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).
A bit more about mink and rods.
On my last Freshwater web page I mentioned a mink which wandered into my landing net in the dark. Shortly afterwards I had an email from Mike Stevens who had also had a 'mink experience'. The two events were slightly different but they both had in common the fact that the nets had recently been slimed by carp that we'd caught. Here's Mike's account :-
Hi Mike
I've had a similar experience with a young mink. It deliberately targeted my landing net, because it stank of a river carp I had just returned. It probably spent five minutes dragging my net towards the river. It didn't let go when I started playing tug of war with it, even when I lifted it off the ground by its teeth!
I was also interested in your rod perspective. Lots of modern lure rods are fast actioned (including the Teklon), and do seem to bounce fish or tear hooks out. Perch are notorious for falling off lures, and I can imagine hard mouthed, jumping, thrashing seatrout would be similarly likely to get off. Your Surespin will be much softer actioned. You can get softer actioned lure rods that are shorter and lighter actioned than converted carp blanks though. Size 2/3 Mepps and Rapala J7s cast much further on lighter actioned rods, and you can feel them working better than on long 1.75lb test curve blanks.
Mike Stevens
Mike says he does lots of fishing similar to mine. He fishes much less in the sea due to living 50+ miles inland, and has no local seatrout access but in spring/summer he surface fishes for carp, roves the rivers with small lures for whatever hits, or use freeline kit for chub. Exactly my sort of fishing. He often fishes from a sit in kayak to access more areas. When he goes to the coast, he targets bass or mullet. In Winter, it's out with the bait for chub fishing and a few visits to the trout reservoirs hoping for a monster Pike! Mike's pictures of his mink are much better than mine - I guess he was less timid than me and the light was better. Interestingly it looks as though his mink had a couple of ticks in its ear (I've often seen them on hedgehogs). I thought my mink had simply walked into the net but I'm not so sure now. With regard to the spinning rods I just liked my long rod. It never really let me down and was so versatile from casting a small balsa plug to lobbing half a pound of fish. Anyway, all good stuff and always good to have a few words from a keen angler - thanks Mike!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 mink in the net.
An enlarged view - it just didn't seem to find a way out.
Mike's mink dragging the smelly net.
Another shot - note the 'ticks'? in the ear.
My youngest son Dan (many years ago) with my long gone 12ft carp (spinning) rod, a Rapala and a nice bass.
