Some questions about possible closed season fish-finding and feeding

[Graham Shaw]

As a project in the last 3 weeks or so of the closed season, I intend to spend quite a lot of time clearing banks and pegs on a mile or so of river that has not been fished for years and where there is not even any sort of footpath parallel to the overgrown banks - just jungle. Decades ago it was well fished. This is a small river, averaging just two rod lengths wide, with plenty of overhanging tree cover. It is one part of a longer club stretch, but is more than a mile from the parking in either direction, so people naturally prefer pegs nearer to their cars, where there are plenty of fish anyway. There is plenty of natural food in the river and previous experience confirms that even 'virgin' pegs miles from any bait will yield good barbel.

I intend to clear at least twenty pegs which haven't been fished for years, and then hopefully keep them open through the season. This will involve hundreds of yards of slashing undergrowth, both initially and then in maintaining it. Clearly I will affect only a tiny percentage of the total 'overgrowth' and will be highly sensitive to the needs of other wildlife in this wild corridor between farm fields and the river.

I just like the idea (don't we all?) of having access to pegs that are kind of 'mine', well hardly fished by other anglers anyway, with un-pressured fish but the challenge of finding them and turning them on to my baits. Which is where my questions start. While I'm there, clearing the pegs, in the 3 weeks before the season, would you be feeding the swims? And if I'm covering a whole mile of un-fished river, and I'm there say once a week for those 3 weeks, say my first visit is on May 29th, second on June 5th, third on June 12th, how much should I feed and how far (in distance) should I leave it between 'fed' swims? If I just throw a few bits of bait into every swim each time I visit, am I spreading it too thinly?

Or is it just not worth it for barbel anyway, 'cos the barbel may have migrated quite a way to spawn? As far as I know, there aren't any gravelly spawning beds on the stretch I have in mind, but these are probably about a mile or so away. Last year the fish on this river spawned just before the season started. But if there aren't many barbel around I do enjoy catching decent chub too, so I'm not bothered about feeding them up instead!

The water tends not to be very clear, so fish-spotting is not easy on this river except on the gravelly stretches.

 

[Andrew Firth]

If you have access rights and permission from the club to make it fishable I don't see the issue.

I always like Fauna and Overgrown spots, as long as you're sensible and not decimating pegs or the natural river I think its very commendable.

Not sure I'd pre-bait a river, I think fish move about as opposed to static water so you could be wasting it all, always try popping a bit in during clear water and having a look through some polarised lenses see what happens.

 

[Graham Shaw]

Not sure I'd pre-bait a river, I think fish move about as opposed to static water so you could be wasting it all, always try popping a bit in during clear water and having a look through some polarised lenses see what happens.

thanks for the reply. Been thinking about this, and I do fancy trying to turn them on to my baits in advance, because these will be pegs that could all too easily be overfed during a fishing session.

I'm thinking of trying a campaign of pre-baiting with 'cheese stones' in some swims. After watching this French fella's video last year we tried this tactic on the Yorkshire barbel, and it did work in similar swims nearby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhe3aqI5uVY&nohtml5=False

I also want to try putting some small pieces of meat, hemp, pellet etc onto the flat stones with the melted cheese

 

[Graham Shaw]

sorry repeat post.

 

[Graham Elliott]

Personally Graham, if the other swims along the stretch you plan to clear are not fished currently I would do the minimum swims possible to allow you to fish.

Also I probably wouldn't do more than a few some distance apart.

Re pre baiting, unless you are using something very different re flavour again I wouldn't bother pre baiting. Any barbel around will move some distance to get onto the feed from a fair way downstream.

I would put in a handful on leaving probably although just because.

I also would keep any success to myself!

