Let's see your river catches 2019

[Daniel cain 45,249]

[Nicepix 5,650]

Had a couple of short sessions on the Riu Ter in Catalonia.  The river is full of mullet, some in fast shallow reaches and others in the slower main channel.

I tried trotting in the faster stretch but they weren't having it. I got some interest in the slow stretch by prebaiting with bread and waiting until they got confident. Managed to catch two both around 2lb, maybe a little more. 

A few days later we came across a couple of locals fishing the faster stretch with about 6oz of bread moulded round a ledger and a trailing hook to snag any interested fish. I watched them for an hour and they had no luck. The slower stretch also holds terrapins. I got one on a worm bait. Thought I'd hooked  Cornish Pasty!

We'll be back in March and I'm looking forward to trying for carp and barbel a few kms upstream.

[BrianSteven72 369]

Some wild brownies caught from my local river 

[Daniel cain 45,249]

Crackers them steven

[fireman 10,884]

On 03/01/2020 at 15:10, Nicepix said:

Had a couple of short sessions on the Riu Ter in Catalonia.  The river is full of mullet, some in fast shallow reaches and others in the slower main channel.

I tried trotting in the faster stretch but they weren't having it. I got some interest in the slow stretch by prebaiting with bread and waiting until they got confident. Managed to catch two both around 2lb, maybe a little more. 

A few days later we came across a couple of locals fishing the faster stretch with about 6oz of bread moulded round a ledger and a trailing hook to snag any interested fish. I watched them for an hour and they had no luck. The slower stretch also holds terrapins. I got one on a worm bait. Thought I'd hooked  Cornish Pasty!

We'll be back in March and I'm looking forward to trying for carp and barbel a few kms upstream.

Little mepps spinner,take the treble hook off and put a 2 inch length of line with a single long shank hook on tipped with worm,i never fish for mullet with bread and catch a good few each summer on this method..

[fireman 10,884]

2 hours ago, BrianSteven72 said:

Some wild brownies caught from my local river 

Stunning fish ..

[Nicepix 5,650]

45 minutes ago, fireman said:

Little mepps spinner,take the treble hook off and put a 2 inch length of line with a single long shank hook on tipped with worm,i never fish for mullet with bread and catch a good few each summer on this method..

Thanks, but I tried that along with float fishing worms, and bread under a cocked float trotted downstream. Some days they will take anything you put in front of them and other days they ignore everything. Because of the bank holidays, shops closed situation I couldn't get any shell fish. I've had success with pieces of whelk or mussels cut up with scissors and fished on a small hook. As it was, the first day I only caught a terrapin and the mullet ignored worms, spinners, bits of weed float fished and suspended off weed rafts. As many of the fish were feeding just downstream of a weir I put my landing net over one of the torrents hoping to catch whatever they were feeding on. After ten minutes the net was empty so I reckon that they were pulling algae and other small stuff off the rocks as you could see them twisting as they mouthed the rocks. In the past I'vehad some by fly-fishing small flies tied especially to resemble algae, but that tackle was at home 400 miles away. After a while I gave up and went downstream where there are large shoals cruising about the main channel. I had no bread and all I got on worm was this...........

 

On the second time I fished I had a huge white sliced loaf, most of which I had mashed up after adding hot water. I put some on the lip of the weir so it slowly disintegrated and bits floated off down the shallow, fast channels where the mullet could be seen feeding. I'd also noticed a couple of larger fish under the apron of the weir on my first trip, but they were absent the second time. In fact all the fish were in the faster shallow water so I left the bread dripping into the swim and went down to a parrot cage of a swim about 200 yards downstream where there was a small pod of mullet hanging around a weed raft. I could only get a small rod in, a 6 foot spinning rod was all that I had other than the 11 foot float / quiver rod I'd used before. I put bread on the weed raft and waited around 30 minutes before one fish showed interest. As it got ore confident another couple showed up and also started to hunt down the bread so I put a piece of flake on a 12 hook direct to 6lb line with a float made from a bit of reed...

