neil r

Just on a farm pond with the xul gear , it’s tough going but had this decent one on a 1.1inch nano minnow on a size 14 0.4gm jig head

Pike , I’ve had loads of roach , dace and chublets for bait though . Had a pike hit my float twice and then take a roach but drop it and another dropped run . literally just had this 12.12 on a decent chublet as I was posting .

Just had 45 minutes on a little pond with one of my new xul outfits . Had these 5 on a 1.1 inch nano minnow and 0.3gm size 14 homemade jig head . Even though they were only small , biggest being about 8-10oz they all put a good bend in the 0.2-0.8gm rod . If it wasn’t as windy I’d have dropped to a 0.15gm size 18 to try and get some roach

We definitely get a bit too complacent around water . Ive waded in places I shouldn’t have and fished off steep slippy banks and after you’ve done you think i shouldn’t have done that but then you go and do it again . This place in the pictures is down near whistling sands and it’s a lot steeper and higher than it looks . We climbed down the sharp rock edge of the bit on the right carrying all the gear to fish off the very point because it was the only way down . If we’d have slipped to the left it was straight off and to the right it was down the cliff bouncing off the sharp rocks

The ribble is a snag pit and the Calder’s not much better in places . I like the Calder and I think it’s better for grayling than the ribble , there’s some good ones in there aswell .

Normally the ribble has shallow margins but this particular stretch on this side is deep and coupled with the steep sides and mud it’s pretty bad . It was about 10-12ft off the rod top and couple of years ago about 100 yards downstream another member wasn’t so lucky and he went in and drowned .

It was and I slipped on the mud when stepping over a log , luckily I managed not to break my rods when I landed . It’s the ribble . It was half a metre up and coloured too .

Struggled with catching lives big enough to use and only had dace . Never had a touch on the ones that were usable but caught one roach and put that in and it went straight away but I pulled out of it . Cast it back out and it went again but managed to pull the barbless hooks on an at least mid double at the net . Went back out with the maggot feeder and the rod ripped round and snapped me off before I could pick the rod up . It was the only maggot feeder I had on me aswell

He’s still going , I got a collar and lead off him for my terrier in September . I ordered it off his website but he’s got a facebook page aswell

Been watching YouTube vids of people fishing for silvers and fancied a go at it so got all the hooks , beads , uv resin and uv torch off aliexpress only takes minutes to make a few . From what I’ve seen it needs pretty good conditions to cast such light weights and if it’s windy it’s not happening . I’ve got a new 0.2-1.5gm extra ultralight set up to cast it aswell because my normal 1-5gm bfs setup wouldn’t be up for much below 0.8gm . Gone for the thinnest braid I could find at 0.04 and I’m thinking of trying an ester line on another reel to see how it compares . Not managed to get out yet be

A lot of the fish you see on the ribble facebook groups are off the free stretch and 1 of the 4’s that was caught while I was fishing was on there . I was at the top of the sandbank on the bend and the bloke was just upstream to my left at the end of the straight . The others were off the stretch above the m6 bridge . I was on the club side but you can get day tickets from the tickled trout garage for the other side and either fish from there or drive a few hundred yards back towards Blackburn and fish gregsons farm

See them all the time on the Ribble and Calder , usually on their own but sometimes in pairs and even with a couple of young . Even had them swim within touching distance while wading on a few occasions . Also see them on the straight mile section of the Leeds Liverpool canal in Burnley . Not the best quality but this is a screenshot of one I filmed eating a decent size fish in ribchester

Just been making some tiny jigheads with 0.1 - 0.15 - 0.2 - 0.25 & 0.3 gm tungsten beads on 18-14 hooks to use with little soft plastics like these . I’m going to try on the canal for roach and bream and the rivers for dace , gudgeon and even minnows with them