 

[Mike Hodgkiss]

To be honest , I would just leave it as it is and just explore the jungle . Once you start cutting out swims and leaving trails through the undergrowth people will cotton on and your bit of paradise won't be so exclusive

 

[Graham Shaw]

To be honest , I would just leave it as it is and just explore the jungle . Once you start cutting out swims and leaving trails through the undergrowth people will cotton on and your bit of paradise won't be so exclusive

Thanks Mike. Sounds like good advice on most stretches, but from May onwards any sort of view of, or access to, these particular banks is literally impenetrable without hacking first along the bank top and then down , and there is so much river to spare that to be honest even if 'my' pegs get used by others I'll just be glad the river is getting fished,and I can more and move on further and further along the bankside 'jungle' as the season goes on. There are scores and scores of possible pegs, all neglected for years because there's no path of any kind to walk along, and if it's bad in May, by the time the season starts you just won't be able to get anywhere near the river without hours of prep. work.

I'll be surprised if others do fish 'my' pegs cos (i) I walk further than at least 95% of anglers and they'll have to pass many other equally good swims on the way to 'mine' and also (ii) I'll be subtle in terms of where my hacking starts and finishes, so the pegs won't be that easy to find, but mainly cos (iii) even 'good' pegs created by early season work parties last year, nearer to the parking, still became overgrown and neglected once the summer growth really kicked in, cos there simply wasn't sufficient volume of anglers wanting to fish that stretch.

I only really want to create new pegs because I like the idea of this as a project, but in the end they would be club pegs, like all the ones that other people have cleared for me, and I would be daft to feel territorial about them.

 

[Stuart Brookes]

I think you will find clearing the number of pegs you mentioned will take a lot longer than you may think. Try taking a strimmer with a fixed blade head and obviously leave a little bit of cover at the entrance to keep it less obvious. My club on the Tees has many a spot that hardly sees an angler as it is a good 45 min yomp from the car park, also it sounds similar to the river you are describing as it is normally a good 20/30 yards from the bank to the river in many places.

 

[Graham Shaw]

I think you will find clearing the number of pegs you mentioned will take a lot longer than you may think.

I'm aiming for about 20 pegs in about 20 hours over 3 pre-season days, but in my experience of other stretches nearby I'll spend more of that time clearing access along the bank than I will actually clearing the bank itself. My experience from last season also tells me that if I open 20 possible pegs I might end up deciding, for a huge number of possible reasons, that fewer than half are actually going to get fished regularly.

Plus it seems to be the kind of small river where you rarely catch a second fish in one peg, and rarely even get a second bite once a lost fish is spooked, so I generally fish 4-10 pegs, depending on the length of session.

I'm guessing it'll only be 10% of the time digging and 10% lopping. Digging any more than that could be futile because the earth is crumbly and one storm can put paid to hours of hard work. So at least 80% will be slashing, and most of that on top of the banks, and of course all of it needing to be done about twice again later in the summer. Overall I'll find all that easier with hand tools, when i take into consideration that if I walk a mile and a half (twice) with a petrol strimmer I can't carry much else and don't enjoy the whole sweaty, noisy process. It is also quite possible, believe it or not, that some or all of these pre-season expeditions will be have to be by public transport (as is much of my fishing on this particular river).

and obviously leave a little bit of cover at the entrance to keep it less obvious. .

Yes, great advice, thanks.

Any more advice about 'to bait or not to bait'.? That is the question ...

 

[Joe Winstanley]

I'd be inclined to take Graham's advice and just work on the minimum number of swims. 20 is a lot to keep maintained, June is arguably the peak season for a lot of tall herbs, so you could easily find yourself struggling to keep on top of regrowth - and that eats into valuable fishing time! Plus I'd say you really need to find the fish first before investing time clearing swims that may not hold many, if any, fish.

Good luck anyway!

 

[Graham Shaw]

Plus I'd say you really need to find the fish first before investing time clearing swims that may not hold many, if any, fish.

Good luck anyway!

Thanks! I've caught barbel a few hundred yards upstream of 'my' stretch, and I've caught barbel a mile and a bit downstream, and then there's this mile or so of similar river in between, so it's a pretty good bet that they are there. I just want to join those stretches up, if you like, and access the bit in between that has not been fished, or even walked, for years.

