With this weekend being my first planned fishing trip since the season opened and Claudia off for a weekend in a bivvy hunting catfish, looks like this could be an apt song




Rain Rain Beautiful Rain - Ladysmith Black Mambazo

pmsl mike, can see why she's going nuts !! lol you rotten s*d lol

you evil bu$$er

domestic?? lol

With a long hard week finished at work, and Claudia off to Kent for the weekend hunting catfish, I had a weekend to myself, having been turned down for a wild weekend of passion by the girls at work, it meant all I had left to do was go fishing, what a drag!!!

I had a bit of a lay in as it was raining first thing but by 9am it looked good so off I went, two boxes of maggots in hand, a couple of pasties and some fizzy pop I travelled the 10 miles down to Britford to have a dabble on the rivers for the first time since the season re-opened.

I only took my Greys rod and a small Wychwood bait runner, some small feeders and size 16 and 18 hooks, I was travelling really light.

When i arrived there was only one other car in the carpark, so I kitted up and set off for the swim I ad been in on the last weekend of last season, when I got there I found an angler in it!! I stopped and had a chat, seems we were the only two on the river at 10 in the morning, so leaving him to trot a float downstream of the area I wanted to fish I strolled further downstream to find a likely looking spot, after about a 5 minute walk I came upon this swim





I catapulted a few red maggots out into the swim whilst I set up the rod and attrached a small (20g) feeder and a size 18 hook to nylon, I usually leave these at the preformed length of about 15 inches and use the light feeder so the river "trundles" the feeder along the bottom with the baited hook flowing in the current.

I cast out into the area just next to the overhanging tree and let the feeder bounce along the bottom, almost instantly the tip began to give the telltale twitches of a take, I struck into in and felt no resistance, I reeled in to find the maggots had been attacked, at least I knew there were fish in the swim.

Second cast I saw the telltale twitch and this time I connected with a small chub



My river season was off to a start within 10 minutes of starting, so the day was not a blank at least.

I continued to explore this swim and was getting a fish about 1 in 2 casts, mainly small chub and the odd small dace.



small chub and dace are hard to tell apart, but if you look closely you will see the dace has a pointy head and is a lot thinner in the body, tends to have a flatter back and the scales are subtly different.

After about an hour the swim was slowing down so I started casting further to my right toward the fallen tree, as the feeder hit the faster water where it flowed around the tree, here I got a cracking take and had a real rod bender, as I reeled it in I saw it was a lovely large grayling, as I manoeuvred it past the weed bed to my left the rod almost doubled and the water started to boil, a very large pike, 15 to 20lb at a guess, had grabbed the grayling as it went past.
the pike had caught the grayling mid body from above and was swimming out from the weeds, I slacked the line off to see what would happen, I was only on a 3lb 6oz hookling so did not want to get into a fight with 15+ lb of pike! i watched as the grayling went motionless and the pike relaxed its grip on it's back, when i reeled in like fury and lifted the grayling out of the water as the pike tried to pounce again, I grabbed My net and slammed it into the water to hit the pike on the head so it swam away at a rate of knots to the other bank, I rapidly unhooked the poor fish, it was probably the largest grayling I had ever caught but I did not stop to weigh or photograph it as the wounds on its back looked deep and nasty, not loads of blood so I took the descision to get it back to the river as quickly as I could so as not to stress it any further, I expected it to belly up, but it swam away well considering the ordeal it had just suffered.

Well that was that swim blown so I moved around a bit after that, caught some reasonable grayling



and loads more chub but nothing over a pound, some more small dace and a minnow or two







I finally worked my way back to my first choice of swim As the other angler had moved on and set about catching the perch I knew lived there, and first cast I was rewarded with this lovely 1lb 8oz specimen



I fished on for another hour but had nothing of significance so as the wind picked up I decided to call it a day.

I had a great day on the river, the weather was fine and dry but a bit blowy, the river itself was clear and flowing well and I spoke to the bailiff ( Stuart, a really helpful guy), who said that there were only 7 people there, which considering there are 15 miles of fishable bank on an £8 day ticket ( £42 for a year for all LAA waters, or £64 for a "partners" ticket which I got for Claudia and I), was very quiet.

