FISHING WITH PAUL RINGER
The river Nene.
Our trip to Peterborough was very much a learning curve, on my next visit to the river Nene on the Bluebell lake complex I think I'll have more of a game plan and hopefully catch some of the rivers hard fighting Carp.
Thank you for reading my blog, if you liked this page or even if you didn't please write a comment and copy and paste this URL to like minded/fishing obsessed friends and forums. All comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.
Paul Ringer.
The river Nene.
Hello and welcome to my fishing Blog.
My aim here is to spend 48 hours (fiancée permitting) fishing a range of venues giving you all the information I can gain from baits and rigs to location and catch reports.
If you would like me to review a venue near you just ask....
My latest venture was the lovely river Nene near Peterborough, part of the Bluebell Lakes complex http://www.bluebell-lakes.co.uk/ on the 11th of February 2012.
We were due to spend the weekend on kingfisher lake targeting the the resident monster carp, however the weather had other ideas.... with temperatures dipping to -11c the lakes were 3" thick with ice so we decided to fish the river.
We arrived at around midday and it was already -4c.
Seeing as the lakes were more ice rink than water we thought we would have a walk up and down the river banks with the dogs to see if we could spot any fish.
With the distinct lack of showing fish to guide us we settled on a swim on a back water of the Nene also controlled by Bluebell Lakes called Willow Creek. The chosen swim had a few overhanging trees, some dead weed rafts and a nice crease in the flow just down from the weir, but just as importantly it had space to bivvy up for the weekend!
With the swim chosen and the gear out of the cars we decided to move the cars to the edge of the road that runs behind Willow Creek. BAD IDEA! they just slipped and skidded around on the snow and ice making a right mess, so we had no choice but to leave them on the road and hope no one else was crazy enough to venture this far down the track in the snow.
With never fishing a river before we were in a bit of a pickle and in need of a strategy re-think. We debated between ourselves for a while about bait and rigs. I decided on simple running rigs with a 3oz Fox gripper lead and a 8lb mono hook link to a size 14 wide gape hook hair rigged with three pieces of sweet corn, while my Brother Mark opted for a semi fixed flat pear lead with a similar hook and hook link, bait wise he went for a white floro pop-up boile on one rod and a polaris float with a 1oz square pear lead to a 6lb mono hook link and a size 16 hook.
With the set-ups sorted the next task was baiting up our swims. I knew the flow would carry our bait down stream so I decided to bait up around 6 meters up stream to allow the bait to sink to the river bed around my rigs. How wrong was I? The lose fed bait drifted down past where I wanted to place my rigs and ended up about 4 meters further down? Wow this river is deep! 13ft to be exact, OK rethink... With my brains racked I went for some ground bait to help carry my feed to the deck, so armed with five good sized balls of bright red ground bait holding my sweetcorn and hemp I 'plopped' them in between four and five meters up stream, with two in the near margin and three in the main flow... perfect!
With the swim 'rested' and the light rapidly fading it was time to position the rigs, one in the near margin and one just out of the main flow of the river.
I'm always shocked at how fast it gets dark in the winter, one second the light is just starting to fade the next its pitch black!
Time to retire for the night, or so we thought.. A little after 8pm I started to have a few beeps on my margin rod, and then out of nowhere Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppp, my alarm went into meltdown!
I rushed out of the bivvy with my Brother hot on my heels closely followed by both dogs and all of the warmth from the still boiling kettle.
The margin rod was still giving a steady beep beep beep beep but when I struck into the 12' of carbon it felt like nothing was on the other end? Winding in as fast as I could I finally bent into something that pulled back, it was heading straight into the dead weed bed a little further down stream.
After a few more heart stopping lunges my prize was finally on its sidewards glide to the waiting landing net that was being positioned by my Brother Mark.
Well not what I was expecting but a result all the same, a cracking bronze flanked 5lb 9oz Chub!
The rest of the night passed without event except for a few bleeps from Marks left hand rod and quickly faded into a very cold morning.
