Bob Goes Fishing | Welcome

Please rotate your device

This page is best viewed in Landscape orientation
(or tap anywhere to view in Portrait orientation)

Diary of an average angler

This diary dates back to a holiday in 2003 when I think the urge to get back into fishing took off.
From around 2007 the trips became more frequent with 2010/11 probably being the peak of activity.
Things again pick up in 2020 - a sort of rebirth!

Venues
Species
Archive
image

Information

The addition of embedded YouTube videos to this diary resulted in the web page taking far longer to load. To improve things I have changed the way in which the YouTube videos are activated. This has modified the size and appearance of the video placement images.

To view the full screen videos in YouTube please click/touch the YouTube icon below the placement image or the YouTube name in the viewer while the video is playing.

I'm also adding a few photos to the full report page on the more recent posts that feature YouTube videos. Click on the image to open a lightbox showing larger images.

I felt that a page of unbroken text was, perhaps, a bit heavy on the eyes!

Venues
Species
Archive

River Great Ouse - Offord (27)

The Triangle
Venue: River Great Ouse |Offord

Arrival time: 10:30 (at swim)
Weather: Overcast and chilly. Little wind to start with but blew up during the session.
Tackle: 9ft Shimano Aero X1 feeder rod with 1oz quiver, Shimano Exage 1000RC reel, 5lb line direct to a 14 hook. Link leger with 2SSG.
Baits: Maggots and worms.
Fish: A number of smallish roach and dace, with the occasional gudgeon and one small perch.

After yet more heavy rain I was unsure about going to a river but I took a chance, with the intention of going to a particular swim if the river was up. And up it was. Coloured and moving at a pace I was pleased to find that the spot I had decided upon offered some slack water.

Read full report

Species: Roach, Dace, Gudgeon, Perch

The Clay Pit (12)

Side pond
Venue: The Clay Pit

Arrival time: 10.00
Weather: 10⁰C, overcast with a NW wind. Brightened for a short period.
Tackle: 10ft TFG Compact Float rod, Speedia centrepin, light (5 x no.4) waggler, 6lb line direct to 14 eyed hook.
Baits: Maggot & worm.
Fish: Three tench, a small carp, roach, rudd, crucian & perch

I had proposed to go to a river but because of torrential rain the previous day I decided to go over to the local Clay Pit and fish a side pond. I had had a fair measure of success in these ponds earlier in the season but hadn't fished them in colder weather. I hoped for some roach and perch but things actually worked out a lot better.

Read full report

Species: Tench, Crucian, Rudd, Roach, Perch

River Great Ouse - Offord (26)

Top Stream
Venue: River Great Ouse |Offord

Arrival time: 10:00 (at swim)
Weather: Once again a bright start but it soon clouded over and the wind freshened with strong gusts.
Tackle: 9ft Shimano Aero X1 feeder rod with 1oz quiver, Shimano Exage 1000RC reel, 5lb line with circa 3lb hook length to a 14 hook. Started with a small bomb leger. Tried float and maggot feeder before reverting to bomb leger. Also tried a micro lure.
Baits: Maggots and worms.
Fish: A good bag of perch with two notable fish at 1lb 2oz and a PB of 1lb 14oz.

With the chub proving to be a bit challenging over the previous weeks I decided to try for perch at the Top Stream at Offord Cluny. I had caught perch there before and had spoken to another angler the previous week who said he had had some success with perch and roach. I picked up some red maggots and worms on the way.

Read full report

Species: Perch, Roach

River Great Ouse - Houghton (8)

Trout Stream
Venue: River Great Ouse |Houghton

Arrival time: 08.15
Weather: Bright, sunny and a light breeze, with increasing cloud cover.
Tackle: 9ft Shimano Aero X1 feeder rod with 1oz quiver, Shimano Exage 1000RC reel, 5lb line with simple link leger and a 14 eyed hook tied direct.
Baits: Maggot
Fish: Small dace & perch.

I had about half a pint of maggots left over from my trip to the Offord mill stream and decided to go to Houghton for a few hours to use them up. I went to a spot I had fished once before where one of the main channels feeds the head of the trout stream.

Read full report

Species: Dace, Perch

River Great Ouse - Offord (21)

Mill Stream
Venue: River Great Ouse |Offord |Mill Stream

Arrival time: 07.30
Weather: Overcast & breezy - brightening later
Tackle: 10ft EFGear compact float rod, Speedia centrepin, Drennan stick float, 6lb line with Drennan 4lb pre-tied hook length and 14 'red' hook.
Baits: Maggot, bread flake.
Fish: Small dace & perch and a couple of gudgeon.

I returned to the Mill Stream having the previous week thought that the swim at the head of the stream would be ideal for trotting. In fact the cross-flow of the stream and a cross wind made trotting quite difficult.

Read full report

Species: Dace, Perch, Gudgeon

River Great Ouse - Offord (20)

Mill Stream
Venue: River Great Ouse |Offord |Mill Stream

Arrival time: 08.30
Weather: Overcast & breezy - brightening later
Tackle: 11ft 6" John Wilson Avon quiver, Shimano 5000RE baitrunner, 2/3xSSG link leger, 6lb line direct to 8 eyed hook (14 hook for a while)
Baits: Bread flake, cheese paste, worm.
Fish: Two chub including a PB for the stream + small dace & perch.

After visiting a couple of heavily weeded streams this season, today I went to the Mill Stream at Offord. Weedy, certainly, but nowhere near as bad as those other streams. It was a slow start, a usually reliable swim not offering up anything.

Read full report

Species: Chub, Dace, Perch

Page 1 / 3 Next Page >

© 2022 Robert Bassett

Report bugs to webmaster

Built in RapidWeaver
with Shaking The Habitual's
Source micro framework

This site doesn't use cookies but links to third party sites can result in cookies being loaded. For example, there are links to YouTube to display the embedded videos from my channel.