Actual fish spotting is very difficult on this river, unfortunately. I've certainly never had a chance to 'spot' any of the barbel I've caught there. Except for a few gravel shallows (where it was possible to see barbel spawning heartily a few days before the season last year), it doesn't ever run clear enough to see the bottom, even with good polaroids, and anyway there are no vantage points other than hacking your way to the bank.

I must admit I tried to edit out the 'fish finding' bit of the thread title shortly after I posted it, as it's advice on a pre-season FEEDING strategy that I'm really interested in, from anyone with experience of that on a little-fished or never-fished stretch, but it's not possible to edit the title once you've posted a thread on here.

I'm grateful for all the advice, but it wasn't really meant to be a thread about the actual peg-clearing project itself - I cleared and/or maintained plenty of pegs on nearby stretches of the same river last summer, so I know what I'm doing there, why i feel I need to clear quite a lot of pegs (see above) and I do know much effort it will all take (and how many pints I will deserve when I've "finished" :-D )

The more I think about the 'secrecy' angle that some have hinted at, the less it is a concern, as I'd be glad if there was more bait going into this river, and more boots to keep the undergrowth down. This is the opposite on most rivers that other BFW members fish, I understand that.

I'll probably even do a photo blog about the whole project if I have time, and if I'm successful I'll share the location after a while with fellow members of the club. The nature of it, over a mile of difficult yomping from any parking, and the fact that perfectly good pegs are available nearer to the parking anyway, where the fish will obviously get more regular feeding, will ensure none of the 'wrong sort' that are said to frequent certain other hotspots. Anyway I'm not particularly a specimen hunter, just someone who loves hard-fighting barbel of any weight. It's a river where a double is extremely rare and an eight pounder is a very good fish, so again this all means that kind of secrecy shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

[Damian Kimmins]

I am gonna be a right killjoy and say just leave the things alone!

 

[Neil Smart]

Yes, disrupting such a natural habitat could swing things against you.

 

[Graham Shaw]

"Do not lose its opposite", indeed. Then I shall bear those last two arguments in mind, as interesting counter-voices to the nostalgic old *rses in our club who say "I remember when that stretch was all nice pegs, what a pity its gone to waste." It's only one of many unfished stretches on this river, gone back to the wild, which as a whole has only a fraction of the anglers it used to get, say 25-30 years ago; a couple of miles away there are about 6 small-scale matches per summer season; apart from that, a weekend summer Saturday would see an average of about 6 anglers over 6 miles. This will be very surprising to some of you on pressured southern rivers, where such a stretch would be a precious secret jewel to be whispered about, but on this particular river it's the opposite. As a whole it needs fishing more, when our club has miles and miles of more famous barbel water elsewhere. I must also thank a couple of BFW members who know the stretch and have p-m ed me saying they too would like to see it fished again and are curious to know my results.

I don't think I'll be disrupting anything much, except the encroaching hogweed, if I can nobble it early enough before it seeds yet more. But like I say I'll bear your points in mind. The tiny % that I create temporary changes to will undoubtedly return to jungle when I am gone.

So any thoughts on the possibilities, or otherwise, of turning new fish on to new baits in advance of the 16th June?

 

[Richard Longmuir]

Hi Graham,

This all sounds lovely,wish I lived in Yorkshire!!!

 

[Neil Smart]

I shall bear those last two arguments in mind, as interesting counter-voices to the nostalgic old *rses in our club who say "I remember when that stretch was all well-maintained pegs, what a pity its gone to waste." It's only one of many unfished stretches on this river, gone back to the wild, which as a whole has only a fraction of the anglers it used to get say 25-30 years ago; a couple of miles away there are about 6 small-scale matches per summer season; apart from that, a weekend summer Saturday would see an average of about 6 anglers over 6 miles. This will be very surprising to some of you on pressured southern rivers, where such a stretch would be a precious secret jewel to be whispered about, but on this particular river it's the opposite. As a whole it needs fishing more, when our club has miles and miles of more famous barbel water elsewhere. I must also thank a couple of BFW members who know the stretch and have p-m ed me saying they too would like to see it fished again and are curious to know my results.

