Sycamore fishery

April 1st , peg 17 Silver birch

With a few things going on at home i hadn’t planned on going fishing over the weekend so i took the opportunity to grab a few hours on the Friday which was more to clear my head than the actual fishing , with it only being a short three-hour session i decided to stay local and headed off to Sycamore fisheries in Golborne as it was only ten minutes from my house and was another place i hadn’t visited in some times but i had kept an eye on recent results which showed it was fishing quite well for the time of year .  With the weather being rather breezy plus scattered showers i was quite surprised to see a couple of other anglers and they had settled on the low numbered pegs along Silver birch this was the lake that i had also wanted to fish as it held more f1s , i plonked my gear down on peg 17 which is usually a reliable area for a few bites it was also just on the edge of the breeze although it did get a lot stronger as the day progressed .

As i mentioned earlier i was only here for a few hours so decided to just bring pellets with me because it was a method that i could do with the practice using , i also just set up the one rig which in the cold conditions was set at four-foot so i used a 4×14 malman roob float my shotting pattern was an inch spread bulk my main line was 014 garbo and i had a three-inch 010 hook length which had a size 18 matrix bagger hook attached .

After i had set up my gear i plumbed up trying to find a flat area which would allow me to present my pellets correctly , i did manage to secure one towards the left of my peg right on the joint of my eleven meter section this would make things a lot easier . I started my session by tapping in a small kinder pot full of soaked micros and held my rig directly above it which was similar to how you would fish with a small method feeder , it took a couple of feeds five minutes apart before i had my first indication this resulted in a hand sized skimmer but it wasnt long before i was attached to something a bit bigger which put up a spirited fight i just had it under control and was about to net it when it smashed my hook length .After changing up to an 012 i was back out again and didn’t have to wait long before i was back among the fish this time a nice stockie carp around the three-pound mark , a couple more of similar size quickly followed before the bites became a bit iffy and i started losing fish again , i felt that the carp were brushing against my bulk so i decided to move it further away from the hook length and spread it an inch apart this seemed to solve the problem but i needed to settle the fish down again , i resorted to sprinkling in micros every few minutes and after about half an hour i had the carp lined up again including some around the four pound mark. After about ninety minutes the wind got steadily stronger and it became increasingly difficult holding the pole , as a consequence bites began to tail off and i felt that by using expanders my hookbait was getting wafted around so i decided to use my heavier pellets which would help me present a static bait this worked extremely well and i was back catching carp again .

As i approached the final hour of my session i decided to set up another swim towards my right and start my feeding approach again but this time using 4mm pellets as i wanted to see what response i would get using just these , to be honest it was a bit inconclusive as i caught the same stamp of carp and a similar amount as on my other swim but it did take a bit longer to get going .After three hours i called time on my fishing and had really enjoyed working things out as the session progressed ,it is surprising how changing little things can have a big impact on your fishing and i ended up catching a dozen carp upto four ponds , a few f1s plus a solitary skimmer for nearly 50lb which i was very pleased with in the conditions although there is a few things i would still like to try .

Below is a short video on todays fishing trip i hope you enjoy it ,

 

Sycamore open , Silver birch

April 19th , peg one

After Thursdays match at Partridge lakes where i had a reasonable match but left with plenty things to improve on i decided to have a trip to Sycamore fishery my local F1 water situated in Golborne , after ringing the owner to book on he told me that he expected at least thirty anglers on the open so it might fish hard this didn’t really bother me because my last few wins on here have been when there had been a full lake as i am not really a big weight type of angler more your scratch for bites which is what you usually need to do on here when it is full .

On arriving at the complex even though i knew there was a lot booked on i was still surprised at the amount of cars present and i did my usual thing of driving down to the bottom car-park then having a look at the two match canals for any fish movement which there wasn’t but it had turned rather cold compared to the previous few days sunshine we were also faced with an easterly breeze , when i got back to the cabin there was even more cars present it turned out we had forty anglers fishing two full canals not exactly a fun days fishing ahead although when i pulled out corner peg one on Silver birch ( Another flyer ) out of the draw bag i expected to have a good framing chance from their .

