First trip of 2015

So I was talking to Mrs Clunk about fishing, and she said she would like to try it.
So I decided a date to my favourite haunt, the Kennet and Avon canal in near Devizes.
We decided on our spot near Marsh lane bridge. Now under the Devizes AA rules, we aren't supposed to fish on lock operation moorings. I did not realise what these were, as the no fishing sign is missing from my usual spot and it wasn't till a fellow fishing fellow pointed this out that I was aware I was technically breaking the rules. However, it does not say it on the current license, so this is something that I feel needs clearing up.
So my spot was chosen on the lock mouth of one of the pounds. it gave us loads of space without being obtrusive, and it gave us loads of features to fish to. I set up 2 float rods, and a Ledger. Opting to keep the carp rod in the bag for this trip.
We got there nice and early as well, to avoid boat traffic. And after teaching Mrs Clunk how to cast, off she went. She caught a couple of nice roach while I was setting everything else up.
I finally got set up and started on the waggler. We caught a few nice fish. Anything tiny was released. Medium fish put into the net.
My fish of the day was a nice size bream caught very quickly.
I managed to get a perfect cast up against the weed raft, and just lowered my rod tip, and flicked over the bail arm to sink the line when the float disappeared, and a 'V' was appearing in the water where the line was sinking quite rapidly. I struck into the first fish to put a bend in my rod. Reeled it in without too many issues, and landed a nice bream.

I had another couple of nice bream on the feeder, and we bagged up with about 25 mixed roach/rudd and a couple of perch. But the highlight was the police turning up after a pair of fishermen on a pound down from us had given abuse to some holidaymakers on a boat, when they drifted towards their Rods.
I consider this unacceptable behaviour from a fellow fisherman and canal user.

To-Do in 2015

As I have said before, I am a pleasure angler. I don't restrict myself to one type of fish or fishing style. I will go for whatever takes my fancy on the day. That being said, I will be setting out to get new PB's this year. This also involves me making a spreadsheet of what I catch. Because of this, I will be weighing fish in grams from now on. Just because there is no decent formula for dealing with lbs and oz in excel. This in mind, I have decide to erase all my pb's so far. Which isn't much to be fair, but converting lbs to kg's isn't accurate, and things can go astray. As it is, I only have 3 notable pb's
Carp: 15lbs
Pike: 3lbs (I know. I have never specifically set out to fish them, so have only caught strays)
Perch 2lbs 1oz

Objectives I have so far set myself are:

• Fish Calne canal and find out what is really in there. It is a small streach of canal about 200 yards long. Back when I started fishing in my teens, there was nothing in it except tiny minnows and sticklebacks. I've heard its been stocked, but I have never seen anyone fish it. No idea what is in there at all. So will be trying various tactics. It also has a lot of duck weed on the surface, so I will mostly be using ledger tactics. Might invest in a small pole to fish small openings in the weed. 
• Proper carp session: It has never really taken my fancy. Throwing out huge piles of bait and waiting for a fish to find the hook bait. It seems more like trapping than fishing. But I cannot criticise it till I do it. And I know some people will be thingking 'but you have caught carp', yes I have. But I cast to an area I saw activity, with a single boilie on the hair, and a string of half a dozen on pva. I didn't bomb the area with gallons of bait. 
• The area where the Marden meets the Avon. Looking at google earth, this looks like a good place to fish. Lets find out. 
• Different areas of the Kennet and Avon. I usually fish the same four pounds. Yet my permit gives me 10 miles to choose from. I need to explore. 

That is my todo list so far for the year. It will change as and when things happen. 

Small update

A bit of a late post this, but have been very busy.
A quick update:
Went fishing with my old man a few weeks back. It was his first time.
He managed to bag up on small silvers, but the highlight of the day for me was landing my PB carp of 15lbs.

Anyway, this maybe the last fishing related blog post until the new year, so if im not back by January, Wait longer.

Review: Dunlop Biomimetic 13ft waggler rod.

I have used this rod three times now, and as stated I feel its time for a review.