It is a lovely stretch and I look forward to getting my £32 worth this year fishing it on the odd evening on the way home from work.

nice one mike,i presume you will be back in the winter to tackle that pike

I will certainly give it a go, there are some cracking pike on that river, I have heard of a 29 coming out last year, I think all the minnows and dace feed the smaller ones up, and the nice weedy spots give them cover, it is a really good bit of water for fish.

what a lovely day you had mike, sunshine as well, most of today here was rough... great thread, with super pictures of your catches, weldone look forward to more throughout your season..

Nice one Mike, glad you had a good day, that river looks enticing, well done and bet you're glad the weather held out for you, god knows where you found that clear spot it's been awful hear all day.

Friday 2pm arrived and I dashed out of work, drove home, packed the car up and headed to Tonbridge to meet a few friends on a catfish meet.

Traffic was a nightmare, as soon as I hit the M25 it was 2nd gear all the way up to the A21.

3 Hours later I finally arrived at my destination, Elphick fishery in Kent, to no surprise I was the last to arrive, hence I had only a very few swims to choose from.

I took a walk round the lake, saying my hello's to everybody and checked out the swims that were left.

I was torn between 2 swims, first one was one of the first pegs, nice open water but lots of vegetation to my left which was also an unpegged area, it looked like a lovely sanctuary for the cat.

The second peg I looked at however appealed to me more, an island in front of me and another to my right, so I decided on this peg, as I was told that the carp petrol between those two island.
Ok I was after a cat but if I failed on the kitten, I would at least have a chance of a carp.

Here some pics of the view from my peg

View to the left



View to the right



It was getting late so I started to set up, as I wanted my rods out before dark. Around 8.30pm Mark, who fished 2 pegs to the left of me, called me over as he just landed a nice mirror of 30lb 1oz





Shortly after we got a shout from Evan from the other side of the lake that supper was ready, I quickly set the rods up, ready to cast out after the meal.

Evan was kind enough to cook us all a stew which was delicious, we all gathered around his bivvy, filled our bellies with stew, washed down with a beer or two.

It was already dark when I got back to my bivvy and I haven't even wet the line yet....so I quickly put my hook bait on, size 8 hook tied with 30 braid, 22mm halibut pellet on my right hand rod.

I aimed to cast the right rod between the two island, about 10 foot to the right of the island in front of me.

The left rod had a size 4 hook tied with 45lb quicksilver, 1/4 of a tin of luncheon meat, placed in to the margin.

By then it was almost midnight and I was exhausted so quickly crawled in to my sleeping bag but sadly did not get much sleep as all I could hear was bite alarms going off, including mine, no screamers, just the odd bleep or about 4 bleeps and that was it.

I woke up at 5am after a very disturbed night and thought that a few fish must have been caught with all the alarms going off.

In fact, Mark was the only one who had a little kitten during the night, not sure how big it was but he said it was tiny.

Anyway, I just managed to put the kettle on when my right rod went off like a steam train and I was in big hope of a cat.

Sadly it wasn't but this nice common/ghosty hybrid of 15lb 1oz was also very welcome.




Around 10.30am I had another run on my right hand rod, again a nice common of 18lb 9oz fell to my huge halibut pellet.



A good start to the day I thought but then I remembered what the lake owner told us....simple rule on the lake...when the carp feed the cat don't and visa versa, so I was hoping that this carp was just an odd one.

Soon I found out that it wasn't a day for the cat....Cakey had a few carp during the day, despite the bright sunshine and clear sky we had.








I think the rest of the guys were struggling but later in the day I watched Chris ( a blind guy) at the opposite bank land a nice 12lber.

Mark also had another carp of around 15lb I think.

Evening broke in and it was time for our social get together with a cracking BBQ.

Here a few pics








And not to forget the cutest guy of all.....Ashley


Chris's beautiful Labrador guide dog.

Well, after consuming farrrr to much food and ale which Gary brought specially for me, (spoilt for choice, spitfire, hobgobling,bishop fingers etc)
it was time to head back to the swims, baiting up again and getting ready for the night.