I decided to try something a bit different regarding bait and choose worm+caster instead of my usual pellet approach (wrong choice) as i had plenty of it left over as i had bought some for Partridge lakes open on Thursday where it had worked well but not on Covey five which is where i had drawn , when i got to my peg i had a long reed covered margin which had the cold wind blowing into it and the point of the island a lot for me to attack but it can get a bit confusing so i decided to set up two rigs one at 2ft the other at 1ft this should cover most areas of my peg but on the spur of the moment i also set up a shallow rig as their was a few fish topping near the post .

When the all in sounded i shipped out to six meters along my left hand margin i deposited a kinder pot full of worm+caster i then lowered my rig in among it with an inch segment of worm on the hook i then proceeded to wait and wait and wait some more , after twenty minutes of inactivity i decided on a re-feed even though nothing much was happening anywhere on the canal and after thirty minutes i had my first indication which took me by surprise so i immediately struck at it (still in pellet mode ) of course i missed it and nothing else happened so after a ten minute wait i feed again trying to force the fish to come in the peg this kind of worked because i the lost two foul hooked carp in quick succession not exactly what i was looking for . I then set up a new margin swim at 11 meters but feed just casters this produced a couple of indications nothing positive though ( things weren’t looking good )

Over an hour gone with no fish in the net which was like most anglers around me so a change of swim was in order so i went to the far-bank and tapped in a ball of worm+caster but this failed to produce any indications after thirty minutes , so i figured that with the cold overnight temps the fish must have dropped into the deeper water i got off my box and set up a new rig for fishing on the bottom of the near slope at 5ft this produced a few indications but yet again nothing positive i think the fish were being drawn in by the ground-bait but didn’t want the worm or caster ( took the wrong bait ) with half the match gone and still a big fat blank the cold wind was making me shiver too .

After three hours the sun finally came out which raised the temperature a lot the wind even changed direction this took the scum from out of my margin enabling me to fish tight to the bank so i started a new swim at six meters in one foot of water and tapped in a pot of worm+caster slop then went over the top with an inch segment of worm on the hook , this finally produced a couple of proper bites which i missed by being to eager on the strike so i made an effort to count to three when the float disappeared and this worked because my next bite ripped the elastic out ( finally a fish in the net ) a couple more quickly followed and i hopped that i had finally found a few fish i had a quick burst of five carp beginning to get on level terms with those anglers around me but this swim soon died so i tried setting up another one at 11m and at 4m but after working all these three swims i remained bite less for the last hour which was a bit disappointing because i felt that i only needed two more fish for me to get in the money .

As the all out sounded it was the end of a bad match which was always on the cards with the bigger than average turn out on here today , their was plenty anglers not deciding to weigh in today especially from those pegs down the bottom end of the canal and to be honest i wasn’t going to bother either as i knew i wouldn’t be in the top two but the lad weighing in for third had a similar amount of fish as me so i decided to chance my arm . When the scales came round to me Ste Hart was leading with 18lb from peg 19 and he fished really well to catch that weight picking up a few fish from various parts of his peg , the lad next to me on peg two got second with 16lb and the guy on peg three got third with just 10lb knocking me into forth with just 8lb and as i feared an extra carp or two would have got me into the money .

I am hoping to get out fishing for a few hours after work in the week to try to get back in the swing of catching a few fish as i have my first Fisho qualifier of the year at Moorlands fishery on Saturday some were that i haven’t seen before so i am really looking forward to contesting that match .

Sycamore fisheries

Peg 7 Silver birch , January 4th

After yesterdays eventful match at Partridge lakes i hoped that today might be a bit better , but it didn’t start that well when i woke up to find the car frozen with a thick frost on the ground too and the dashboard on the way to the complex showed a mighty -2 degrees . The match on here Wednesday when they had to break the ice to fish went really well with 30lb not being enough to frame so i did have a feeling even in these conditions it would fish ok but as you will find out later i was way off the mark .

