First visit to Snitters of the year...

Sunday myself and Danny decided to meet up at Snitterfield Ressie and target the roach that have in previous seasons fed well in Feb/March, with the average stamp being around 8 oz it makes for some pleasant fishing. We had also heard of some slightly larger fish coming out so might be interesting...

I got there before Danny and started to set up at on e of my favourite pegs, I say set up it was more like a full on fight with my on box which was being decidedly awkward, as the footplate had dropped out and for the life of me I could not get it to set level...sometimes more tackle and kit is more of a pain in the arse, than just a chair and rod! Just as I finished the duel, Danny arrived and set on the peg next to me.

On arrival he said that he had something for me....I thought this was going to be another sample of the cookies that his girlfriend makes for us on a regular basis..but no! He reminded me that on a recent visit to the Windrush when we met up with David to target Grayling, we had agreed on the "pound for the biggest challenge"! On this occasion I won, with what has to be said was a very small specimen but on a hard day was the only one caught..David prior to departing walked over to me and paid he way....but Danny I thought was trying to relent on his bet! This was until he produced "the pound for the biggest award". After receiving this illustrious award from Mr D Everitt from The Lure of Angling, we got down to fishing...for which we agreed the award would be straight back up for grabs with roach being the target!

I had set up my pole with two swims, one at 10 meters with a deep pellet rig consisting of a Drannan 1.0g Lake float, olivette and size 16 G point pellet hook, my tactic on this swim was going to be to cup some 2mm expanders in then fish a 4mm over the top. The second was a top three kit for the inside line, with a Drennan 0.5g pinkie float with number 10 shot shirt button style for on-the-drop fishing to a size 22 team England hook. On this line my tactic was going to be to start with liquidised bread with punch, then introduce pinkies at a later stage.

The other rod I set up was a light feeder with 5lb line onto which I put a Preston Pellet feeder with a long link to a size 16 pellet hook, on which I would use the 2mm in the feeder on the 4mm on the hook as the bream in the ressie love those pellets!

I was struggling to settle on the inside line as it did not quite feel right and though I did snag a few roach after an hour or so, it did not really kick on and bites were extremely quick and finicky.

So, I tried the feeder and had an instant response by bagging a few nice bream which averaged out at about 1lb 8oz and some very hard fighting roach/bream hybrids. But, with roach as the target I knew I would have to do something different to catch them.

Hard fighting hybrid

I changed my light inside line rig for a blob float with only one number 10 shot on, focusing my efforts on bringing the fish up in the water at 10 metres by spraying 5-10 pinkies over the top every 20 seconds. Again this was met with some interesting results as it became evident that the fast bites were Rudd, doing a hit and run on the bait. After a while I had bagged some very pretty fish that were fin perfect. Including a nice Rudd of about 8oz and a roach of 120z, which ended up being this fish that retained, "the pound for the biggest" award!!!!

My best roach of the day

The major award

At dinner time we called it time and though the conditions had been great for roach and silvers we were a little disappointed with our haul, I ended up with just over 10lb of silvers...not bad for march but should have been more! Did not take a bloody picture though!

College pool and it p***ed it down!

After fishing Snitters I decided to give college pool a go on Tuesday. I had decided to try and fish the "Polaris" slider float with a cage feeder into the centre of lake over a bed of corn and pellets with some fishmeal ground bait mixed to try and pull in and hold the bream that I know are in the pool. As well as this I took my pole for and inside line.

I arrived to an empty pool so walked around to see where the bream might be feeding. After ten minutes it became evident that they were all over with fish topping and producing feeding bubbles almost every where I stopped. So I decided to fish about half way down the right hand bank with a slightly overhanging tree situated.

I mixed my ground bait and participle first of all to ensure the bream had time to move onto the bait prior to the introduction of my hook bait. Using the Polaris float as my marker I balled in 5 oranges into the swim. also introducing a couple down the inside line at only 4 meters out, under the overhanging tree.

I baited the hook with corn and caster and introduced the rig to the baited area, to say it felt strange feeder fishing with a float was an understatement. With the water being so deep and not wanting to have a tight line going through the swim I saw it as my only real choice.

Whilst that settled I rigged my pole on the inside line...getting a huge surprise when I discovered I have to fish 8 metres to hand in order to hold bottom. Very weird way of fish the pole at just 4 metres out! To ensure that my bait found the depth I set up quite a heavy pole float at 1.5g with an olivette at 15 inches above my hook with two number 9 dropper shot.