6am and Mark was the first one out of the bivvy to check on his rods while the dogs went about their business. Because the night was so cold (-11c) I had to defrost the water-butt on top of my engine before I could make a much needed cup of coffee for us both, I'm sure there would have been a few raised eyebrows at the inappropriate noises I was making while hugging a warming engine block! The temperature was still -4c.
The rest of the morning went by without any other action other than a pair of swans thinking it amusing to make Marks right hand feeder rod's clutch scream in protest at being dragged round by a stray leg!
It was also a slow afternoon with only a few roach falling to Marks feeder fished maggots over a bed of red ground bait.
The evening arrived and with it a bitter freezing wind, with not so much as another knock on any rod despite trying everything we could think of to coax a bite from the freezing depths, the reels stayed motionless.
With the nights baiting up completed we got into the bivvy to cook our food, make another cuppa and prepare for another cold night ahead. And it was cold...
Well morning again and with it came a mild front and light drizzly rain. No action through the night, nothing, not even a singular beep!
While Mark was checking his rods and the dogs were out and about I decided to put the kettle on for a coffee and start the bacon sandwiches. No sooner had I opened the plastic wrapper of the bacon did my right hand rod let out a beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!! Sorry bacon but you didn't stand a chance, I was at my rods and striking into the run before the bacon had even hit the floor!
While VERY nearly ending up in the drink I grabbed my screaming rod with my left hand and struck into the fish, it kite'd hard across the flow of the river making a desperate run for the half sunken branch on the far bank.
After gaining some balance I clamped my right hand over the reel and put the brakes on this runaway fish, it wasn't long before I had the culprit heading in my direction, or more importantly in the direction of the waiting landing net, again piloted by Mark.
In the net lay a another stunning chub this one silver and bronze flanked, scale perfect and weighing in at a very healthy 5lb 2oz.
With the fish slipped back into the water it was time to finish cooking the bacon. Only one problem...... No bacon?? Humm....... I wonder where that went?? I'm sure my dog has a small smile on her face!
And with a smile on my face from two nice Chub and the missing bacon, the time has come to pack up and start the 80 mile journey back home to Birmingham after a wonderful weekend's fishing.
So when all's said and done, two five pound plus Chub and a handful of Roach in near Arctic condition's can't be too bad, with the added bonus of being in beautiful surroundings
With my Brother and our dogs..
My latest venture was the lovely river Nene near Peterborough, part of the Bluebell Lakes complex http://www.bluebell-lakes.co.uk/ on the 11th of February 2012.
We were due to spend the weekend on kingfisher lake targeting the the resident monster carp, however the weather had other ideas.... with temperatures dipping to -11c the lakes were 3" thick with ice so we decided to fish the river.
We arrived at around midday and it was already -4c.Seeing as the lakes were more ice rink than water we thought we would have a walk up and down the river banks with the dogs to see if we could spot any fish.
With the distinct lack of showing fish to guide us we settled on a swim on a back water of the Nene also controlled by Bluebell Lakes called Willow Creek. The chosen swim had a few overhanging trees, some dead weed rafts and a nice crease in the flow just down from the weir, but just as importantly it had space to bivvy up for the weekend!
With the swim chosen and the gear out of the cars we decided to move the cars to the edge of the road that runs behind Willow Creek. BAD IDEA! they just slipped and skidded around on the snow and ice making a right mess, so we had no choice but to leave them on the road and hope no one else was crazy enough to venture this far down the track in the snow.
With never fishing a river before we were in a bit of a pickle and in need of a strategy re-think. We debated between ourselves for a while about bait and rigs. I decided on simple running rigs with a 3oz Fox gripper lead and a 8lb mono hook link to a size 14 wide gape hook hair rigged with three pieces of sweet corn, while my Brother Mark opted for a semi fixed flat pear lead with a similar hook and hook link, bait wise he went for a white floro pop-up boile on one rod and a polaris float with a 1oz square pear lead to a 6lb mono hook link and a size 16 hook.