I don't think I'll be disrupting anything much, except the encroaching hogweed, if I can nobble it early enough before it seeds yet more. But like I say I'll bear your points in mind. The tiny % that I create temporary changes to will undoubtedly return to jungle when I am gone.

So any thoughts on the possibilities, or otherwise, of turning new fish on to new baits in advance of the 16th June?

It's a fine line we tread, pegged out areas become feeding stations, that's fine, but these wilder unkempt areas can provide the older wiser fish who prefer a more solitary life. But of course the hogweed menace is just that a menace, I still wince at the pain it inflicted on me last summer.
I like easy pegged out fishing that I can sprawl out on my chair, but also enjoy the jungle nature of a small River I fish, very special, and is much better for neglect. Pressured Rivers need these areas, Barbel in particular need such havens, in fact rather than fish them, I would leave them well alone

 

[Graham Shaw]

a small River I fish, very special, and is much better for neglect.

I think we are in total agreement - 'my' stretch will still be neglected, in relative terms. You have access to your neglected stretch, all I am talking about is doing the minimum to gain access to this one. Small gaps slashed in undergrowth - and I don't slash without first poking around a bit to disturb and startle any wildlife that could be caught unawares. 00.005% of the area affected in any way. Without that work there is simply no way of getting a rod and a landing net to the river once the spring has sprung. I tried to have a bit of a ramble there the other day thinking I wouldn't need tools yet, but the brambles and thorns were even thicker than I expected even though spring has hardly started here yet, and I won't even get near there in summer without tools. The silt from winter floods will help ensure a bumper jungle this year.

Trust me there is 0% chance of it getting 'pegged out' again as it once was. Perhaps I'm creating the wrong impression even using the word 'peg'? Round here it just means somewhere on the bank you can fish from. We're not talking somewhere to put a Korum-advanced-predator-specialist-barbel-equaliser-chair, a teasmade and a cuddly toy. I only ever sit on my landing mat or the bank, and when I say 'clear' a peg, I mean the minimum required to be able to do that, to be able to enjoy watching the river go by, to cast, land and return a fish safely.

 

[Neil Smart]

I think we are in total agreement - 'my' stretch will still be neglected, in relative terms. You have access to your neglected stretch, all I am talking about is doing the minimum to gain access to this one. Small gaps slashed in undergrowth - and I don't slash without first poking around a bit to disturb and startle any wildlife that could be caught unawares. 00.005% of the area affected in any way. Without that work there is simply no way of getting a rod and a landing net to the river once the spring has sprung. I tried to have a bit of a ramble there the other day thinking I wouldn't need tools yet, but the brambles and thorns were even thicker than I expected even though spring has hardly started here yet, and I won't even get near there in summer without tools. The silt from winter floods will help ensure a bumper jungle this year.

Trust me there is 0% chance of it getting 'pegged out' again as it once was. Perhaps I'm creating the wrong impression even using the word 'peg'? Round here it just means somewhere on the bank you can fish from. We're not talking somewhere to put a Korum-advanced-predator-specialist-barbel-equaliser-chair, a teasmade and a cuddly toy. I only ever sit on my landing mat or the bank, and when I say 'clear' a peg, I mean the minimum required to be able to do that, cast, land and return a fish safely.

No I get your point Graham, the small river I fish is completely overgrown mid summer, you know the score 10 ft Balsam with all the extras, I don't really suppose there would be any barbel or chub in the river if that was 'improved'. My club stretch of the Severn has well managed pegged out platforms, but it also has another few pegs that never get fished, simply because they cannot be found but that half the story, they are so steep and overgrown fishing in the summer is out of the question...or is it ?

 

[Damian Kimmins]

Fish it Graham, by all means, but leave the fish your attentions 'til the 16th June.

 

[Graham Shaw]

Fish it Graham, by all means, but leave the fish your attentions 'til the 16th June.

Alas I can't get out there till the 18th...9 weeks tomorrow.

The city-centre barbel I'll have to go after on the 16th are in quite a contrasting sort of spot... last time I looked (after the floods), not just post-industrial but more like post-apocalyptic.

(and if I wanted to pre-feed them there I could do it on a drive-by basis )