Fishing in America

I missed a couple of match reports just by being very busy at work and also not catching much :-(

But, on Sat June 3rd I set off on my annual trip to the mighty St Lawrence river which marks the border between the USA and Canada.

It's really the dream setup. My friend Nick lives in Indianapolis but also owns a house that is 200m from the river in a little town called Massena in NY state. He has 5 full sets of kit which comprises of:

2 x Fox Warrior Elite 3lb test curve carbon rods

2 x Shimano Baitrunners with PowerPro Braid

2 x Delkim EV Plus bite alarms

42' landing net, unhooking mat and weigh sling

60lb x 2oz Ruben Heaton scales, a comfy folding chair, 50" Brolly, a few bank sticks and a catapult.

A tackle box with 2/3/4oz leads, beads, swivels, hooks (3/4/5/6), forceps and blade type scissors. Plus a fox 3 rod holdall and a big carryall for all the stuff.

He's even got rods for spodding and and a marker float equipped rod.

So no need to take anything, although I do take take my own 6000 GTE baitrunners and Delkims as these are the bits that take the biggest load. I also take my own  hooks as I prefer barbless. 

The trip started badly with the 9am flight from Glasgow being delayed by 3 hours, meaning that there was no way we (Mrs DJ was our 'official' photographer) were going to make our connection from Newark to Montreal - We should have arrived in Montreal at around 15:00 - we got through immigration/customs at 23:00! Grant, who lives near Los Angeles, had arrived at 16:00, so Nick, his son Ben, and Grant had waited for 8 hours for us! And we still had a 2 hour drive back in to the USA…..

Still, at least we were there and had a week of carp fishing to look forward too.

Sunday: It was cold, windy and wet - not like up state NY in June - more like Glasgow. I decided to fish the Boathouse swim which is around 3'-4' deep all round. 

The others were going to try the Golf Course which was very prolific last year.

28.5lb

I had my first bite after 4 hours which produced a nice 28.5lb common, which was followed by a 15.25lb common 2.5 hours later. Quite disappointing. Ben had 2 and Grant had 1, which was 29.5lb.

Monday: The weather was at least dry, but still overcast and not much warmer.

Having fished the shallow areas, we decided to try the deeper areas, with Grant opting for Brandy Brook, where 20' of water is reachable, and the rest of us heading for just downstream of the Iroquai dam, where there is a deep channel (30' +) with a shallower area of around 8' - the plan was to fish on the edge of the drop off. Ben and Nick had the easier swims with, from the left, distances of 15, 25 40 and 60m to the drop off. Mine were 80m and as far as I could chuck it at over 100m. After 4 hours of nothing, and Ben and Nick having 5 fish to 24lb, I wasn't hopeful but I continued feeding as best I could at those distances and from 15:00 on I had 3 between  20lb and 22.5lb and one of 15lb.

So not a great start to the week……

Tuesday: At last, a clear blue sky and a forecast of 73 degrees. So, Grant and I opted for the shallow again with me in the Golf Course and Grant at Boathouse. Ben and Nick had been studying the results from September's World Carp Championship, and went for a swim along the deeper water of the boat channel where 4 of the 5 top weights had come from.

30.25lb

My first fish was a nice 30.25lb and I then picked up a 17lb fish close in. But compared to last year it was another slow day with  20.5lb and 25lb carp completing the day for me. Grant drew a blank at the Boathouse, but Ben and Nick had 17 fish with two biggies of 32lb and 30lb from the Osprey Point swim.

Wednesday: Well, it was fairly obvious that Nick and I would now try the Osprey Point swim. The sky was clear and the forecast was for another hot day of 72.

27.5lb Male!

The first hour was quiet but then the fish found our baits and it got pretty busy. Nick quickly had 3 to 24lb where I only had 1 of 25lb. But I kept at it and I was rewarded with a great run of fish. Firstly a male of 27.5lb (right) - the biggest male carp any of us has ever seen, quickly follow by a PB equaling fish of 36.25lb , and then another of 35lb.

36lb 4oz

I ended up with 13 carp with 2 over 20lb, 3 over 25lb  and 2 over 30lb. Nick had 10 to 24lb. We had decided to pack up at 19:30, but in hindsight should have kept going - I had 3 fish in the last 20 minutes!