On completing this my polaries float shot up nearly lifting completely out of the water, so I wound down to find my first bream of the had taken the bait. Looked like I way in for a good day at the point....

I quickly re-baited and returned to the abyss...where it remained for quite some time! There were fish feeding around my baited area but they just were not taking my bait....?

I decided to try the pole down the near edge and hit another bream straight away, not quite what I was expecting....

The rain then decided to test my resolve for the next three hours giving me an absolute soaking..I could be in a hot bath!

As the rain stopped I started to notice that there was still fish feeding on my baited area so to change I swapped the polaris set up for a method feeder in an attempt to try a different style of presentation. Once again after only 5 mins I had another bream, this was to be my last taken from the centre swim.

The next 3 bream all came from the pole swim, falling to soft expander pellets. Overall not to disappointed with 6 bream for over 30lbs of fish.

Over 30lb of bream.

Largest pair at 7lb 4oz and 6lb 8oz

After getting so wet sitting still I decided to have some fun with the angry little carp that live at each end of the lake. Every put in get one of the little carp to bite, they must be very hungry. But as they are so angry I would urge people to tackle alot heavier than normal as they do not like being hooked.

One of the angry little folk at about 5lb

Will look to try and do some canal carpin soon.

Snitterfield on the pixie hunt!

On Sunday morning I decided to get up and over to Snitterfield to target my favourite quarry, crucian carp. I have fished Snitterfield a lot over the years and feel that I have a reasonable understanding of the reservoir. It is like no other reservoir that I have fished quite often people simply fish way to far out when in fact the fish are right at your feet feeding off the concrete shelves edge.

I arrived at Snitterfield for about 6am and had the plan of fishing the top end where I have fish a lot or my favourite swim on the road bank....I was amazed when I drove down the road to find 7 anglers already fishing...not only the top but most of the top road pegs! Gutted...but I suppose if I ever fish a match on this water in the future I need to fish more than just the swims that I know and feel happy on. After looking at likely pegs I settled on one towards the end of the road side bank.

On setting up my tackle there were plenty of Roach and Rudd topping with occasional distinctive crucian mixed in between. Great fish in my swim! As well as the Great Crest Greeb.

I set up my pole rigs and plumbed up a line to my rig at about 4 metres and one to the left at 8 metres from the bank, into which I cupped a mixture of soft feed pellets, hemp and a few pinkies. By doing this I hoped the Crucians would follow the silvers onto the bed of feed that I had laid down.

In reserve I also set up my feeder rod (Shimano Beastmaster 9/11'') at its smaller length of just 9ft, I really like this little rod and would highly recommend it. Very strong for its weight and has a very nice soft action whilst still having the backbone to fight back hard. To this I rigged a Preston pellet feeder on a long 3lb hook link to a G point wide gape size 16 pellet hook pattern (very good expander pellet hooks) I set this up as I knew if the Crucians were not feeding the Bream might be??

Not long after Dan arrived and set up in the search of the "pixies" on the corner peg with a the overhanging tree.He had selected to fish a long float rod with a pole float "on the lift"
, with pellet and paste as his bait choices.

I started fishing on my inside line but it did not respond as I thought it usually does...so I tried the 8 metre line...again not real activity..strange for Snitterfield. So in desperation I tried double pinkie on the inside line and got a Roach immediately, but I did not really want to do this as I came to the Ressie to target the golden "pixies". Still no response???? Something was not right, was I fishing ontop of weed, was my shotting pattern incorrect or hook link to heavy? Then when feeding some free expander's the answer became clear...I had messed up my hook baits by not pumping them properly the previous evening, this resulting in them floating or hanging in mid water...so annoyed, massive waste of time and effort! I quickly pumped some new bait and checked my depths were correct by re-plumbing both swims.. The only fish really until now falling to the feeder rig at about 30 meters.

Brace of bream taken on the pellet feeder

Well it was like flicking a switch, bites came straight away but not from my quarry in fact in the whole morning I only managed to bag one! Taking 4 bream on the feeder and one on the inside accompanied by and a few nice roach on the inside was my total catch about 15lb tops...not as good as usual.

Few bars of silver
Whilst I spoke to Dan of my general disappointment with my haul for the morning, an angler from the top section of the lake spoke to us and it appeared that no body else had really caught all day so every cloud un all!

Best Brama of the day...only about 3lb 6oz

I will be back soon to give them another go.