A Belated Happy New Year

Happy New Year, piscators. I trust you all enjoyed the festive season and celebrated the New Year safely and sensibly. I've not fished since mid-November for one reason or another, but this month I ventured out.

After buying half a pint of maggots, a small tub of worms, and hearing fellow piscators saying Birch House Fishery was fishing well, I thought I'd go and see for myself.

I set up on peg 19 of Teal Lake, which is a canal-shaped lake. It was great to be back on the bank, wetting a line for the first time this year.

After setting up a 3-section, 10' split cane rod and Ambidex No2 reel with a small float, it wasn't long before I was joined by a Robin who took some maggots into the trees behind me.

The Roach started taking the maggots first on a size 16 hook, but after a few hook-pulls, I changed to a size 14 hook and landed more Roach before the Perch moved in and took both maggots and worm.

After a cloudy start to the day, the sun came out, and temperatures reached 9 degrees centigrade, with air pressure around 1033hPa.

Between bites, I threw some maggots on the ground for the Robin, and after a while, a female Robin joined him.

Fishing just over a rod length out, I caught a nice Gudgeon, and a buzzard flew overhead. A lovely, quiet day's fishing on a mild, late winter's day and a wonderful way to start the year's fishing, £6 well spent.

A week later I had a session on the Trent & Mersey Canal at Findern, by bridge 21. With temperatures reaching 12 degrees and a cool westerly wind, I set up the same tackle from my previous session with leftover maggots and worms. The long and the short of this session was my first blank of 2023. I saw plenty of fish darting about but didn't manage a single bite, even though I moved twice to what I thought were likely spots. I packed up and decided it must have been a bread day.