Cracking day out........

Well the last month or so has been soooooo hard with the shite weather conditions etc but everything came good today..... :-) after weeks of pulling my hair out with horrid conditions we finally managed to hit some local spots. First off was one of my favorite tiny lowland rivers always stuffed with chub, pike and perch but after a hour or so things didnt really happen! we managed 2-3 follows between me and Martin from small perch to around a pound when the water started to colour up loads making it hard work, we decided for a quick move to a venue on the flood levels where i knew things could turn good, after only 2 casts in one of the tight snaggy swims this shows its ugly head!!

Soooooo nearly the Magic wild 30lber number 3 but she didnt make it........ but its always a pleasure to witness beasts like this stunner! safely returned to fight another day :-) she nailed a white 5inch Savagear Cannibal shad it went fudging crazy under the rod tip then steamed off down the drain towards a snag then came to the surface for a nice shake of the gills then off again before i slammed on the breaks for the Net! what a way to start the season with one of my largest Lure caught pike. we fished this venue for a couple hours upsetting the Jacks and the odd perch when we decided to sneak off to the last venue for the lower light in search of Mr Perch! half hours drive in to the middle of no bloody where we finally got to this gawjus river within 10mins of getting there things looked great with two follows my Perch to about a pound again when i cast to a slack and Bang i knew strate away i had a Perch this nice chucky 2lber was a pleasant catch and i was now ready for home with numb fingers and nose the light was dropping fast, off home we go! cracking day out chuffed to bits as iv really struggled with the "no fishing" the last month! Mart blanked lol

tight lines

Danny

Making the most of it......

Well the weather is getting from Bad to Fudging shocking! and its proper shafted my fishing! with all still waters and a couple rivers being totally frozen solid and have been now for almost a month! with temps not leaving the minus's throughout the day! we even have over a foot of snow fallen over the weekend its making fishing out of my reach!

Soooooo i thought id go through a few Lures im currently putting through there paces, some new some old but all still catching "when" i manage to get to the water.....

Going to start with my Trusty Sebile Magic Swimmers in the Hard swimbaits and of coarse my Fav the Magic Swimmer Soft. Both these lures ranging in size from the 62sk standard swimmer and 100mm soft, to the 228ssk beast standard swimmer and the impressive 200mm soft swimmer! coming in a serious amount of colours from the garrish blues and greens like Peacock(NI2) and Chartreuse Holo(M5) to the really awesome naturals like Rainbow Trout(NRT) above, to the likes of BlueGill and White Perch (NBG-NK2)These lures have actioned to be seen to be believed! iv used the Soft swimmers 130mm allot recently for its totally natural appearence and swimming action its Soft Weight System is the key here! you can alter the actions decents by adjusting the Soft tunsten weights forwards of into the lure depending on your style, also being weedless its the lure to use in and around the heavy cover. The standard Swimmer is the King of swimbaits with throughwire construction, to full Owner hookage (st-46 on larger sizes and St-36 for all else) these lures cover it all, the pike on one of my local venues go completely crosseyed for them and they provoke such mental attacks! the three models FSK, SK and SSK cover all situations! truly one of my Fav lures.

This time of year i like to fish lures nice and Slow close to the structures or bottom this is where Softbaits come into there own, there are literally thousands and thousands of Companys making alsorts of good baits out there today, from Japanese super brands to the western greats such as Savage Gear etc. But one of my favorite Brands that make some blinding lures Hard and Soft MegaBass....... those of you who follow salt water lure sites like http://www.henry-gilbey.com/ and other sites and forums will know this brand well! with the likes of the Zonk's and Xpods holding up the Hardbaits and the likes of these two beauties, the SpindleWorm and Xlayer's :-) now iv used both to amazing effect in salt water here and over in Ireland for Pollack, Wrasse and Bass but these stunners also kick the competition in the nuts with there Innovative designs and lure styles, The Xlayer being the Lure above they come in 3-4 different sizes in endless hand poured colours these lures either fished on jigs or weedless on offset worm style hooks really do offer endless styles to fish for Perch, Chub, Zander and of coarse Pike! the Xlayers are truly a legend in there own with tons of fish appeal with the Ribs and crease causing vibrations also a neat little tail rattle it really does the business! i fish mine on a light jig with anice sized hook fished really aggresive making the lure almost walk the dog under the surface! a true slash bait! The spindle worm really coming into its own for winter Perch! you can rig on a jig and slowely crawl this lure tight to the bottom, the tail naturally paddles away the perch just love them! Spindle worms do have there own problems though! due to them being made with Vios they WILL react with all over baits, and literally melt the lot! these need keeping together in there neat little packet apart from that hold on tight!