Cost:
I bought the rod from Dragoncarp direct for £18. It arrived the following day.

Looks:
The rod looks nice. Made from a carbon blank with a cork and rubberised handle.

Build:
The rod is well made. The eyes are nice and straight and seem to be stuck to the blank with resin as opposed to being whipped. The eyes are lined with what feels like ceramic rings.

Performance:
The rod has a nice progressive bend to it when fighting a fish. The eyes seem perfectly spaced to perform with the bend of the blank. With the Shakespear Mach2xt reel, it is very well balanced at the end of the handle. Control of the rod is effortless, and holding it for prolonged periods is comfortable.
With the aforementioned reel loaded with 5lb line, casting is smooth and precise with little drag on the eyes.
The butt is of a nice length, and rests nicely along your forearm when fighting fish.

Buying:
Dragoncarp direct no longer seem to stock this rod, and I cannot find it online. But I would recommend it as a good budget rod if you can find it.

overall, I would give it 8/10.

Review terms and conditions.

When I review an item or service, I will generally use them 3 times before I submit a review. Exceptions would be in extreme circumstances like catastrophic failure on first use, unexpected results, or very exceptional circumstances.

All opinions will be my own and uninfluenced by any other source. Feel free to make your own minds up.

When I review a service or shop, I obviously have no choice but to base opinion on my experiences.

I will include buying links from where I purchased the item, and a google shop link. It is up to you to decide where to purchase the item from.

I am not an experienced angler. Nor do I claim to be. As said elsewhere on the blog, I am returning to angling after 12 years away. I am starting from scratch. My intention is to get cheap kit to cover all fishing instances as soon as possible, then upgrade as and when I need to replace. I do not expect faultless performance, nor do I expect extremely poor performance. I expect kit to do the job I ask of it.

Sevington Lake

So myself and a work colleague decided to fish this lake on Sunday. It was my first time there and he had visited before in the past.
We turned up to find Bivvies everywhere. Unperturbed, we had a walk around the lake to find an empty swim. We found one at the far west end of the lake. As we walked back tot he car to get our kit, someone walked past us with all his kit. Finding the spot before us. So we walked around the east lake and found a small 2 man swim behind the island. While looking in the water, we could see 3 reasonable carp basking on the surface under some bushes against the island. We decided to fish here.
Left hand swim

 Right hand swim.

 Andy's side.

 My side.

