Tag Archives: trout reservoir

I’m never going to fish that place! I decided a few weeks ago that after putting off the idea for a few years – for various reasons:  (“It’s not real pike fishing”… “It’s far too easy to catch a huge pike on there”… “Results will drop off before I get there, like at Llandegfedd, Blithfield”… “I don’t want to join the rat race in the fight for tickets and then rejoin it in the fight for best spots”, etc.)  – I would finally this year try for some winter tickets to pike fish at Chew Valley Lake. I love fishing rivers, drains and canals for pike.  The looks and fight of a double-figure river pike are hard to beat, but occasionally I get the urge to seek out larger fish.  Visits to reservoirs in the past haven’t been too productive for me, but I have the tackle and – thanks to these previous trips – a bit of experience of reservoir fishing.  So what if reservoirs are man-made?  The pike in these venues are as wild as any from a river.  They may have an easy, protein-rich food source of naive stocked trout, but this all adds to the challenge …

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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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