Up to my old tricks...!

Well that came around a bit sooner than I thought! I seem to be taking an involuntary break from the Saltwater fishing at the moment, not that I mind though. The children have been nagging me forever to take them fishing, and as I have mentioned on my other blog I had promised to take them during the summer holidays and do some coarse fishing with them as what I do in the Salt really isn't suitable for them at the moment.
So thats what I have been doing and we have had some great fun and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In between the tutoring though I have been having a dabble of course, and bagging plenty of fish. I haven't been doing anything revolutionary or technical, just some simple float fishing tactics, with basic baits like pellet meat and corn. Knowing my local waters as I do makes things easy and plenty of Tench, Bream, Roach, Rudd and of course the occasional rogue Carp have all found their way into my net.

A nice mid double on the float

Different strokes

My summer and winter fishing could not be two more different things. Fishing in the Salt during the summer can be hard work compared to the much tamer nature of Coarse fishing. Saltwater lure fishing is at times physically demanding, often there is a long hike or, a long steady paddle in the Kayak to reach our mark. Once we reach our spot quite frequently from the shore we will be wading which can involve several hours of holding yourself steady against tide, current, swell or all of these. The same can be said when fishing from the Kayak. Lure fishing is also an aspect of our sport where you are constantly casting and retrieving, using all of your concentration in trying to work the lure in the right way and attempting to find out what it is the fish want on any given day or night. My friends and I often joke about us having a 'winter' weight and a 'summer' one, because of all the extra excersise we get whilst pursuing the Bass and other species in the warmer weather!

Winter fishing by comparison gives us a rest, I am not saying Coarse anglers in general are lazy, far from it in fact as some anglers will also walk miles along rivers or around large gravel pits, I know I've done it myself at times, but most of my local coarse fishing is quite easy as far as that goes, being generally very small and intimate venues with only short walks from the car to reach a swim, so during the winter I would say fitness levels drop, ( what little I have! ), and the fishing is generally more relaxed and less intensive, even on the odd excursion to the mainland once the hard work of getting there and setting up is done, apart from day trips on the rivers, it is time to sit back, put the kettle on and relax! Even then when on day trips to the river we will take a break and have some lunch and a cuppa to compare notes on how the day is going, all very laid back and civilised...
So why not make it easy on myself and just Coarse fish all year and leave the hard work of Saltwater fishing to those more inclined towards such things? Well the truth is Summer Coarse fishing, for me, is well....rubbish! Living where I do on an Island, the Coarse fishing is somewhat limited. There are a few small ponds and bits of very small not what you could even call a river,  along with maybe a handful of Carp syndicates, all of which I have done in previous years, and thats the problem here, I find once I have 'done it' I have to move on and find another challenge, otherwise I begin to lose interest..
I love the big open aspect of gravel pits, and the long meandering nature of the big, or even small rivers, in fact I love to have options, but we simply don't have that available here otherwise things might possibly be a bit different, and I may never have needed to bother with the Saltwater if indeed it had been readily accessible. I love the Coarse fishing, but there simply isn't enough to do here, and so we have to limit ourselves to Coarse fishing in the colder months when, sensibly, things are just not doable in the sea...
We may not be very fortunate on the freshwater front, but luckily the sea fishing can be something very special despite heavy netting and commercial fishermen hammering our waters year on year, particularly with the methods we are now using ( see other blog !), and as not fishing is simply not an option for an obsessive like me, it would be stupid not to!
However it seems now My fishing year is becoming naturally cyclic, and this has been developing over the last few years, and that is to fish the Salt when there is an abundance of opportunity in the summer and transpose to Freshwater during Autumn and Winter, when the Coarse species are in their best condition of the year, and also can be something of a challenge compared to post spawning condition and appetite. This suits me fine, variety is the spice of life, ( supposedly), after all, and so I welcome this change of the seasons, it suits me down to the ground, 6 months of full on nose to the grindstone fishing and six months of more relaxed pursuit!

So this will be my Chronicle of the Autumn and Winter Coarse fishing, for those who might be interested in that side of things, and will be kept seperate to my other fishing of the Spring and Summer, though I shall link the two just in case anyone fancies a peek at the other out of curiosity!

I will begin chronicling as soon as I engage in any meaningful angling, which may still be a little while yet, But rest assured as it happens it will appear right here.
I have already begun making plans so I have some direction ready for when the time comes, and I have set myself some targets alongside to give me focus.
On the agenda are Chub for which I shall have to 'escape from Alcatraz' and hopefully venture over to the Throop fishery in Dorset a few times to achieve. I'll be happy with a few other river species on those trips such as Roach and Dace etc. I have found a love of moving water since venturing over to the Itchen fishery in pursuit of Grayling on trotting gear a couple of years running and would love to practise this a little more often. There are a few possibilities locally for Roach and Perch as well, Carp will probably feature as they will be an inevitable by catch, though I am not so size obsessed as I once was with the species. There are a few other possibilities that may arise to throw in the mix so there will be plenty going on, all things being equal...

Hopefully I will be back to report soon.
Thanks for reading.