These lures above are from the Massively popular Delelande range, the white lure being the impressive GT-shads and the lure below the Buster shad. these lures again are ideally suited for perch and pike! with the GT-shads coming in various sizes right up to 8inch in a massive range of colours they are a very dence lure with a quick sink rate, the rubber is very tough and good with toothy critters like Pike and Zeds as you can see i rig mine with owner stingers which i make up in varied lengths to suit differnt situations. the Buster shad is one of my favorite shads with the articulated tail section and holes through the wrist of the tail giving this shad a mental action! it wriggles soooo much it almost feels like a plug on the line SERIOUS again comes in a numerous amounts of sizes to 6inches in a wicked amount of colours. shads can be fished on sooo many ways its best left to the fisherman to figure out but these to work very well! all of the above lures were sent to me by http://www.basslures.co.uk/ Nick and the gang over there will sort you out with all ya pred needs why not check them out.

Also dont forget the newest "in the know" forum packed with goodies from guys right across the board some come on join in! www.jerseybassguides.com/rockfishing

Hopefully be out fishing soon as the ice and snow fudges off, have a good christmas and new years guys

Danny

Couple hours out

Brrrrrrrr its fudging cold!! Managed a few hours on a local river this weekend, with hopes of Pike and possible perch and Chub. we fished some known stretches that are stuffed with Pike etc with stunning slow deep bends, over hanging trees rafts of weed behing sunken snags it just screams fish! i had a hit from a Pike of around 2lb almost instantly but the little bugger wouldnt take again! soon after a Tiny Perch ruched up behind the Shad talk about eyes bigger than its belly! Martin had on the trusty Sonic spinner but managed to wang it strate into some snags deep into a slow corner losing the first lure of the session! things started to slow, the water was freezing cold conditions looked amazing over cast skys great colour to the water it just wasnt happening! we found some lovely looking swims tight to trees on our bank that when Martin manages to whip a small Jack out from the tree roots, the way it stayed deep made me think he had nailed a decent perch!

Martin caught his Pike on a trust twin tail on a Gama jig deadly on the right conditions! i soon whipped out the proper gear, sticking to the Sebile soft magic swimmer 130 in BlueGill the colours and action of this lure are amazing and one of my all time favorite lure since i was given them by Nick at TopWater over a year ago! but as hard as i tried skipping this lure under bushes and trees into all the likely holes nothing! it was really trying my skills to find the fish that are normally crawling these swims! it just wasnt happening! we fished a section a good 3miles long with only one follow to show for it! the water was soooooo cold the jacks we caught were shockinly cold and i reckon these fish are all holding up in the deeper water untill temps change! still it was good to get out shame we coudnt fish one of the local canals due to ice but next time fingers crossed!!

Cross Over's

Good evening guys, please check out a article i recently put together for Keith over at JerseyBassGuides! we are going to do more Cross over articles throughout 2011 ill put up some HRF/LRF stuff on here and he will be sticking up my Freshwater antics!
http://www.jerseybassguides.com/bassfish/blog1.php/2010/12/08/night-pike-a-guest-article-by-danny-parkins
Keiths stuff on his blog is always worth a read as these guys are truly a step above the rest in my eyes with the way they are pushing the techniques myself and my friends love to be involved in.
dont forget the new must see forum if your partial to a bit of salt water luring :-)

Danny

Dangling in Dorset

As promised heres the report from my good mate Adrian and his angling antics this weekend!


"I wasn’t sure whether to go sea or river today but decided on the river as I fished the sea all last weekend and I haven’t fished the river for ages. So I dug out the UL gear, tied on a 20lb single strand titanium leader and off I went.
There was still a lot of snow and ice on the ground and I couldn’t get to park in my usual spot so had to walk a little way to the river. When I got there the water level was still quite low but the flow was reasonable and there was the right amount of clarity, about 3-4ft.
2nd swim upstream I hooked this little jack, about a pound or so, on a Rapala jointed Shad-rap 4cm.

Good, I thought, the fish must be "on". But spoke to soon as I didn’t get another take for nearly 2 hours. Had a pike of about 5lb on for about 5 seconds, then it was off.
Nothing again for 1/2hr so I thought I’d start making my way back to the car, and maybe go bassing somewhere. So, fishing back downstream, I then had these 2 jacks, both in the same swim. One about 4 lb and the other about 5lb.
and

Moved down to the last swim and decided "last cast".
Fish on. After a short fight I landed and weighed it at 13lb7oz. My best pike this winter so far. By now it was raining hard so I had another couple of casts (had another tiny jack) then packed up back to the car.