On arrival at the venue i parked up and had a quick look at the match canals which were fortunately not frozen but all the melted ice plus the recent deluge of cold rain would have a bearing on how i would fish the match today , there was a thick frost all over the ground especially on the low numbered pegs on Silver birch which doesn’t get any of the winter sun due to the trees blocking out the light and i really didn’t want to draw along their .When i arrived at the cabin i was a bit surprised to see twenty anglers deciding to brave the elements and a lot of new faces since my last visit which for some reason happens a lot on here but it is a hard water to master so some people give up on it far too soon , as the names were called out one by one all the better pegs went and when it came for my turn my drawing hand let me down for the second match running with peg seven sticking to my hand it did have some summer form but today was totally different .

As i got to my home for the day i was rather down hearted especially when i saw the cold water inlet at the side of my peg which i had forgotten about plus the lack of any far bank vegetation but their was nothing i could do about it now and just had to make the most of it , sitting at my peg i thought on how best to attack it not sure if that was the best word to describe it though . I didn’t expect the near shelf to work today due to the shade so i decided to target the channel which was nearly six-foot deep i put this towards the empty platform at 11m to my left and would feed it with a kinder pot of maggots every twenty minutes my rig was a 4×14 malman roob float with 012 garbo main line which had a staggered bulk of number ten stotz the hook length was 010 garbo which had a size twenty matrix bagger hook.

My main areas that i expected to produce for me today was on the far shelf both at the bottom at four-foot and half way up the slope at three-foot , the rigs i used was 4×12 malman roob with 012 garbo main line with a spread bulk of number ten stotz spread an inch apart starting above my hook length of 010 and a size twenty matrix bagger hook . I decided to kick off on the four-foot line before going shallower when the sun burned off the fog as i expected the fish to move into the warmer water .

My bait was what i had left over from yesterdays match at Partridge lakes ;

1 pint red and white maggots with a few pinkies mixed in

1/2 pint soaked micros

1/2 pint dark ground-bait

small tub 4mm expanders normal and white

When the all in sounded i shipped out straight in front with my four-foot rig then tapped in six maggots and then proceeded to lift-drop , slowly dragging my rig through the swim trying to entice a bite but twenty bite less minutes later i was on to swim number two and yet again i began working my rig this time though i had the tiniest tremor on the float which resulted in f1 number one making its way to the net this put me level with those anglers who had been lucky enough to catch . Another bite less twenty minutes and i was on verge of changing swims when another little dink resulted in a stockie but no other bites ensued so i had no option to change swim and yet again i had to start from scratch but it was really hard work for everyone on Silver birch .

Another rotation of my swims and out of the blue i had an indication from where i caught my previous two fish and another f1 was in the net , at twelve o’clock the sun finally burned off the fog and began warming up the water so i decided to go further up the shelf so picked up my three-foot rig i proceeded to tap in six maggots before working my rig to try to trick a fish into taking it , i had a quick burst of three fish near to where i caught at four-foot and even after working all along the far-bank i would only get bites from a two foot square area which seemed strange but thinking about it after the match i should have concentrated all my attention in this part of my peg .

I caught a couple more from this swim plus i bumped off a few which may have been foul hooked and i did miss some bites that could have been liners , so i should have tried further up the slope but with no overhanging vegetation i choose not to set up a dobbing rig which i think now was a mistake .As the all out sounded i had seven f1s+carp for about 12lb which would have been good enough for fourth if i had weighed in but didn’t bother as both end pegs and peg three had a dozen fish , with peg twenty winning with 30lb , peg three getting second with 21lb and peg one getting third with 20lb . All those anglers suffered a lot with foul hooked fish which goes to show where all the fish are shoaled up because that corner of the lake gets a lot more sun in the winter .

Well that’s my double-header out-of-the-way with a lake third and fourth not a bad start after having taken the month of from fishing , the only way is up from now on and lets hope my drawing hand improves , I’m not sure where i will be fishing at the weekend because we have been forecast some strong winds and more rain in the next few days so i might be pleasure fishing if i can find a suitably sheltered venue .

