Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

Freshwater Fishing

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over several years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. As you see I also add the odd piece from my friends and correspondents if I've not been doing much. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff).

Tricky Carp!

I had a poor session this week. The carp were feeding pretty well on my bits of bread crust but for some reason they weren't being hooked. The explanation may be that I wasn't doing my usual margin fishing. I'd decided to try for fish that were tenting among the lily pads and for some obscure reason every carp managed to remove the crust from the hook without contacting the point. That's not strictly true, I did manage to hook one fish but it transferred the hook to a lily stem within seconds so I was left feeling rather dissatisfied with the whole business. Anyway, that evening I softened some dog biscuits and had another go the following day. The fish were less active and the swim with most action was already occupied. However, after a bit of a wait I managed to hook a fish that was feeding in a dense clump of pondweed. A short battle ensued and the carp weighed in at just under 26lb. It's good fun but I've decided that for their size they don't really fight that hard (a five or six pound mullet would take much longer to land on my fly gear).

I also had a session fly fishing for chub. It was a hot, sunny, calm day (so I was confident that I could cast a fly without too many wind knots or hooked trees). I wanted to try a 'chub' fly given me by my epal Graham Rawson www.wildflies.com

The fly consists of a brown foam sandwich with wispy legs and irridescent wing, so it floats permanently without any dressing. I found a shoal of chub behind an overhanging bush and managed to flick the fly into the slack behind the branches. Up came a chub and in went the fly - great stuff. Thank's Graham! The only down side is that chub are even less lively than carp on the end of the line but they are beautiful fish.

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you!' get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

Carp.

Tricky!

Chub.

Tricky!