We payed the fees, and set up. Andy taking the left hand side of the swim, me taking right. By the time I got my carp rod set up, Andy had already got his pod up, and both rods in. Left rod fishing the undercut of the bushes we saw fish previously, right rod in a clearing against the island. I set my rod up and put it right on the corner of the island. Andy got kettle on and I started setting up a float rod.
Less than 5 mins of my rod going in, the alarm started beeping. 3 beeps then it screamed.
I grabbed rod and struck in. Wasn't a heavy fish. the clutch managed to keep it in check until I landed the 2lb common.
I cast back out, and continued to set up the float rod. In the mean time, Andy was getting excited at all the carp cruising through our swim on the surface and decided to set up one of his rods with a pop up boilie on the surface. Very basic set up. Line direct to hook with pop up boilie on a bait band.
He started targeting the fish that were going through the swim. They kept taking the bait, but he was unable to strike. Often pulling the hook out of the mouth. And because there was so many snags and trees nearby, and because he was casting something so light, and with the wind being quite brisk, it was inevitable that he would often snag up and crack off. Needing to re-rig every other cast.
With my float rod now set up, I started targeting the swirls in the swim, and soon hooked a small 1lb mirror. Followed by a nice size Rudd.
As the swim was tight (between my carp rod, and Andy's right carp rod, there was less than 10 feet of swim.) I decided to rest the float for a while, and set up my quivertip. As I picked up the rod to run the line through the eyes, my alarm started screaming again. I struck into a nice, very pristine 2lb mirror. As I put it back Andy's left rod started screaming. He struck into something that put a nice big bend into his rod. He fought it for about 5 mins, and we often saw it come to the surface. Estimating its size at about 15lbs.Then with a fin flick, the hook came out. Andy was gutted. He re-rigged, and cast out back to the clearing.
So I continued to set up the quivertip. Small 1/2 oz weight, 8 inch hook link with size 14 hook. 2 ground bait covered sweetcorn on the hook, and cast out to an area I had covered with ground bait. It was there less than a minute before the tip bent round violently. I landed a nice common with a mangled mouth.
It was at this point I realised that with all three fish I had caught on the float and ledger, I was having issues getting the hooks out. I decided to examine the hooks. And although the packet said barbless, the hooks actually had barbs on them. So I removed it from my rig, and picked up a size 16 hair rig hooklength and cut the hair off then used this on the quivertip. Next fish I caught the hook fell out.
All the while, I was using my usual feeding pattern of feeding three areas within my swim. One being the corner of the island, the second being the deepest part of my swim. (Swim was not very deep. It plumbed at between 2 feet to 3'6".) and the third being under the shrubs to my right.
I had noticed some activity under the shrubs so I slowly pushed the tip of my carp rod under the overhang, and lowered the boilie and weight into the swim. Put rod on rest, tightened up, set alarm and bobbin, and opened the baitrunner. 2 large balls of ground bait, and a hand full of boilies and left it. Then cast the ledger to the corner of the island.
I caught a few more fish on the ledger then gave it a rest as it went quiet.
Then Andy had his second scream of the session, He struck, but wasn't sure if he had anything on. He leaves his rods set up so they had 4oz weights on from a previous fishing trip where he needed a good cast. Here we were casting less than 10 yards. We then saw colour. It wasn't a big carp. It wasn't a carp at all. It was a large roach of about 1lb, on a 12mm boilie. We put it back, he set up again with a string of boillies then cast out.
Then my alarm started beeping. I put my hand on it to strike, and waited. We could see the bobbin moving up and down. This had to be a delicate strike. The bait was behind the rod tip, so a small sweep was needed. the bobbin fell off, and alarm started screaming. I lifted the rod and pulled it left. The rod tip bent right round, and it felt like a dead weight. From where Andy stood, he saw the fish. He reckons it was around 10lbs. Then the line went slack, and the tip straightened. Thinking it was heading form me I wound in but alas, it had gone. I put the line back, and re-set the rod.
Then Andy's rod started going. He struck into a nice dark common. We landed it and weighed it at 12lb, 6oz. It looked like an old fish. And had a lot of damage around its mouth. We placed it back giving him lots of time to recover before he glided away.
We started packing up in the last hour, then with 20 minutes to go, Andy had caught another carp. I did not take many pics on this day, but I did of this one.

All in all we had a good day's fishing. The quantity of fish was low, but the quality was high.


Sevington Lake:
A very nice lake of around 2 to 3 acres. Has about 20 pegs. Not a huge lake, and its easy to cross swims. It's right beside the M4 and is very noisy. Most swims are spacious. A few swims can hold 2 people. The swims behind the island have too much over head shrubbery. So much so that overarm casting is impossible. But here you don't need distance. So the accuracy of an underarm cast is best. The fish seem to congregate at the far west of the lake, and behind the island when the main lake is busy. We spoke to a few bivvy boys when we got there, and all of them claimed to of caught nothing. Indeed for the first 5 hours we were there, the guys opposite caught nothing. They left, the pegs re-filled with new guys, and they had really annoying bite alarms. I swear one of them played the 'birdy song' tune when it went off.

The kit:
I caught on all three methods I used. Because of the low trees making overhead casts impossible, I opted for a heavy float set up. A 3AAA float that came free with anglers mail. And my 13foot rod so underarm chucks to the cover opposite were easy.
The ledger set up was again a simple 5lb mainline with a running 1/2oz ledger weight with a bead stop tied into a loop so I could use the loops on the hooklengths for a loop to loop connection.
The carp rod was similar to the ledger, with a korda 2oz weight with the line running through it to a swivel onto a 10lb hair rig hooklength of 12 inches. I was making pva bags of boilies and dry groundbait and placing the hooklength and weight inside before tying it all on and casting out.

