Species

A normal days fishing for me and probably most others will now involve setting out to target one or maybe two species specifically and pouring all our effort into deciding on a single venue to spend the day. On the Tuesday of last week however, I decided to have a change from this and attempt to catch as many species as I possibly could in just 12 hours fishing. Just to make it that little bit more interesting, this had to be done without setting foot on a single commercial or day ticket venue at all.

These 12 hours of which perhaps 2 were spent travelling, moving swims and stocking up in the tackle shop, had to be spent on Hull and District Association waters only whilst targeting anything that they had to offer. This I must say was quite a relief as the abundance of lakes and the occasional stretch of river offered up, at a guess, around 15 different species! 15 when you think about it is actually quite incredible and I for one often forget just how many of these are even swimming around in UK waters!

Now trying to catch all 15 (or there abouts) in a single day session is a little too ambitious for me so I settled on being happy with 10. Two thirds still seemed ambitious yet very possible and so with a couple of target venues in mind, every item of tackle I own was wedged into the car on the Monday night, ready for the day ahead.

The session started with a trip to the associations stretch of the river Hull at Hempholme, a stretch I know very well and have mentioned before in past blogs too. The aim here was to catch some of the more unusual species and get those ticked off before heading to the Brough complex a good 45 minute drive away. The session started as well as I could have possibly hoped and within a half hours fishing I’d netted three species from the section below the main bridge. Roach, Ide and a bucket load of pesky Minnows kept me busy whilst the Chub and Gudgeon seemed a little reluctant to take a bait that morning. A small Chublet did make an appearance though and whilst it was far from the biggest in the river, it was a fourth species and one I was happy to take!

Realistically there was only one more species I felt I could tempt from the river and having seen multiple Pike during the morning I expected to be done and dusted fairly early! There was always the possibility of a fluke Grayling or Trout as I’ve had these before, and the Gudgeon are there in numbers on the right day, but targeting any of these would have taken time which I didn’t really have so out came the lures instead.

A couple of casts around and amongst the moored boats gained some interest with small jacks following little plugs right up to the bank. Using plugs meant that the retrieve had to be almost constant though and this really didn’t suit the situation. A quick swap over to a spikey shad and 7g jig head meant I could now jerk the bait along the bottom and lay stationary in between the streamer weed if needed. This had exactly the effect I had hoped for and in the crystal clear river water I could see a fish edge closer and closer with every jerk. I left it to lay on the bottom for a fraction of a second and with a flare of it’s gills the Pike nabbed it right out of the sand. The braid tightened and the fish made a couple of admirable runs down river but a short stay in the landing net was inevitable. Almost lunch and five species down. Time to head off.

During the drive over to the Brough complex I actually passed various other Hull and District Association venues. Some of these may have been worth stopping in at however the Brough waters offered up everything I needed and more so decided to carry on. On a side note, that’s the real benefit of having club waters available. After three or four sessions like this on day ticket venues I’d have spent more than a whole years membership anyway!

Pulling up to the gate at 12:30 I had to decide on which of the lakes, and more importantly, species, I’d be targeting first. The fish I hoped to tick of the list by bouncing around the five lakes available here were Carp, Tench, Bream, Rudd and Perch. All very common, all pretty easy…right?

Well we got into it with a flying start by fishing Avocet pond and ticking Rudd and Perch straight off the list. For a known Tench venue though, it was baffling me as to why they weren’t showing up especially as I was finally managing to get bait on the deck through the hordes of silvers. Something just didn’t seem right and after 4 hours of pulling my hair out I decided I absolutely had to move for fear of not catching the Carp and Bream.

Now Kingfisher pond wasn’t somewhere I’d intended on setting up as the idea of the place is to get youngsters into fishing and is therefore stocked with your typical small fish. Hawk pond would probably be considered the specimen water on this complex with some very nice Tench and Bream swimming around alongside some of the complex’s largest Carp. Grebe pond is more of a runs water and because of this I wanted to try and steer clear of it if possible to make things more interesting. Cygnet, the final lake available here, was quite honestly a total mystery to me prior to that day.

It was a tossup between Hawk and Cygnet really. On the one hand, I could set my stall out for a larger bonus fish but this could take some time. On the other hand, I could jump on Cygnet, the smaller of the two and hope to be a little more prolific, but I knew very very little about the place to start with.

I decided on Cygnet which for all intents and purposes is a long oval shaped pond. A very deep, long, oval shaped pond it turns out as after some light plumbing I found myself fishing in 10ft of water just half a rod length from the reeds! The first 10 minutes passed without action, then 20, then 30 and just as I was beginning to give up some hope of catching the float rose, then dipped and sailed away smoothly! Upon surfacing I thought I’d brought up a Roach which didn’t get me too excited, especially as I’d already caught these back at the river! Getting closer to the net though I began to realise that it was far from a Roach. It was also far from what I’d expected to catch and I actually laughed out loud as I slid the net under a perfectly proportioned miniature mirror Carp. “Right then..” I thought as I popped the size 18 out and slid her back. “What other surprises have you got up your sleeve Cygnet?”.

Unfortunately, that was it for surprises and after a couple more hours of actually catching Roach I decided that Hawk was the next best target. With 8/10 species down and just a few hours left before my time ran out I had to pull these Tench and Bream out of somewhere.

I had a rough idea of where to head having previously seen plenty of anglers pulling big Tench out of a select few pegs on the far side from the lake. I set up shop and baited quite heavily with corn, maggots and crumb whilst topping up little and often after every fish. As per usual, Rudd and Roach were the culprits every time whilst the odd Pike tried to snatch at what was being brought in. This carried on well into dark and by 8pm, with only half an hour until my time was up, I had all but given up hope of completing the challenge.

A quite period where absolutely nothing seemed to be happening was unexpectedly broken by the starlight on the float tip disappearing from view completely! A firm strike was met by a jagged resistance and whilst watching the rod tip bounce around in the head torch light I realised that I might have just hooked something I hadn’t bargained for.

I’ll hold my hand up right now. I do not enjoy catching Eels. The small ones are hell to unhook and the larger ones stink. Not to mention how easily they can find their way out of your landing net once in it. I did include them in the 15 species I mentioned at the start but with them being so unpredictable I hadn’t expected to hook into one in the slightest. I’ll be damned if that’s not exactly what I’d just done though. After a couple of attempts at tying itself in a knot around the hook length I finally had it netted, unhooked and released as good as new and with 9/10 species in the bag I decided to call it quits and hold my head relatively high after a good day’s work.

Although I may not have managed to hit the 10 mark I feel as though I’d in some way still achieved what I’d set out to. Maybe had I gone to the effort of bouncing around a couple more venues such as the association stretch of the river Trent for Barbel, or Motorway pond for Bream, I could have reached or even beaten the target. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have blanked though, who knows. I guess I’ll find out some other day.