35lb

All the fish, for me, were caught at around 75m on double plastic corn over a feed base of maize/cracked maize.  We put put around 10 spods each to start and topped up with 5 each every couple of hours.

Casting a spod that distance is tough, but the new Korda ones are much better in flight than the older ones.

29lb

This 29lb fish looks as big as the 36.25lb one - but it was much easier to hold!

This was more like the std St Lawrence day!

Thursday: The wind had shifted to the south, so it would be even warmer, with no sign of the forecasted thunder storms.

We returned to the same place, but after 3 hours, still had nothing - Nick and Ben after having a day off on Wednesday, were now in the World Champs winning peg, but for them it was similar - they had a 16lb fish after 15 mins and then nothing. I tried various baits and distances but only got one fish all day, as did Grant and the other guys only had the one early on. 

The only thing we could figure was the wind direction change, but that was ruled out when I got a text on Sunday at home saying Ben and Nick had had 17 fish to 28lbs in a southerly wind at Osprey Point. Maybe it was the coming storm.........

Friday: The last day for Grant and I. We were all a bit lost as to why Thursday had been so hard, so we opted to return to the Iroquai dam swims with Grant taking the short left hand side swims and me on the medium length ones. Ben and Nick went upstream to an area know as Strawberry Fields, where Nick and I had fished a couple of years ago on a September trip.

And Grant and I struggled again with 2 to 19.5 for me and a solitary 19lb for Grant - Meanwhile, Ben and Nick had 7! I fished through a massive thunder storm with biblical rain and forked lightning which came very close - around 0.5 seconds from flash to bang. But we all agreed that as weeks go, this was the worst we could recall.

Which in isolation, seems nuts!  For me, 26 carp from a low of around 10lbs to 36.25lbs, with 12 fish over 20lbs - but compared to a 'normal' week, way off on the total number side - in 2010 I had 68 in a week! But I had some big fish, and a very relaxing week, so no complaints here.

Monday Evening - May 21st - Main Loch@Magiscroft

 I very nearly called off from this match, as I had a really difficult 5 hours on Sunday. But even a bad day's fishing is better than working, so I went along not expecting much - I did buy plenty of maggots to go after the smaller fish, and packed the same bait and rigs I had used yesterday.

Monday had been warm with a steady easterly breeze, so given the choice, anywhere from P19-24 would have been good, but for me it was P7 - at least I wouldn't have to walk too far :-)

My plan of attack was plain - try out around 13m for the first 30 minutes and then switch to targeting silver fish close in if nothing showed up on the long line.

With the warmer weather, I'd also decided to feed a mid sized pot's worth of micro pellets interlaced with 3-4 grains of sweetcorn and a similar amount of 6mm pellets on every one of the first 10 puts and then see what happened. 

It all looked very familiar with a 6oz carp on the first put and then a skimmer bream of a similar size on the next. I then struck into what looked to be a skimmer bite - but the resistance was solid, and the grey hydro started flying out of the top kit. A five minute tussle ended with a carp of between 3-5 lbs safely in the net. And within an hour there were another 6 of a similar size to join it.

This continued up until around 19:45  when I had 15 minutes without a touch - so I did what I'd planned and came into the short line, but there was nothing doing here today, so it was back to the 13m line where i managed another 3 similar sized carp before the all out at 21:30.

By my count I had 1 skimmer, 1 stockie and 13 decent sized carp - and the scales backed up my size estimates  - 50lbs - 5 oz in 3.5 hours. If only one of them had been hungry yesterday!

The new pole was great - I only missed one bite all match as any movement I impart at the butt is instantly reflected at the tip - a big improvement over my old pole.It's also a fair bit lighter and feels much stronger - I was able to put lots of pressure on the fish when I needed to, meaning, on this occasion, all the fish I hooked were landed.

Full results can be found here.

That's my second 50+ weight in a couple of weeks on the main Loch, but i'm still baffled by yesterdays poor showing - I guess that's fishing.........

A New Toy

it's here!

After a few weeks of reading about the huge number of poles that are available, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a proper, modern pole.