Bait:
Sweetcorn with groundbait mixed in to give the corn an added touch.
Stickybaits 16mm krill boilies
Mainline high impact groundbait.

Wishlist:
During this trip I decided that I needed to add the following to my wishlist:
Second carp rod and reel.
Rodpod.
Specimen landing net with float and 3 meter handle.
Shelter/bivvy.

I think its also time I did a review of some of the equipment that I have used frequently.

Clunk.

Another days fishing.

Had another session on the Kennet and Avon today.
Got tot he bankside and I set up my friends rod first. It was her first time fishing, so I gave her a guaranteed catch rig. A basic waggler set up with a crystal 3aaa float, and a size 18 hook on a Shakespear 11foot waggler rod with a Linaffe reel.
Showed her how to cast, put her maggot on the hook for her, and let her rip. Turned to set my rod up, and she had already hooked a fish. Nice little roach of a few ounces. We put it back as the keep net had yet to be set up, so it was set up next.
Went back to my rod set up. A 10 foot feeder rod, 1oz quiver, starting with a maggot swim feeder. Before I finished settimg my rod up, my guest had already landed a few tiddlers.
Finally got going with my rod and used the maggot feeder for about half an hour with no bites. Switched the feeder for a pear lead, maggots with sweetcorn, and fed the swim by hand. My first fish a small bream of about 1lb.
All the while my guest getting loads of bites, but her striking technique was still a learning curve. Being a bit abrupt with the rod in the 'answering the phone' strike so asked her to strike with the 'star trek communicator' method. This was giving her more positive strikes, and resulting in more catches.
Then the first of the days bizarre takes. I had a positive knock on the quiver, and struck into a fish of not a huge size. I was reeling it in with no bother then the clutch started screaming, and the rod bent double. Fought it for a good 10 minutes before I saw colour, and was startled to see that it was a green flank. I had hooked a pike. Then as it come near the surface, a small roach lept from its mouth and swam off. Then I realised that the pike had struck the fish I had caught, and somehow hooked itself on the size 10 hook, with 3lb hook length line. I was not confident of landing it at all.
Eventually, I did though. A small jack pike of 2lb 10oz hooked neatly in the side of its mouth away from its teeth.

After that, I thought nothing could beat that on the day.
After another 20 minutes of fishing, I hear the clutch screech on my guests rod. I look over to see the rod bent right over and cries of 'erm. . . what am I doing?'
I grab the landing net and go over to her and slowly guide it in. A roll on the surface showed it to be a carp of about 6lbs in size. I put the net in to grab it, then the hook length snapped.
She was gutted.

Put a new hooklength on her line and settled down to watch my quiver.
Another few skimmers later, and she had quite a large roach on. Too large to swing to hand, so I got the landing net in the water ready to catch it. I see the silver of the fish just under the surface, above the net, and lift up the net. At the same time, there was a large splash and the landing net got very heavy.
Looked into the net and we were both shocked to find a pike in the landing net. The hooklength had already come out of the fish so we have no idea if it was hooked or not, or whether the pike went for the roach just as I lifted the net and caught it by chance. Either way, I let her have it. A double net of a roach and a 4lb 3oz pike.

A few more small fish were caught before finally calling it a day. All in all a good days fishing.

Things I learned from this trip:
1. The Linaffe reel and the line on it is shit. It kept tangling up.
2. I still need a longer landing net.
3. My brolly needs upgrading to a shelter.
4. I need to be more organised. Our swim was a mess and we were always looking for stuff.

5. I need more bait. We ran out of corn, and used most of the maggots.
6. I need to stock up on hooks to nylon. We ran out of the size 18 hooks to nylon. I did have a second pack of hooks to nylon, but for some reason the size 18 hooks in the second pack were the size of size 8 hooks.
7. I need a proper quiver rest.
8. And a better carp chair.