The weather this month has been beautiful not the best for the fishing it’s self but nice to be out, I really enjoy the sun this time of year. My first trip out of the month was a visit to the Mighty Humber, it’s crazy how big this river is when you can hardly make out the far bank and how much water is actually moving through the system.
I set about the long walk down to the river armed with a bucket of massive freshly dug yellow tails. The wind was pretty strong all day but still turned in to an enjoyable day, with a few good bites and the weed not being much of a problem. I managed a couple of nice Bass on the flood followed by a few decent flounder and a really nice Dover Sole over a pound which is my best so far. It’s such a relaxing place miles from the road and a sheer abundance of wildlife especially the birds, there’s always something to see.
The following week I managed to get out for an evenings Lure fishing for bass local. Low water was at 9pm so it was perfect, as I much prefer to fish the flood as it’s dropping dark it really switches the bass on to the bait fish. The bay was alive with shoals of sand-eels darting all over. Pretty simple fishing just smashing a 30g surf seeker as far as I could and a steady retrieve with the odd twitch proved consistent as ever with a couple of nice bass to the net, I kept them both for tea for the following night on the BBQ. You can’t beat a fresh bass especially one you caught yourself.
My next outing was an evening sight fishing for chub on a small river free lining bread, a devastating method this time of year for chub and if you can spot them it usually guarantees action. I probably walked about a mile of river dropping in all the likely looking spots, it’s Jungle warfare wading through nettles and been savaged by mozzies but I managed a few fish no record breakers but real good fun on light tackle.
The high light of the evening was when a barbel appeared from under the renunculis and snaffled my big flake of bread trundled along the gravel run, after a decent battle on light gear the first barbel of the season laid in my net. Not the biggest fish in the world but immaculate and great fun.
The next weekend I returned to the same river but a little further down stream this time armed with a few tins of meat to do a bit of rolling. This is a very good method this time of year, the moving chunk of Meat through the swim can get you bites where static baits will be ignored. As the bait is rolling past the fish they have to make a quick decision whether to take it or not before it rolls past and most of the time they commit. You can end up having a dozen fish in conditions a static bait would have been a waste of time. Couple that with the excitement of sight fishing watching the barbel swing across the flow and intercept your bait makes for an entertaining evenings fishing. The evening didn’t disappoint either with plenty of fish going in the net capped off with this beauty.
My set up for rolling meat is a Century Graphex 9 foot 6 10-30g lure rod coupled with a shimano Stradic 4000 and 30lb 0.10 diameter braid with a 7ft 8lb fluorocarbon leader to a size 4 Gardner mugger hook. I know the rod isn’t designed for rolling meat but it’s perfect for the job and it has enough back bone to turn barbel from the trees. At 9ft it’s ideal for getting in to some tight swims, the whole setup is incredibly lightweight making it so much easier when you’re having to hold the rod and mend the line over a few hours. Well worth a look rather than using say a 12ft 1.75 test curve rod which after a while will make your arms tired.
I did mange to also get out after work one evening on the river looking for Perch with my BFS setup. The small Jack pike were definitely on the feed smacking most things that passed them, but in amongst the mayhem i did mange my target species.
All in all June has been an enjoyable months fishing I’ve not managed to get out as often as I would have like due to work ect, but when I did it was good fun and the weather has been amazing. So fingers crossed July is the same.