 

Once the mullet were preoccupied nosing about under the raft I flicked the bait in so it dangled over the edge of the raft with the reed float laying on it. The first fish that approached started sucking and blowing at the bread flake and then as soon as I saw its mouth close around the bread I struck. It was only about 2 or 3 feet from the road end and I was sitting the same distance back from the edge, behind some reeds so the fish was hooked about 6 foot from the bank and I couldn't give it any line because of the reeds that were laying across the surface. It was a bit brutal but eventually I got it over the reeds into the only place I could get the net in.

Then there was no interest for well over half an hour so I went back up to the weir and fished there for over an hour without success before going back to the parrot cage swim. After about 20 minutes  a few fish started cruising through and nosing the loose bread but they were further out and I wouldn't have been able to reach them without any weight on the line so I put some bread crust skewered onto the reed float and lobbed that out. After a few minutes I got a taker and the hook and hold technique worked again.

I'm going back in March and will have some fly-tackle with me along with something to use for the carp and small barbel found up river. Transport is sorted.........

 

[fireman 10,884]

19 minutes ago, Nicepix said:

Thanks, but I tried that along with float fishing worms, and bread under a cocked float trotted downstream. Some days they will take anything you put in front of them and other days they ignore everything. Because of the bank holidays, shops closed situation I couldn't get any shell fish. I've had success with pieces of whelk or mussels cut up with scissors and fished on a small hook. As it was, the first day I only caught a terrapin and the mullet ignored worms, spinners, bits of weed float fished and suspended off weed rafts. As many of the fish were feeding just downstream of a weir I put my landing net over one of the torrents hoping to catch whatever they were feeding on. After ten minutes the net was empty so I reckon that they were pulling algae and other small stuff off the rocks as you could see them twisting as they mouthed the rocks. In the past I'vehad some by fly-fishing small flies tied especially to resemble algae, but that tackle was at home 400 miles away. After a while I gave up and went downstream where there are large shoals cruising about the main channel. I had no bread and all I got on worm was this...........

 

On the second time I fished I had a huge white sliced loaf, most of which I had mashed up after adding hot water. I put some on the lip of the weir so it slowly disintegrated and bits floated off down the shallow, fast channels where the mullet could be seen feeding. I'd also noticed a couple of larger fish under the apron of the weir on my first trip, but they were absent the second time. In fact all the fish were in the faster shallow water so I left the bread dripping into the swim and went down to a parrot cage of a swim about 200 yards downstream where there was a small pod of mullet hanging around a weed raft. I could only get a small rod in, a 6 foot spinning rod was all that I had other than the 11 foot float / quiver rod I'd used before. I put bread on the weed raft and waited around 30 minutes before one fish showed interest. As it got ore confident another couple showed up and also started to hunt down the bread so I put a piece of flake on a 12 hook direct to 6lb line with a float made from a bit of reed...

 

Once the mullet were preoccupied nosing about under the raft I flicked the bait in so it dangled over the edge of the raft with the reed float laying on it. The first fish that approached started sucking and blowing at the bread flake and then as soon as I saw its mouth close around the bread I struck. It was only about 2 or 3 feet from the road end and I was sitting the same distance back from the edge, behind some reeds so the fish was hooked about 6 foot from the bank and I couldn't give it any line because of the reeds that were laying across the surface. It was a bit brutal but eventually I got it over the reeds into the only place I could get the net in.

Then there was no interest for well over half an hour so I went back up to the weir and fished there for over an hour without success before going back to the parrot cage swim. After about 20 minutes  a few fish started cruising through and nosing the loose bread but they were further out and I wouldn't have been able to reach them without any weight on the line so I put some bread crust skewered onto the reed float and lobbed that out. After a few minutes I got a taker and the hook and hold technique worked again.

I'm going back in March and will have some fly-tackle with me along with something to use for the carp and small barbel found up river. Transport is sorted.........

 

Cracking mate and a grand use of a bit of natural float in using the reed,the very best of luck when your back at them.

[neil r 1,857]

Just had this 5.4 snub nosed chub on essential b5 

[Lenmcharristar 9,761]

On 05/01/2020 at 10:07, BrianSteven72 said:

Some wild brownies caught from my local river 

Beezers, my kind of fish