New Blog Format and Mid February Update....
A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. Well what can i say a week of work has come to an end and i find myself back at my desk. Again writing this blog offers me a place of solace and, if only for an hour, a place to relax and enjoy updating the blog.
In this update i am going to cover a new format for the blog going forward and More importantly the reasons for this and will also have a look forward at what adventures are to come over the next month or so. Grab a brew and lets get into it.
New Written Blog Format...
So we now move into another year of blogging and i think it is 6 years now since i started writing this blog and it has been fantastic to see it develop from a few paragraphs viewed by 10 people in a month to the almost feature length updates it now has on here attracting hundreds of views.
Over that time the blog has changed and like the very rivers i love to fish it has twisted and turned over time and now i feel we have come to the middle reaches, waters are calm and comfortable and the pace easy.
In this update i am going to cover a new format for the blog going forward and More importantly the reasons for this and will also have a look forward at what adventures are to come over the next month or so. Grab a brew and lets get into it.
New Written Blog Format...
So we now move into another year of blogging and i think it is 6 years now since i started writing this blog and it has been fantastic to see it develop from a few paragraphs viewed by 10 people in a month to the almost feature length updates it now has on here attracting hundreds of views.
Over that time the blog has changed and like the very rivers i love to fish it has twisted and turned over time and now i feel we have come to the middle reaches, waters are calm and comfortable and the pace easy.
"Easy, Calm and Comfortable are not a good place to be..."
Easy calm and comfortable is not a good place to be with anything you are passionate about. you should be always looking at producing the best content you can and always be pushing some sort of boundary with your fishing whether that's going out of your comfort zone on projects or developing new ways of keeping your content interesting and due to this i feel the time is now for the blog to again develop and continue to allow me to produce the best blogs i can.
So going forward, regualr readers of this blog will be pleased to know the written blogs are going nowhere at all and i am more dedicated than ever to blogging on this media. What will be changing is the regularity and the content of the blogs. From march the blogs will go to fortnightly updates so there will be an update half way through the month and then another update on or around the end or start of the month.
The reason for these changes is simple, my blog has now developed onto many formats and now is not just confined to the written format you see on here. The social media side has grown to a pint where we have 2k followers on Twitter, close to 1k on Facebook and a growing popularity on Instagram. As you will know recently i set up a Youtube channel for the blog and now regularly produce videos of my fishing sessions and have also undertaken a Consultant role at a local tackle shop.
all these commitments do take time out of my week and i am someone who puts my heart and soul into everything and to do all of these to the best of my ability there has to be balance so i am hoping updating this blog every 2 weeks, a video every Friday on Youtube and completing my consult role at the shop will all slide in nicely for me to do the best i can on all these avenues.
That is the fishing side of things but please do remember this is a hobby for me and there is no blog without the actual getting out on the bank fishing, all this is time out of my week. I also work a 9-5 job and I am also a father to 2 kids and have a very understanding partner who quite frankly will always come first before all this so i really am doing my best to find some balance.
Lets see how it goes...
Looking Forward....
So February, a time of real change, always a time tinged with mixed emotions for me as the daffodils coming up signal change is happening and for the river angler and pike angler in me i know the good times are now but it will all so quickly be over and another winter will have passed us by.
This time of year i really do start to think about the exciting fishing to come after the rivers close and my mind right now is ticking over with a few ideas of trips to come. I am thinking of spending the two weeks after the rivers close on a commercial chasing silvers and carp and from march starting to get on the canal for silvers and chasing those carp again on floating crust.
One species that will be getting some attention from me this season will be the tench. I have run into these red eyed teddy bears a few times over the past years on the canal and i think a targeted attack on them is well overdue, as is some dawn raids on bigger waters for them.
All in all im looking forward to the new exciting adventures to come with spring even if i am a little sad to be leaving the pike, chub and dace fishing behind.
On to the Fishing..
So with a week off work it has been a case of having a back log of content to work through, never a bad thing i have learnt over the years. The two fishing sessions released so far are a session on cheshire fisheries and a Chub fishing session on the river and here they are:
Cheshire Fisheries - A cold Winters Day
Monday morning and i headed in my car to meet my mate Gary for a days fishing on Cheshire fisheries near tattenhall. The barometer recorded a barmy -3 and already before we left there was a wind howling through the trees outside Gary's house, experience over the years had taught me to expect a rough day as a wind before first light is always a bad omen for the rest of the day.
Heading onto the Cheshire plains i knew we would be exposed to the elements so we set up on a pool down the embankment hoping the wind would blow over our heads and miss us. It surely was a lot calmer down the bank out of the wind and with a few fish topping it all looked well.
setting up either side of a overhanging tree i had high hopes for the session ahead and i set out a all pole plan to fish ground bait and maggot on one line and hemp and caster on the other. Cutting the first few hours short it was a very very slow start that saw us catch the odd fish and i also lost a carp but when the fish started coming like the one below i knew it was time for a move.