This time I slept right through and didn't hear a single bleep....I'm not saying there wasn't one, I just didn't hear it...maybe it had something to do with the one or two bottles of ale I had lol.

Cakey woke me up around 6.45am to say his good bye as he was setting off home early, so I decided to start packing up too whilst brewing up, as we had heavy rain forecast.

Soon one by one were starting to leave, I was all packed up besides my rods and chair, as I decided to fish until around 10am, still in hope for a kitten.

Then I saw some action on the opposite bank, Dannyboy managed a nice 26lb cat and 2 more carp shortly after, I'm not sure who and how many everyone caught but I believe only 4 out of 15 blanked, so all in all a great weekend.

Ok most of us didn't get out catfish but hey, there is always another time.

A huge thanks to Colin and Sue for organising this meet, Evan for a lovely stew and Gary for his delicious chilli (no wonder it was a wee bit windy after lol).








Thought of the day:

Don't forget the lobworm when fishing for cats.....and kit-e-kat only attracts 4 legged kittens lol







Elphick is a well run fishery, very clean beautiful kept nice pebble pegs and even a metal dustbin on each peg, I can really recommend this fishery for all who would like try a new venue.

what a great session you had tt, and some cracking fish, sadly not the cat you were after, but reading through you all had a great time, weldone to everyone.

Well done TT and a good report.

I take it you failed to catch a cat then.

I had wimped out of the boat rip on Saturday as I had been away most of the week, so rested up, but decided I would have a Sunday early morning session, I grabbed a pint of maggots Saturday afternoon, had some old maggots that had gone to casters in the fridge so an early morning awaited me.

7-30am found me in the carpark at Britford, first man on the banks. I headed off to the old river section and decided to do some exploring, My plan was to fish a few different swims to see what was there. I was travelling light again, single rod and reel and a net, small rucksack for bait and pasties and a fold up chair.

I found my first swim and lightly baited up and watched as the float dived under oh so gently, no blank today, had a blank busting minnow, this was to be the first of many, it was a minnow plague in the first three swims I tried. I did manage some small grayling to about 12 oz, and some small chub and dace under 8 oz.

I was spending about 45 minutes in each swim before I moved on to explore the lower reaches of the old river. I finally found a real cracking looking swim, I had by this time changed over to the feeder as the river was running fast and coloured, I met Stuart, the bailiff, whilst he was on his way to open the sluices, this had dropped the level by about 6 inches.

Here is the swim



there is slack water behind the tree and the fast flow can be seen running along the line of the tree.

the plan was to cast the feeder into the slack water and draw it into the flow at the cut, this should be a good feeding area. I pre baited the swim by catapulting maggots and casters into the tree so the would drip feed into the swim as the tumbled down through the branches.

first cast into the slack water and as I began to draw back to the cut the rod tip exploded into life and the definite bounce of a chub take. I tightened up and thought " I must be snagged up!", the rod tip just bent round then I felt the kick of a good solid fish on the line. After what seemed an age I managed to draw the fish across the fast water and work it upstream to my net, I was a lovely bar of golden chub, And when i got it into the net it tipped the scales at smack on 4lb



I had got a new PB, so that was a good outcome for the day.

I continued to fish this swim for about 2 hours, watched by a very curious herd of cows



I had 8 more chub out varying from 3lb to 4lb 2 oz ( pushing that PB a bit higher)



This was a long lean fish and would not be surprised to see this being a seriously good fish in the autumn when it has some more weight on it.

I was nearly out of bait and it was just gone 2pm so made the decision to pack up and head home to get a Sunday roast in the oven, I had a lovely morning on the river and had some great fish out, a really successful trip, I really am getting my money's worth out of my ticket this year.

Well done to your PB chub Mike, a lovely fish.....Britford holds some hidden treasures.

I will try to get a late afternoon/early evening session in sometimes this week, as I still haven't managed to get to the river since the season started.

Congratulations on your PB Mike.You had a good few hours then,well done.

Good report as well