On the way home to pick up the bass gear I changed my mind and thought I’d fish a different stretch of the same river. When I got there, the water was beginning to rise due to the rain and the snow melt and was becoming more coloured but I thought I’d give it a go. 3 casts and I had this lovely, deep bodied chub on - 6lb4oz.. That was the only fish in about and hour and a half. It was still raining hard, so I packed up and called it a day."

Id say thats a pretty good session!! nice to be out evenin if it is wet and cold! thanks again Ady keep up the good work! it'll soon be our Perch session time of year!

Danny

F-F-F-F-F-Freeeezing

Alrite Guys, managed a day out finally! Me Jimbo O'donnell from http://www.fishinginflorida.co.uk/ and Fatboy (shaun) headed out on this very cold -7 friday morning! a quick pit-stop in Mak d's then off to the tackle shop to pick up the day tickets, i wont go into the conversation that happened in the tackle shop! good job we all knew each other because we would of prob been arrested :-) ha ha ha i blame Jimbo myself! a quick 15mins drive and we were at the venue of choice, one of the pike rivers i fish fairly aften it looked awesome! still with snow covering most of the fields and the water looking very dark and moody Perfect pike fishing conditions!

While Jimbo and Shaun fished Deadbaits i of coarse stuck with various soft plastics, starting out with 5 and 6inch Cannible shads fishing them tight to the bottom following the contours hoping for a big Pike or chub to nail them behind the snags. while Jimbo pitched up a little trap of Lamprey and sprats in the pools behinds submerged trees and features. after half hour of fishing i managed to get a few chases but they just wouldnt nail the bait, i reckon the brilliant blue skys and awfull temp's just pushed the fish down! Jimbo was the first to connect with a fish as the float bobbed away and sailed up stream against the flow and then charged off back down stream, Jimbo cranks down hard and strikes the 10ft fox aqaus twig stalker looped over with massive head shakes and huge boils on the surface of 8-9ft water this fish was giving its best to not come out of the swim, i clambered down the slippery frozen banks and the fish spat the hooks!!! Gutted after a swear word or two the baits soon got wacked strate back out.

Those of you who follow the blog or know about Sebile lures will know iv been Testing the gear in our waters for over a year now and really enjoying being involved with the brand, i just love the style and innovation Sebile brings to the table! i pride myself in the up and coming techniques and pushing the lure fishing boundries so i spent most the day fanny assing around with the Softbait Magic Swimmers with all the different ways they can be fished! this photo shows my "secret" jig Mod with stinger hook. i wanted to come up with a method of rigging the lure as if it was on a Jighead but without the hook sticking from the top of the lure to keep that (almost) snaggless presentation and Hell yes i cracked it this time! ill post a "tech talk" in the week where ill go through what mods iv made to create this rigging style.

While Using various lures from Sebile etc i only managed to get 3 hits to the lures which was soooooo pissing me off as the conditions were spot on not even Fatboy and Jimbo had sniffs on there baits which was frustrating to say the least! but as usuall the day was full of Banter and humour its nice sometimes to just get out and enjoy Fishing for the love of just being out with friends trying to look like we all know what we are doing :-) we ended the day with a blank but hay ho great fun all the same. Adrian text while we were out he managed to fish in Dorset ill wack the report up tonight!

Danny

Check this out!

Well this weather has really Ballsed my fishing up! But im out this friday shooting new photos with Jimbo O'donnell on a well known local venue stuffed to the brim of decent pike and chub! ill hopefully have a wicked report to stick up sat evening to watch out!
Well im posting up for a reason and thats this! http://www.jerseybassguides.com/rockfishing/index.php heres a new and exciting forum form the guys over at JerseyBassGuides, iv mentioned Keiths efforts and his site on my blog before deffo one to watch! this forum is dedicated to the new school style HRF/LRF style lure fishing as well as other Japanese styles of artificial fishing! iv prided myself in these styles for a few seasons now its a great way to fish! this site already has some of the big names using it and will be a gold mine of knolledge and info. lets hope it keeps level headed as this is a forum for the guys in the know and new comers alike! we dont need the school playground antics of say the P+P/LAS forums which are a weak shadow of them selfs due to problems with users. hope you guys check it out and give Keith the support and help JerseyBassGuides diserves!

Danny