Upham Farm, Devon.

To me, fishing is all about getting away from it all and enjoying my surroundings (as well as catching a few fish). Whilst catching fish is obviously the main aim of the day, it doesn’t matter how many fish I can catch at a venue – if it isn’t a nice place to be I just don’t see the point of sitting there. To me fishing isn’t all about catching the fish – it’s more than that, and for my coarse fishing in particular, I want to be relaxing in picturesque, quiet surrounds, away from the crowds.

That said, I decided to fish Upham farm with the kids today. The reason for highlighting my wider reasons for fishing may be to do with my memories of this place. I haven’t fished at Upham farm for a long time! Last time I fished there I got the impression that it was a relatively new venue, quite open and barren with very little in the way of bankside vegetation or features. A bit like fishing in a field. I can’t recall what I caught and don’t remember much about the venue other than it was quite barren and uninviting. Suffice to say, despite being one of the nearest coarse fishing venues to me, I hadn’t returned…. until now, probably a gap of some 10 years. It’s not like I recall having a bad time, or that I’d forgotten it existed – I just always go elsewhere…. I think it must of been the sub-conscious thought of sitting in an open field, fishing that put me off.

Quite a few years have passed since that fist visit, and on our return to Upham we were greeted by the sight of several quite attractive and inviting ponds before us. Everything was well maintained, clean and just looked really fishy!. The banksides were practically manicured, and surrounded by mature trees with the ponds lined with reeds. All very nice looking and obviously cared for.

The Upham Farm Website had, as is the norm with all venues nowadays majored on carp, however what caught my eye was that pond 3 was listed as containing tench and the website boasted of “some of the best Tench fishing around”. Now, I can go to any of the ponds or lakes in the south west and catch carp – The thought of catching tench however did wet my appetite. We therefore headed straight to Pond 3 – past all the other ponds that were to be fair, pretty busy with serious looking anglers either kitted out with full specimen carp hunting set ups or looking like they were ready to represent England on the match fishing circuit. Seemed odd that we had pond 3 to ourselves… perhaps no-one else likes tench and that carp really are the only fish that any self respecting anger should fish for? As if to ram home that thought, we saw a number of carp being landed as we walked past. Wow! we thought – this is looking very promising! Full of optimism, we started to set up our gear at pond 3, not quite believing our luck at having it to ourselves. upon plumbing the depth, I found that it was about 2 foot deep wherever I plumbed. Not very encouraging.

We float fished maggot then tried luncheon meat. No bites. the pond looked like it should be heaving with fish, and on top of that, everyone else on the other ponds were catching carp. We persevered, and loose fed regularly until we eventually started pulling out small carp each chuck on double maggot. These looked recently stocked, judging by their regularity of size and abundance. Fishing luncheon meat kept the little carp at bay, but on the flip side lead to no bites at all.. After chatting to the chap collecting the money, who mentioned that this pond “wasn’t fishing that well at the moment”, we moved up to try pond 1 at his suggestion.

Pond 1 is quite small, and again we had this place to ourselves – Maybe this should of raised my suspicions given that all the other ponds had a number of people fishing them.

Straight away we started to get bites. Bites that were really hard to hit…. I eventually hooked and landed a small carp that put up a spirited fight, before loosing a bigger one at the net. The girls than proceeded to catch a couple of skimmers before I finished of by taking more baby carp and some roach. Not an impressive haul by any means but ok for a couple of hours.

The above appraisal may sound negative, but we caught plenty of fish and had fun. Our failure to excel was probably more down to my own skill, luck, judgement, approach to the venue – call it what you will. The venue is certainly nowadays an attractive and welcoming place and I can see myself returning with more regularity to try to learn it’s nuances. My one big gripe however, as is the case with all the coarse fishing lakes in the South West is the over emphasis on carp. Why when there are 7 lakes like here at Upham Farm, do the people running the place feel the need to stock each and every lake with carp? Why not try something radical and have at least one lake, maybe more with no carp? No carp at all. I’m not against carp as such, as I like catching them when I fell like it. It’s just there seems to be no choice. Every pond has carp in in, and they seem to out-compete all other fish to get to the baits. It’s the lack of choice that feels somewhat frustrating. Anyway, that’s possibly a rant to be had in another blog someday. For now, I need a lie down as I feel all carped out…

 

 

Windy Fishing at the River Brue

Met up with Jason to fish the River Brue, but I arrived late due to the summer holiday traffic. Met Jason at the Cowbridge stretch of the river, where he’d been fishing for a little while by the time I eventually arrived. A pretty lively wind was blowing straight down the river making conditions not exactly idyllic. Jason had been catching roach and rudd for a while and drawn the attentions of one of the resident pike which was trying periodically to snatch fish as he brought them in. Fortune was smiling on him, as he managed to hook and land the marauding pike on his coarse gear before I’d even managed to wet a line. Nice angling! not that I was jealous, honestly….

With this success recorded for posterity we decided to move on in search of some shelter from the wind. Given the rather exposed nature of the Somerset levels, we didn’t really manage to find much in the way of shelter from the wind so just had to persevere. One of our favoured spots was showing quite clearly the affects of our long hot summer with the weir running dry and actually leaving dry steps from which to fish.

We both float fished maggot and had a steady stream of fish (chub, roach, gudgeon, perch and minnows) – although nothing big. Still – all good fun.

It was really strange because despite looking insanely fishy, the weir just didn’t produce the quality of fish it has done in the past for us. Maybe it was the low water levels, lack of flow or just “one of those days”.

As dusk approached the wind did finally drop to give us some nice fishing conditions and at this point I had a small chub decide to take a minnow – showing its not just the pike and perch that the little fish need to look out for!

Wrasse fishing at East Prawle

A family camping trip down in the South Hams area and glorious weather meant it would have been rude to not at least try to get out for a spot of fishing at some stage over the weekend. Late one afternoon we managed to find a small window of fishing opportunity which Jason and I grabbed with enthusiasm. We had 2 hours of rock fishing down near East Prawle with conditions looking perfect for Wrasse – Calm…

I Lure fished with a cone weight and soft lures on weedless set up. Just bumping the lures back slowly across the bottom. This was a spot I’ve caught numerous wrasse from in the past and I was anticipating great things! As it turned out, we weren’t destined to be pulling out fish after fish and were in danger of going back to the tents fishless!

I only had one definite bite that turned out to be from a small ballan wrasse. Not any size but very welcome all the same. It saved us from a blank at least.

We had to pack up in the end as it was getting dark and our presence was required back at camp.