Big catch up

Another big catch up to do since my last post. I'll try to keep the reports brief. This time i'll start with the least recent session and work my way back to todays. I'll start with 3 sessions in 3 days (lucky me!). 1st session was at Renny Lake in North Yorkshire, Its a 3 lake complex consisting of a large lake with carp to 16lb but mainly in the 1-3lb region, a match lake with some nice Chub but mainly Roach to 2lb and the back lake with small Tench, Roach to 2lb and Carp to 10lb but mainly in the 3-6lb range. I chose the back pond and fished the Pole. Fishing mainly Maggot i ended up with 7 Carp and few small Tench and a dozen Roach for around 30lb. Also a large carp bottomed out the elastic on my Roach rig and smash my top 2 :-(.

Next Day i drove to Catterick Bridge to fish the Swale. I set up quite light to fish Maggot under a Stick Float. Ended up with just over 4lb of Dace and 1 Grayling of about 12oz that flipped out the net and into the river before i could take a pic!

Next trip was back at Renny. I did intend getting on the middle Tees for the Chub but i was hearing bad reports about cold water being pumped in further up stream so decided to give it a miss. Anyway i fished the back pond again but the this time i fished Hemp and Sweetcorn down the margin. I had a nice shoal of Carp ripping the bottom up and managed to bank 8 of them all around the 4-6lb mark but also managed to hook and lose about another 7, grrrr! Had some nice Roach around the 1lb mark as well.

Next trip and i'm back on the Swale at Catterick. This time i'm fishing Caster and Hemp under a Stick and the Caster worked wonders getting me 8lb 9oz of Dace and a single Brown Trout in around 3 hours fishing.

Now for the next 3 weeks i went from one blank to another. I decided it was time i caught my 1st Barbel but the Barbel wouldn't play ball! I had a few sessions on the Tees at Croft and one on the Tees at Sockburn but to no avail. The Tees Barbel are notoriously few and far between and hard to catch so i switched to fishing some day ticket venues on the Swale, after 3 sessions i remain Barbeless! I've picked the brains of the local Barbel anglers and gained a lot of info that i'll put to use next summer, so not a total waste of time.

Right with the Barbel put on the back burner till next year i switched back to my favourite fish, Pike. Back at my favourite spot on the Tees and the fish didn't disappoint. Fishing Deadbaits of Makeral, Herring and Sardine i had 2 double figure fish on the bank. The 1st being 11lb dead and the 2nd 11lb 6oz. The 2nd fought like a trojan and it was good to see the rod bend and line stripping from the reel after all those Barbel blanks! I also lost another fish and had 2 dropped runs.