A move onto the top pools put is right in the weather but straight away i was into roach and of a nice stamp. All on maggot at first and i did try to put in a caster line but no bites where forthcoming on it. As the session wore on the bites slowed and i managed to latch into a carp, the peg dying was a sure sign of their arrival.
The wind howling now and icy cold rain coming down i moved over to castor shallow and it proved to be a good call with roach coming at regular intervals. The wind and rain made it hard to get pictures never mind blog so it was a grueller but enjoyable in a mad type of way.
Garry was also fishing a pole with a waggler rod out the side and was also picking up regular roach and had also snared a nice carp, a good reward for suffering the weather. The roach continued to come as well as two more carp that had been attracted onto the castor line.
At 3pm we decided to call it a day and weigh out nets. A combined net of over 23lb of fish and some quality silvers did warm the soul, even for a few minutes.
As the weather warms i am looking forward to getting back on this exciting fishery.
Chub Fishing Session - Deadly Tactics For Catching Chub
In river fishing it always pays to spend as much time on your rivers and learn their moods. How quick they rise, how quick they fall and how the colour varies with their depths after rain fall. Each river is different and learning them means you can pretty much always have a river to try.
Sometimes after the levels of rain recently the river might only be right for a few hours before the next load of rain sends them back into flood so you really do have to make the most of small windows of opportunity. Last Friday was one of those windows so after dropping the kids off at school i set of in search of chub.
With Rain due in the afternoon i knew it was going to be a whirlwind session of only a hour or two. In this video i cover that short session and a deadly tactic i use when chub fishing to get a few quick bites from wary chub.
Please like and subscribe to the channel to be updated when new videos go live:
On to the Fishing..
So with a week off work it has been a case of having a back log of content to work through, never a bad thing i have learnt over the years. The two fishing sessions released so far are a session on cheshire fisheries and a Chub fishing session on the river and here they are:
Cheshire Fisheries - A cold Winters Day
Monday morning and i headed in my car to meet my mate Gary for a days fishing on Cheshire fisheries near tattenhall. The barometer recorded a barmy -3 and already before we left there was a wind howling through the trees outside Gary's house, experience over the years had taught me to expect a rough day as a wind before first light is always a bad omen for the rest of the day.
Heading onto the Cheshire plains i knew we would be exposed to the elements so we set up on a pool down the embankment hoping the wind would blow over our heads and miss us. It surely was a lot calmer down the bank out of the wind and with a few fish topping it all looked well.
setting up either side of a overhanging tree i had high hopes for the session ahead and i set out a all pole plan to fish ground bait and maggot on one line and hemp and caster on the other. Cutting the first few hours short it was a very very slow start that saw us catch the odd fish and i also lost a carp but when the fish started coming like the one below i knew it was time for a move.
A move onto the top pools put is right in the weather but straight away i was into roach and of a nice stamp. All on maggot at first and i did try to put in a caster line but no bites where forthcoming on it. As the session wore on the bites slowed and i managed to latch into a carp, the peg dying was a sure sign of their arrival.
The wind howling now and icy cold rain coming down i moved over to castor shallow and it proved to be a good call with roach coming at regular intervals. The wind and rain made it hard to get pictures never mind blog so it was a grueller but enjoyable in a mad type of way.
Garry was also fishing a pole with a waggler rod out the side and was also picking up regular roach and had also snared a nice carp, a good reward for suffering the weather. The roach continued to come as well as two more carp that had been attracted onto the castor line.
At 3pm we decided to call it a day and weigh out nets. A combined net of over 23lb of fish and some quality silvers did warm the soul, even for a few minutes.
As the weather warms i am looking forward to getting back on this exciting fishery.
Chub Fishing Session - Deadly Tactics For Catching Chub
In river fishing it always pays to spend as much time on your rivers and learn their moods. How quick they rise, how quick they fall and how the colour varies with their depths after rain fall. Each river is different and learning them means you can pretty much always have a river to try.
Sometimes after the levels of rain recently the river might only be right for a few hours before the next load of rain sends them back into flood so you really do have to make the most of small windows of opportunity. Last Friday was one of those windows so after dropping the kids off at school i set of in search of chub.
With Rain due in the afternoon i knew it was going to be a whirlwind session of only a hour or two. In this video i cover that short session and a deadly tactic i use when chub fishing to get a few quick bites from wary chub.
Please like and subscribe to the channel to be updated when new videos go live:
That concludes another angling blog update. I hope you have a fantastic session on the bank and till next time i wish you all.
tight lines
Danny
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