With the set-ups sorted the next task was baiting up our swims. I knew the flow would carry our bait down stream so I decided to bait up around 6 meters up stream to allow the bait to sink to the river bed around my rigs. How wrong was I? The lose fed bait drifted down past where I wanted to place my rigs and ended up about 4 meters further down? Wow this river is deep! 13ft to be exact, OK rethink... With my brains racked I went for some ground bait to help carry my feed to the deck, so armed with five good sized balls of bright red ground bait holding my sweetcorn and hemp I 'plopped' them in between four and five meters up stream, with two in the near margin and three in the main flow... perfect!
With the swim 'rested' and the light rapidly fading it was time to position the rigs, one in the near margin and one just out of the main flow of the river.
I'm always shocked at how fast it gets dark in the winter, one second the light is just starting to fade the next its pitch black!
Time to retire for the night, or so we thought.. A little after 8pm I started to have a few beeps on my margin rod, and then out of nowhere Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppp, my alarm went into meltdown!
I rushed out of the bivvy with my Brother hot on my heels closely followed by both dogs and all of the warmth from the still boiling kettle.
The margin rod was still giving a steady beep beep beep beep but when I struck into the 12' of carbon it felt like nothing was on the other end? Winding in as fast as I could I finally bent into something that pulled back, it was heading straight into the dead weed bed a little further down stream.
After a few more heart stopping lunges my prize was finally on its sidewards glide to the waiting landing net that was being positioned by my Brother Mark.
Well not what I was expecting but a result all the same, a cracking bronze flanked 5lb 9oz Chub!
The rest of the night passed without event except for a few bleeps from Marks left hand rod and quickly faded into a very cold morning.
6am and Mark was the first one out of the bivvy to check on his rods while the dogs went about their business. Because the night was so cold (-11c) I had to defrost the water-butt on top of my engine before I could make a much needed cup of coffee for us both, I'm sure there would have been a few raised eyebrows at the inappropriate noises I was making while hugging a warming engine block! The temperature was still -4c.
 |
It was also a slow afternoon with only a few roach falling to Marks feeder fished maggots over a bed of red ground bait.
The evening arrived and with it a bitter freezing wind, with not so much as another knock on any rod despite trying everything we could think of to coax a bite from the freezing depths, the reels stayed motionless.
With the nights baiting up completed we got into the bivvy to cook our food, make another cuppa and prepare for another cold night ahead. And it was cold...
Well morning again and with it came a mild front and light drizzly rain. No action through the night, nothing, not even a singular beep!
While Mark was checking his rods and the dogs were out and about I decided to put the kettle on for a coffee and start the bacon sandwiches. No sooner had I opened the plastic wrapper of the bacon did my right hand rod let out a beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!! Sorry bacon but you didn't stand a chance, I was at my rods and striking into the run before the bacon had even hit the floor!
While VERY nearly ending up in the drink I grabbed my screaming rod with my left hand and struck into the fish, it kite'd hard across the flow of the river making a desperate run for the half sunken branch on the far bank.
After gaining some balance I clamped my right hand over the reel and put the brakes on this runaway fish, it wasn't long before I had the culprit heading in my direction, or more importantly in the direction of the waiting landing net, again piloted by Mark.
In the net lay a another stunning chub this one silver and bronze flanked, scale perfect and weighing in at a very healthy 5lb 2oz.With the fish slipped back into the water it was time to finish cooking the bacon. Only one problem...... No bacon?? Humm....... I wonder where that went?? I'm sure my dog has a small smile on her face!
And with a smile on my face from two nice Chub and the missing bacon, the time has come to pack up and start the 80 mile journey back home to Birmingham after a wonderful weekend's fishing.
So when all's said and done, two five pound plus Chub and a handful of Roach in near Arctic condition's can't be too bad, with the added bonus of being in beautiful surroundings
With my Brother and our dogs..
Our trip to Peterborough was very much a learning curve, on my next visit to the river Nene on the Bluebell lake complex I think I'll have more of a game plan and hopefully catch some of the rivers hard fighting Carp.
Thank you for reading my blog, if you liked this page or even if you didn't please write a comment and copy and paste this URL to like minded/fishing obsessed friends and forums. All comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.
Paul Ringer.
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