Lightning fast silver darts.

I headed west today to target dace. Whilst doing some research on potential venues that hold them I was surprised to find one not to far away. Lillian wanted to have a go too so off we went. We arrived just after midday and I quickly set up my float rod and started fishing. The flow was nice and slow so I went with a small "Puddle Chucker" float to maximise the sensitivity. Setting my depth at three foot and arranging my shot in a shirt button pattern I nicked a single red maggot onto my #18 barbless hook and flicked it out into the water. Feeding maggots regularly just downstream of where I was casting in I watched my float slowly meander down the swim and after only the third or forth run I had a bite which I managed to connect with. A few silver flashes as I reeled the small fish in told me I had caught what I had came for and my first ever dace was soon in my hand.

My first ever silver dart.

This was quickly followed by dace after dace and whilst I did miss a fair amount of bites there were hardly any runs when I didn't get a bite. After my tenth dace I caught a small brown trout which was a pleasant little surprise. The few sessions I've had locally for brown trout haven't been great and I think I'll wait for warmer weather before I go back to the Water of Leith and I'll get in it and try and catch them on dry flies using my nice little 6' #2/3 brook rod.

First brown trout of the year too. A nice bonus.

After catching a few more dace I then tried fishing double maggot to see if I could tempt some bigger fish and this seemed to do the trick almost straight away with a few larger dace taking the more generous hook baits.

A bigger specimen.

Whilst I had to be quick to strike the lightning fast bites I had soon caught over thirty fish and Lillian, who had been relaxing next to me on a blanket, decided she wanted to have a go. It didn't take her long to catch a few as well. Whilst there were clearly a lot of fish in the river and catching them was relatively simple I still found it a very pleasurable way to spend a couple of hours. There is something very hypnotic about watching a float that I really love, even more so as it slowly works its way down a river.

Any second now...

So another nice place to go and spend an hour or two fishing added to my list. A very relaxing way to fish for very nice fish and the quick bites are good fun trying to strike and certainly sharpen your reaction times too. I'll certainly be back there soon catching dace again for sure.

Tight lines, Scott.

More maggot drowning.

I used up the last of my maggots yesterday at Magiscroft coarse fishery near Cumbernauld. When I woke up in the morning and checked the weather forecast I wasn't going to bother but Lillian was keen to go so off we went. As predicted it was raining when we arrived and after paying for my day ticket and asking for advice regarding which spots had been fishing well we headed to the Birch Ponds to get started. The pond was partially covered with ice and the peg I fished last time I was there was iced over so we elected to fish the one adjacent to it. Fishing with a #18 barbless Kamasan B911 hook baited with a single maggot just touching bottom about three feet below a 2AA puddle chucker insert waggler I cast out between two islands in the middle of the pond and began feeding the swim with a few maggots every now and then but this failed to produce any bites so after about an hour we decided to move to the Island Pond. We headed for the deeper end of the pond and I quickly started fishing again.

Waiting for bites.

Casting to the island and clipping up so I could cast quickly to the same spot each time it wasn't too long before I started getting bites and the first fish was hooked, a roach. This was followed shortly afterwards by a small tench. For its size it fought rather well, using its big tail to try and power away from me a couple of times but it was soon played out and brought to the net which was being expertly handled by my trusted ghillie. 

Finally off the mark.

A lovely little tench. They don't half scrap well.

 

After that it went a bit quiet, started raining again and the wind picked up a bit making controlling my float more difficult. At this point the bailiff came around to litter pick and gave me some advice on how to best to quickly sink my line and adjust my shotting pattern to minimize the movement of my float. This immediately paid off as I hooked a second roach. Next time the float went under I struck and felt the thrashing of another tench but got quite a nice surprise when it came into view and I realised it was one of the golden variety. 

My first one and a very pretty fish indeed.

Do ornamental fish count as seperate species? Technically the answer is no but I'm going to count it as one in my tally anyway. Doesn't seem right not to somehow.

This was closely followed by another new species for me. At first I thought I had caught an ide but after a closer inspection and a quick lateral line scale count I realised it was in fact a small chub.

Chub have larger scales than ide. The number along the lateral line is 44-46 for a chub and 56+ on an ide.

By the middle of the afternoon I had also caught a little F1 Carp, a third tench and a further four roach. By this point bites were becoming much more frequent and the sun even made an appearance at one point! I hooked and lost a few tiny roach and would have liked to have fished on but had to head home to get ready for work.

My second ever F1 carp. Nice looking fish and fought well too.

Another tench in nice condition.

I must say I've really enjoyed my maggot drowning sessions this last week or so. The fishing has been quite slow at times but my effort has been rewarded with some nice fish and I think I'll be doing more coarse fishing over the summer this year for sure.

Tight lines, Scott.