I had decided that a mid range pole would suit budget and ability, and the more I read, the more the same pole caught my attention. I actually tried to buy a new one a few weeks ago but it has proved to be so popular that there was no stock available in the UK.

Luckily for me, an angler from near Sheffield had bought one and spent the time  & money on elasticating the top kits, but had to give up fishing because of arthritis. 

So here's what arrived:

16M Middy XK55

11.5M Middy XM10 Margin Pole

Top Kits:

2 x Red Hydro - for the margin pole

2 x Black Hydro

2 x Gray Hydro

2 x White Hydro

2 x Blue Hydro
1 x Pink Hydro

1 x Double No 3

Cupping Kit with 2 Preston Cups

The 14.5 and 16M sections had never been used, and the rest once or maybe twice. So, I decided to fish the Wednesday match on the Island pond to see how it felt  - the forecast was for a cold, breezy but dry day, so perfect to see if it's any better.

I drew P9, the first time i've been on the LHS for ages - but with a frost on the ground on Wednesday morning, I knew it would be a tough match. The pole was better in the wind than the old one, but there were't many fish, with 2 tench, a chub and a carp joining a few small roach to give me 4lb - 6oz - Not a great, or even good weight,  but for a first outing, not as bad as it could have been.

On Sunday 20th, it was the 2nd match in the Barras series, which saw me scheduled to fish the Main Loch. I've had 4 matches on the Main Loch this year, and won 3 of them, so confidence was high!

Again we had a slight frost overnight, but the sun was out a the temps were rising quickly, so I hoped for a good day.

I drew P8, which I was happy with.  And with young Scott Laird on P7, I had a good ref point as to how I was doing.

On my first put to around 13m I landed the smallest carp I've caught from the Main Loch, at around 4oz, and then an hour without any indication. I tried different baits, depths, but nothing. Meanwhile Scott was also struggling, but he switched to the 'splash wagglier' and picked of a bonus carp of around 3-4 lbs. 

I then tried a second line at around 8m out, but still couldn't get a touch. So I resorted to targeting small silvers just using a top kit and a single maggot as bait.

This got me plenty of small fish, but with Scott also catching smaller stuff, unless I could manage a larger carp or 2, I was in trouble. For the remaining 3 hours I regularly switched to the 8m & 13m lines, but not a touch. 

I had high hopes at the start of the match, but to say I was now dejected, would have been an understatement.

But, it seems that is was hard for all - my meagre 1.1kgs had placed me 6 of 12, so not as bad as I had feared.

Overall, our team, Wet Nets, had a 2nd from Wullie McAuley on the Island, a 5th from Davy Smith on the Top Pond, 6th for me and 7th for Dougie Craig on the Woodside.

This leaves us in second place 3 points adrift of the Mercenaries.

I miss the next match, as I'll be chasing big carp elsewhere, but it's not over……..

Magiscroft Summer League - Match 2 - May 13th

At the start of the year, I was accepted as a member of the Magiscroft Angling club, but had missed the first match of the 'summer league' due to work. So despite a fairly dire forecast for Sunday's weather, I booked in to fish the club match on the Island pond.

And for once, the weather man got it spot on - It rained constantly throughout the day and with the wind gusting way over 30MPH, there was no way you could use an umbrella :-(

Despite the foul weather, we had a full complement of anglers  - and the consensus was that any of the pegs in the middle of the straight banks would be most sheltered from the wind - P6/7/8/9/10 on the left and P20/21/22/23 on the right. 

P28 put me on what a few call 'the worst peg on the pond' - Fully exposed to the wind and 16M to the far bank :-( I tried setting up a rig to fish there but there was no way that was going to work in those winds, so I setup for a swim at 12m, where I could just about control the pole, and in the margin to my right, which would be useful if, as expected, the wind got stronger during the day.

The wind in the first hour was just about manageable and I extracted 3 carp and a nice chub from the 12M swim, but it got to the point where I  couldn't hold against the swirling wind, so I switched to the margin, that I had been feeding every 10 minutes or so. 

