a years, but I felt like a change from Partridge, which was looking like becoming a race to catch the fish, which is fine if plenty of fish are in front of you, but not much fun if you are struggling.
Anyway I have always preferred to fish pellets at Brookside in order to catch the better stamp of fish. Since my more regular visits the venue has been stoked with Ide and the winning methods have been to fish caster shallow. If I did this I would be a long way off the regulars who fish it all the time, so I stuck with what I know. I drew peg 57 on the back Snake, which can be a good peg. I set up rigs to cover the far bank, 3/4's of the way across and at 5 metres. My far bank rig could also be fished in the margins if needed. I started across feeding 3mm green swim stim pellets, corn and a little groundbait and caught a couple of nice F1's but after half an hour I was slowing down. I tried down the middle only to catch a few small tench. Meanwhile around me anglers were catching on caster fished shallow. So I set up a shallow pellet rig to try to single out the F1's I did manage to get a couple, but nothing to make me think I had cracked it. During the match I had fed a line at 5 metres with pellets and paste to fish later on. Paste is something I have caught on in the past at Brookside. Even when I have not had a bite on anything else the same swim produces fish on paste. So I started on paste and got a couple of quick fish, but not many bites, so I swapped to pellet and started to get bites more quickly including a couple of good size skimmers over 2lbs. By now it was approaching the end of the match, so I stayed on this line, and I must admit that I caught most of my fish on it. In the end I weighed 34lb which was about 10lb short of the next best caster weight. At the end I felt if the far bank had produced more fish I would have been a lot closer to the caster weights. All that it illustrates is that you have to learn the winning methods in order to keep up. At the moment fishing caster shallow is the winning method at Brookside and Partridge, as it catches both the F1's and Ide.
At last one final note preparations for the Division 1 National started with a trip down to the Nottingham area to have look round some of sections on the River Trent, just to get an idea of where some of the access points are. So on the day that England got knocked out of the World Cup by Germany myself and Craig Richie got into Jeff Stolls car and went for a tour. After a good breakfast at Tesco's near Long Eaton we managed to find Fiskerton, Newark Dyke, Winthorpe and watched the weigh in from the tidal river at South Clifton. From those visits both Fiskerton and Newark Dyke looked good, but the tidal sections looked patchy.
So that is June in a long nutshell. Next month will be all about the practice matches on the legendary Trent.
Tight lines