Sycamore Fisheries

Peg five Silver birch , 21st July

After over a week without being able to get on the bank i took a rare opportunity to have a couple of hours on Sycamore fisheries after work , the weather leading up to today has been really nice with some blue skies and little in the way of wind you could say it was almost summer like . On arrival at the venue i decided to fish on the low numbered side of Silver birch because i hadn’t fished those pegs for a while and it had also thrown up a few nice weights on the weekends open match .

I settled down half way down the stretch on number five and i had hoped to try fishing soft pellet at 3 ft deep along the far slope as this is a method of fishing that can really aggravate me at times suffering missed bites and not being able to put a run of fish together the only way to improve it though is practise practise practise , so after spending quite some time carefully plumbing up and finding a spot to fish which was reasonably flat with only a gentle slope because i had a theory that maybe i wasn’t fishing in the correct place along the far-bank and that my loose fed was being spread all over the slope which might cause the missed bites or foul hooked fish ?

I also had two rigs that i wanted to compare ;

0.3 scone float , 0.12 garbo line with a spread bulk of number 10 stotz my hook length was 0.10 garbo with a size 18 gamma pellet hook attached .

0.2 scone float  , 0.12 garbo line with a spread bulk of number 11 stotz my hook length was 0.10 garbo with a size 20 gamma pellet hook attached .

I was just about to get started when Phil the owner came over for a chat and i found out that people had been really struggling to catch on the deck with pellets in matches , not what i wanted to hear as that’s all that i had brought with me but i am sure they would have it while there wasn’t that many fishing along my bank .

1/2 pint micros

1/2 pint 4 mm pellets

1/2 pint ground-bait

When i finally got sorted i shipped out to 11 meters and emptied a large kinder pot of feed , i then lowered my pellet in among it but it was liner city with fish swimming through my line and rubbing against the stotz on my rig . After lift-dropping failed to entice a bite i shipped back out to re-feed and when i tapped it out the surface around my float exploded with fish taking the bait on the way down ! ! !

May be i needed to add some more water to my feed so i could make marble sized balls which would go straight to the bottom and therefore drag the fish to the deck , this kind of solved the problem because after a couple of feeds i began getting proper bites and little in the way of liners . I was catching a few fish not the hoped for f1s mainly hand sized silvers , i did pick up the odd stockie but the bigger fish wasn’t for settling in that depth of water .

So i decided to try something else that i need practise fishing and mixed up some paste , i have just started using the one to one paste and am still not sure about using it because it does seem to break up a bit easy for my liking so maybe a return to good old swim stim is in order , i decided to fish this on my left hand margin where it was 3 ft deep and another rig was set up .

0.4 scone float , with 0.14 garbo line direct to a size 14 turbertini 808 hook

But even at this close range i was still having trouble with the fish being shallow because they kept taking the balls of paste on the drop , at least this time they were worth catching at nearly 2 lb a piece and when i did finally get it to the bottom my float was never still but i wasn’t even getting any of the proper gazunder paste bites , more like lots of tiny dips or lifts which i couldn’t connect with and i decided to stiffen half my paste up to see if this would help but it didn’t seem too maybe i had too many fish in the peg or it might have been too far away from the margin reeds .

I decided to try paste on another part of my peg which was this time on my right hand margin at the side of some flattened  rushes where i had found 2ft depth my first few drops with the harder paste in a pea sized piece , this produced a couple of f1s plus a barbel but it wasn’t long before the tiny dips and lifts returned .

I decided to shorten my soft pellet rig and go over the top of my paste line with it , my first drop resulted in a two-inch crucian the another and another it was black down their with them which solved a problem as to why my paste line didn’t work properly . After a while the bigger stamp of carp moved in and i was back catching a decent fish every put in .

But all too soon it was time for me to call time on a rather confusing fishing session where i didn’t really learn much and it resulted in about thirty pounds of f1s plus silvers in under three hours but i have no doubt that if i had fished pellet or maggot shallow i could have doubled that catch easily .

There is our next club match on Blundells Ash Pool at the weekend and i am along with a few others are going to miss it because recent matches on their have been dreadful with only mid twenty pound nets needed to win and thats with only half the pegs being taken so with a full lake of anglers on it could be dreadful , sorry lads for booking it again but they did promise a re-stocking after last years awful match when all the ide did a disappearing act .