As the wind got stronger, even fishing close in became difficult, but I did manage to get the carp feeding in the margin and ended up with 16 fish for 19lbs-3oz, and a surprise 2nd place in my first club match. Congratulations to John Perella who managed to land 25lbs + from P8 to take the win.

Conditions were the worst I have seen since my return to fishing, and I know of three folk who suffered breakages to poles during the match - the rifle like sound of carbon fibre breaking is not pleasant! 

I've now had my pole for 6 months, and as I promised myself, I'm now looking for a more modern, lighter and stiffer version. 

The pole stats are surprisingly good - 9 wins, 5 seconds and a couple of 3rds - I'd rather be lucky than good! 

For me the biggest difference is that I can consistently fish in exactly the same spot no matter if it's in the margin or 16M away (wind allowing!), but I can also fish with very sensitive floats at distance, meaning more bites detected and connected with.  If I wanted to fish the far bank with a rod/reel, the float would have to be much larger, just to be able to cast the distance, and even with tons of practice, I doubt I could fish with the accuracy that a pole allows. So, that's it, I'm converted. That's not to say that there'll be no more rod fishing - when I head over to the US for my annual trip to the St Lawrence in June, rod & reel will be the order of the day - but at home, it'll be a different story.

Friday May 11th - Main Loch@Magiscroft

I'd had a hectic work and social week, so I decided to get some relaxation by fishing my first Friday evening match of the year.

With the draw taking place at 15:15, there was no way I was going to make it, even finishing work at 15:00, but I let them know I'd be late, and asked that someone draw for me.

I arrived at Magiscroft around 15:40 and was on the bank of the Main loch 5 mins later, having been told that P6 had been drawn for me.

It was still spitting with rain, but compared to earlier in the day, it was a big improvement!

As I was short of time, I only setup 2 top kits - one for fishing at around 12m out, in 13 feet of water and a second for closer in at about 9 feet deep. On both I was using a Nick Gilbert 0.5g 'gimp' style float with most of the shot around 18 inches from the size 16 hook, to get the bait down as quickly as possible.

Bait was my usual flavoured 6mm soft pellets with a sprinkling of sweetcorn for colour. 

On my first put I missed a very quick bite and on the second landed my first main loch tench of the year - only 8oz or so but a very dark green fish, in beautiful condition. 

The next 90 mins were a bit crazy with 2 bream (around 2lbs each) mixed in among 10 carp of 2-4lbs which all fought like they were possessed - normally I never stand up, but even with 6 sections of pole, they were pulling so hard I had to get on my feet to land them.

Eventually I moved from white to grey hydro, which helped a lot!

As the weather changed (yes the sun came out and the wind died!) the bites stopped, but I could see that before the bait got to the bottom, something was going on - so I moved the float down around a foot and started catching again - but as cloud covered the sun, it was back on the deck to catch.

Although not a s busy as the first hour and a half, I continued to catch decent sized fish and was pretty tired  when the all out came at 21:15. And with good reason - a new match personal best at 54lbs - 14oz, and another win on the main loch - thats 3 wins from 4 matches on the main loch this year, but the important is when I fish my second Barras match  - let's hope the run continues…….

Spring?

The Monday night match seems to have replaced the Wednesday match, now that I am an employee :-( 

So, for April 30th, we were to have our last match on the Top Pond. With the weather having taken a step back towards winter, I hoped to draw in the deeper water, but instead managed P4 - where I've not fished before, but I was told it was pretty shallow….

With only 3 hours from 18:00 -> 21:00 it's all about finding the fish - and I struggled and only managed 3lbs - 10oz - I did beat those either side of me but was 8th of 13 and not best pleased - but I fished as well as I could and you can only catch what's there.

But the good news was that I would be fishing the Wednesday match  - and my drawing luck had to change - or so I thought - again I drew the shallowest peg on the pond P14, which in the summer is one of my favourites. But not when it's been so cold overnight. To my right I had John Perrela, and Nigel Foulds with Andy Prentice and Jimmy Hillhouse to my left. All good anglers. On commercial fisheries like Magiscroft, carp dominate the matches due to their size (any where from a few ounces to 6lbs +) - between us we had 5 carp in 5 hours. Meanwhile, at the deeper end of the pond, folk are catching loads of carp - I managed 2lbs - 9oz of roach, which saw me 17th of 20 - a bad day.

