Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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).

Little and large!

Nigel and I had a couple of hours on the river recently. Although I've done a spot of seatrout fishing this summer Nigel has scarcely wet a line in running water. Anyway, we decided to give it a go with the spinning gear and my pal opted to use a large, silver, ABU Atom spoon which he'd had for years while I stuck to the J9 Rapala.

I was the first to have a bite and I hooked a small trout which I landed and returned. Nigel, meanwhile, had walked downstream past me and he worked his spoon in a slack area under an overhanging willow tree. It wasn't long before he gave me a call and I took a couple of pictures as he landed a decent pike. We moved on downstream and in a deeper slack Nigel had a better pike, round about double figures, again on his spoon. The next two fish were jacks which took my plug - all my three fish together wouldn't have weighed in at half my pal's smaller pike. I had to go on then so I left him fishing and he rang later to say that he'd landed a four or five pound trout on his spoon before packing in. A pretty good session and a big difference between the sizes of fish landed on the tiny plug and the big spoon.

A few days later another pal, Dave, came with me. We went to the coast in the evening but it really was too rough for decent fishing, either for bass or mullet. The following morning we went to the same stretch of river I'd fished with Nige. Now, although Dave is a very competent angler he hasn't done any piking for ages so we started out by catching a few dace for baits. our float fished maggots produced four bait sized dace and two trout - both of which fought like stink on the light float gear. We then moved on to the main river and I set Dave up with two small corks as a float and a size 4/0 circle hook with the barb flattened on a knotted wire trace. It was no more than five minutes before there was a mighty splash and Dave was into a nice double figure pike which took us a while to land. After a couple of pictures it went back safe and sound and we fished on. Apart from one good trout that failed to hook itself on my Rapala that was it for the session. Nice to get something after the evening debacle though!

The following day I went to try out a new reel and some fresh line which I shall be using on my forthcoming holiday. I only fished for half-an-hour but I managed to land and return a small, out of season, salmon of perhaps six pounds on the Rapala. I didn't even have to lift it from the water to remove the hook. Not a bad way to Christen the line.

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

My first trout.

Typical of the tiddlers that I caught.

Spooned!

The first pike that fell to Nigel's Atom.

Unhooked.

Ready to return.

--- and another!

A bigger pike for Nigel this time.

Dave's pike.

This one took a dace.

Salmon.

Pretty red but released fit and well without being lifted out.