Tag Archives: blanking

For the first two or three years of this millennium I generally experienced some great fishing towards the back-end of the season.  For some reason, as my river experience has grown each year, my “final session” captures have dwindled.  For the last 4 or 5 “final sessions” I have targetted perch and failed to catch anything of merit.  I was all set for my final session of the 2010/11 season and after my success piking the previous week, I decided to have a final blow-out session piking, back on the Dove.  With my confidence buoyed by my recent capture, I thought I’d try some different stretches to search out new swims for fishing in the future.  On my way from the freezer after grabbing some pike baits, I spotted my lobworm sack and – despite my previous “last session” experiences with perch – couldn’t resist taking them along in case there was a rare, big Dove stripey out there with my name on it. The original “final” session… I arrived at the first new stretch before dawn and had a walk to find a few features before grabbing my gear.  The wind was absolutely horrendous and I can’t think of a …

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January 2011:  I managed a rather sorry tally of a single session.  I should be going this week, all being well, but as far as January went, I joined Shane Calton on a trip to Toft Newton Reservoir in North Lincs, in search of its large perch.  This trout water is normally fly-only, but for a few weekends each winter they open up for “all methods” days, which allows anglers the rare chance to fish for the reservoir’s head of large coarse fish, which include some massive bream and roach, as well as the perch.  We fished on the 23rd of January which, on the flatlands of Lincolnshire, was bitterly cold mainly due to a Northerly blasting us all day. After a few drifts across the reservoir jigging lures, we were cold and biteless.  Even my home made sloe gin only warmed us up briefly, so we anchored up in a more sheltered area and rotated between lure fishing and deadbaiting.  Shane did have a run on his deadbait rig, which left teethmarks in the flank of the bait, but presumably it was a small fish, as the hook failed to connect.  This was the only bite we had between us and despite …

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As day was breaking I arrived at the Reading & District AA car park and was sorting through my worms as Will pulled up. Will Barnard not only has a string of massive perch to his name, he is also the angling development officer for Reading, a bailiff and coach for RDAA and is a founding member of a small specimen group based around Reading called SAS Angling! Over the past year, you may have also seen him feature in one or two of Ian Welch’s articles in Anglers Mail too…  Right from the off I got on really well with Will, who’s a genuine, amiable chap, not to mention knowledgeable! My first glimpses of the Kennet gave me instant optimism and I couldn’t wait to get set-up.  It was slightly couloured and with plenty of perchy features.   We set up in a shady area of overhanging near-bank trees, which provided the margins with some shade as the sun rose behind us. The roots were quite terrifying to offer a bait towards, but they were blatant perch (and chub!) holding features.  Before long, Will was getting bites which he was suspicious of.  Eventually after an aggressive tap on the rod tip, …

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