Sunday 6th of May was my first time fishing in the "Barras League' - it's a team competition with 4 per team. It takes place over 4 matches with each team member fishing on one of the four Magiscroft ponds. I'll miss the 3rd match due to my annual trip to the St Lawrence during the first week of June.

This means I get to fish the Woodside, Main Loch and Top Ponds, and John Baird will sub for me for the Island match.

Our team is pretty strong with team captain Wullie MacAully joined by Dougie Craig, Davie Smith and me.

It was a close match on the Woodside, with lots of folk catching on a regular basis, and I was happy to finish 4th. My team mates did very well with Davie and Dougie winning their matches and Wullie managing a 3rd on the Top Pond, so after one match, we lead with 43 points :-)

Monday 7th was a wet and miserable day, but as it was the first of the Monday matches on the Island pond, we had 17 anglers. The pond had not fished well on the Sunday , apart from Dougie bagging 40lbs+ :-) so we expected a tough match. But trying to figure what influences the carp's feeding patterns is for the moment, beyond me. I managed 15lbs flat despite being unable to fish the far bank - P26 is around 16m wide, and I was still recovering from a heavy gym session and just couldn't control my pole at that distance. This put me 8th of 17  - I'm pretty sure if I had been able to fish as normal, that 20lbs plus was on the cards.

So a difficult couple of weeks, but when it counted, I caught....But the weather has turned pretty nasty with first some surprise overnight frosts and lately, wind and rain - Come on summer!

Catch Up

It's been a while, but not much to report :-(

On Sat April 14, I fished the final match in the B Division, which for us in the number  three section, was on the low number side of the Woodside pond.  I had drawn P3 twice previously, so had hoped for something near P10, but again I drew in the section I call Siberia, P5. :-(

I had Scott McAuley on P4 and Heather Lauriston on P3 to my right and no one on P6.

As I expected, because of the overnight frost, the carp were not feeding, so it was a catch of mostly Ide and Chub that gave me 4lbs - 15oz - enough to beat those to my right (just!) but was off what the guys were catching in on P9/P10 area.  Alan Welsh was pretty much fishing on his own on P1 with all of the top bend available to him and he easily won our section, with Scott Laird on P10 second. 

Full results can be found here.

On the next day, Sunday 15th, I had a 3 hour session n the Man Loch (P7) to try out a couple of things - Caught mostly skimmer bream with half a dozen carp to 2.5lbs.

Saturday April 21st was the B Division/Junior Winter League Pairs match to be fished on the Island and Woodside ponds. It's like a Secret Santa for fishing :-) After last weekend I was keen not to draw the Woodside, but when I drew P2 on the Island, I wasn't much happier - It had rained heavily most of Friday, and P2 is where the run off pipe feeds the fresh water into the pond - lots of cold water does not mean good fishing at this time of year. I really struggled for most of the 5 hours : with 30 minutes to go I reckoned on having around 3lbs of silvers - but as I had done every 30 minutes or so, I went back to the far bank with 15 mis left and bang - 2 carp in the last 10 mins to get me up to 8lbs - 12oz.  I managed to beat those to my left and right, but knew that the folk at the  other end were catching plenty. I ended up 11th of 19. Results

On Sunday 22nd I took part in an open match on the main loch where we had 28 competing. After weighing in 3lb - 2oz of mostly roach, I was surprised to find that for most, carp had been absent,  and this weight put me 11th (again)of 28! A really tough day - weather conditions were reasonable, but the fish just didn't want to play…..

It couldn't get any worse, so I booked in to fish the Monday night match on the Top Pond. Given my recent form, I expected to draw an unfancied peg and I didn't disappoint, pulling P10 (the deep end) from the bag. No matter, I had a plan, which I'm glad to say worked :-) I caught 13 carp for 17lbs - 10oz giving me second behind Tommy L with 21lb+ and in front of 3rd placed Scott McAuley with 15lb+.  Results.

After the match I gave my remaining bait to Alex Mason, who managed a creditable 3rd using it in the Wednesday match - which I missed due to having to work!