 

 

 

Sycamore fisheries

9th July , peg 18 Silver birch

After Saturday’s third on here i was eager for a return to Sycamore fisheries and so off i headed to contest the Weds evening rover match , i had been up to practise far bank work for a few hours the day before and had done well using bandit pellet over ground-bait . The weather leading up to the match had been reasonably nice but today it had turned rather windy blowing from the east which would have a bearing on how i tackle my peg and how well it will fish , i did have a quick look at which areas where taking the brunt off the wind so i would have a better idea where i wanted to fish .

When i got back to the cabin i paid the pools and picked a numbered ball out the bag to see how far done the line i was to choose a peg , luckily for me i was in the top half which would give me a chance of getting some were half decent .When it came for my turn i decided to go on peg 18 Silver birch the same one as i had last week , were i did ok catching 38lb of barbel and with what i learned yesterday i could hopefully get the extra few fish required to frame .

As i got to my home for the day i settled on three lines ;

Margin , i plumbed up tight against the near bank four meters down the side where it was 1 foot deep and someone had cut back the reeds , i choose to do this on my left hand side because it would offer me better control over my rig and i intended to feed this every thirty minutes with a cup of ground-bait . My rig was a matrix 0.3 series three float with 0.12 garbo line direct to a size 18 gamma pellet hook .

Near margin ,this was the line which i have had the most success with on here and i expected it to do the business tonite with the barbel , i spent a while plumbing up to find a flat spot about 2 ft from the near bank reeds and would feed a kinder pot of maggots every five minutes . My rig was a 0.3 speedy float with a spread bulk of number 10 stotz , the main line was 0.12 garbo with a six-inch 0.10 garbo hook length attached and my hook was a size 20 gamma pellet hook .

Far bank , after the previous days success fishing across to the far bank i was eager to give this line a go under match conditions , i planned on kicking off this line by cupping in a ball of ground-bait and the kinder potting in half of 4mm pellets and half of ground-bait after every couple of fish but with the wind being blustery i would need to wait for later in the match to give it a try . My rig was a matrix 0.3 series three float with 0.12 garbo direct to a size 18 f1 hook which had a micro bait band attached .

When the all in sounded i potted in some bait on to my margin swim and proceeded to kinder pot in maggots on my near slope , this is where i planned to start the match but things were not going to plan with only a couple of f1s making the way to the net but on looking round all Silver birch was fishing hard and thinking back at last weeks match it was the same but it did come really strong towards the end .So with the wind still to blustery to go across and with their being a few fish topping i decided to have a go shallow with pellet , i began loose feeding a dozen pellets at first to try to get the fish competing but they wasn’t having any of it and the odd fish i was picking up where well worth working hard for because they was big stamp stockies around the 2 lb mark .

 

Slapping the rig seemed to work better than feeding which proved my point about them not wanting a munch tonite , after losing a fish which bottomed my elastic out and just kept going i decided to retry the near slope while i let the shallow swim settle . I had been continuously loose feeding this line so i expected some sort of response and it was far from the usual liner city but a total lack of any indications , when out of the blue my float buried and i felt the jag jag of a barbel had they turned up at last but the answer to that was no with a small tench being my next few fish .

So a return to shallow was in order as this was my only line that i could get a bite from , i had cut back on the feeding and concentrated on slapping-tapping to try to provoke a response . This seemed to work better but it was noticeable that all my fish were stamp stockies and i even had one touching 3 lb which was big for in here it put up a really good fight on my matrix orange elastic .

The wind had eased a bit so a few people decided to try long and i would keep a keen eye on how they fared , we were now approaching the last ninety minutes so i re tried my near slope and the same thing as before happened a quick barbel then a few tench it was really beginning to do my head in as to why they wouldn’t settle like on earlier matches here .

