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).

River spinning.

Sometimes the fishing seems slow and I wonder whether I can do anything right, then, suddenly, it all comes good again. I had a spell like that recently. My first trip to the river had been unproductive, the water was very low and clear, there was weed and algae everywhere and the fish seemed uncooperative. Anyway, I was all set for a busy weekend so when I had the chance of an hour's lure fishing on the Saturday evening I took it.

I decided to spin with a Mepps. Jack pike are a constant possibility on smallish lures so a wire trace is essential and past experience suggests that a short length of 15lb knottable wire doesn't usually put the other fish off. I started in a big pool downstream of an old stone bridge. On about the third cast, down and across, the lure was brought to sudden halt and I struck. There was a big boil on the surface and a yank on the rod then nothing. Pike? Well, at least there were some fish about.

I had a couple more casts with no result then I shifted through the bridge and had a chuck upstream. As the lure hit the water it was grabbed and the splashy, wriggling fight told me at once that it was a decent trout. I slid the fish into the shallows, took its picture and released it. Excellent!

I waded upstream casting ahead of me as I went. Every other cast the lure picked up a clump of flannel weed from the shallow water. Eventually I reached the next sizeable pool. Standing in the shallows downstream of the pool I cast up into the deeper water of the tail. First cast I was into a jack. Again I took its picture and released it. On the next cast I had another bite and the bump, bump on the rod tip told me this one was a perch. A couple more pike followed, then it was time to go home. All in all a nice relaxing evening's sport which only needed a chub to give me my full 'grand slam'.

As a matter of interest the same tactics work pretty well for seatrout (if there are any about) and, surprisingly, they will often bite well even on hot sunny afternoons and evenings even when the river is low and clear. A recent session with my grandson Ben shows what I mean - we had good brown trout and seatrout as well as perch and jacks, on a small Rapala, and we missed a couple of much bigger seatrout, all in the space of a couple of hours.

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

Trout.

Perch.

Pike.

Seatrout.