I tried my really tight margin swim which i had fed for two hours but only a few liners ensued and with these two areas not producing i wouldn’t be challenging for a framing position tonite , i decided to concentrate on my shallow line for the rest of the match because at least this produced a few bites but i just couldn’t  get the fish competing and i even tried maggot but this only produced a solitary f1 .

When the all out sounded it was the end of a rather puzzling match , i had managed to get a few shallow which would have certainly been enough for me to frame if either of my margin swims had produced and why they hadn’t been was something for me to ponder about as i wont be able to fish the evening match for the next couple of weeks .

Yet again over 60 lb was needed to win and about half a dozen 50 lb plus weights contested the framing positions , my 22 fish went a surprising 31 lb which goes to show the size of the carp you can get shallow on pellet and my catch was the second best weight off Silver birch and all the bigger weights came from Rowans with peg 28 the one i had got third from on Saturday produced a similar weight , i was kicking my self at not choosing it again but it is usually a bad area to find your self in .

Off to Hall lane to fish Merlins on Sunday for the next Balmoral club match and i have heard some good + bad things about it but we will see how things pan out .

 

Sycamore fishery

2nd July , peg 18 Silver birch

 

After my last match on Partridge lakes where it all went tits up i was eager to get back on the bank to try to put a few fish in the net so i decided on a trip to Sycamore fishery to contest the evening rover match, when i arrived at the venue i went to unload the car which would give me a bit more time later for setting up and after having a quick look at the canals to see just how bad the wind was because it had been forecast to be rather gusty . I made my way to the cabin to book on and find out just how far down the line to pick i would be , luckily i had a low number and an early decision  on where i would like to fish , after checking out the weekends results and thinking that most people would prefer to go on Rowans canal because the fish seemed a bit bigger on that one but i fancied a bit of barbel bashing so settled on peg 18 Silver birch which also gave me some room as their was only three other anglers on my bank .

On getting to my peg it was obvious that no one would risk fishing across due to the wind so a short pole attack would be the way today so i took just six meters of my pole out and planned on fishing my right hand margin , i would normally prefer to fish to my left because it would offer me better control of my float in the conditions but i also wanted to fish shallow so i needed to loose feed by hand which would be easier this way .

Nothing complicated with my rigs or bait today ;

Rigs

1ft and 2ft shallow rig was a 0.3 matrix series 3 float , with 0.12 garbo line direct to a size 18 f1 hook which had a micro bait band attached .

2.5ft margin rig was a 0.3 scone float with a spread bulk above my short six-inch 0.10 garbo hook length my main line was 0.12 garbo .

Bait

2 pints red maggots

3 pints hard 4mm pellets

small tub of hard 4mm and 6mm pellets

When the all in sounded i put a small cupping kit full of maggots onto my margin line and i would repeat this after every six fish , i had decided to feed this way because on my last visit here i struggled with line bites because i was loose feeding and hopped by feeding heavier would solve the problem . I also began loose feeding hard 4 mm pellets every couple of minutes on to my shallow line but with the wind  being quite gusty i could only group them at four meters by hand which i didn’t think would be a problem with the wind giving the fish plenty of cover .

My match didn’t start that well with only a couple of stockies + small tench and not the hoped for barbel but i kept feeding it heavy because i had no doubt that they will turn up later in the match , so i went on to my shallow line a bit earlier than i had planned but this was also a bit slow by working hard slapping-tapping-double pouching i managed to get a few and the fish i was catching were of a bigger stamp which is usually the case when fishing up in the water with pellet on here .

After two hours of the match gone i was going nowhere fast a return to the margin was in order and luckily the barbel had at last turned up in numbers , so finally i started putting some fish in the net but they would only come  in patches and not the prolonged periods needed for me to catch up after my bad start to the match .When time was sounded my 37 fish went just short of 40lb which worked out at nearly 1lb a fish and this weight put me off the pace slightly with 73lb winning and only a mid 50lb needed to frame so like i expected my earlier bad start cost me in the end .

Off to Partridge lakes tomorrow for another try at the open match and hopefully banish a few demons from my last visit when as you probably remember was a bit of a nightmare , it will also be nice to get back on coveys 1-4 because it has been a really long time since i fished on them .