Purplepeanut007 PP007 FLOAT MAKING & FISHING ADVENTURES - THE RIVER IRWELL AND BEYOND.

With a LOT of encouragement from Casterman aka Derek Kenyon I sorted out my kit for a chubbing session on the Irwell. I have lost my mojo a bit lately what with losing My Acolyte...........then having it returned by Andy Hart.....  ( Incredible I know ) eventually sorting out a session on the Ribble with Andrew Boyne, watching him pull out a double figure barbel while I toiled for four hours on the stick for one  dace !!!!!!! I had a slightly different Irwell stick to try out. It is wider, therefore, more visible than the previous ones and taking little more shot. ( 12 no 4's) I spent a fruitless two hours on a couple of secret runs Casterman always does very well on. I nearly went home there and then as I wasn't feeling it today and was just going through the motions really. " Come on Cootesie, make an effort " I mumbled to myself. I still had a few hours left so I swiftly..... BUT CAREFULLY packed my kit away..... ALL OFF IT .....before...

After making Victor Homewood an.........  " Ultra Bling Jumbo Pacemaker " I liked the comments it received on Facebook and decided to make myself one. I shortened the float and reduced the buoyancy by approximately 50% so the weight is 7AAA or 3.5 swan which is exactly what I need for the River Ribble and some parts of the River Irwell where sticks cant cut it when on bread and meat.  It has a yellow, black and white tip, purple and gold whippings with a metallic green  body. Framed between the two green body sections js a jay feather inlay. I hope you all like it. 😊 I may even get my act together and go back to Bridgenoth on the River Severn. A place which still has a special place in my hart. This was where I learnt to trot a float in my very early teens with John Doran, Mike Shaw & Dave Mason amongst others. Until the next time . . .  TTFN . . . . If you would like to look at my handcrafted floats just hit the l...

I haven’t been working much on a Saturday lately but been sucked into my house renovation so fishing has still been difficult to organise but a chance call from “ Red Head Fred “ ( John Derbyshire ) asking me if I fancied a quick rod sharing session on the River Douglas was well and truly snapped up !!!!!!!!! We meet at Johns new gaff and he gave me a quick tour whilst grabbing some bits for our quick roving session. Fifteen minutes later we piled in his van an hot tailed it off to the stretch we usually fish. Now, this stretch suffered from a pollution incident a few weeks ago. We were all still fuming so an exploratory session was needed to see if there was any detrimental affects on the resident fish population. Here is the link to the pollution incident. http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/14776557.Chemicals_cause_of_river_fish_deaths/?action=success#comment_17041124 We only had three hours as I had to be back home for 17.00. As we arrived at our first r...

I had forgottento do this write up. . . . . . I decided to have another quick hour on the same peg I caught that nice brown trout from  but, unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. Two chublets and the rivers full population of minnows graced my net. After of arm aching minnow bashing session I packed up and moved to pastures new......... I have been getting out a little more lately so I decided for a change. There is a little known run on the middle Irwell that I have never fished that was going to be crossed of the bucket list today . 😉 I had been warned about the rivers current here  because you have to wade accros it and the river also narrows up next to a sheer cliff face.  I carefully inched over the bedrock to the other side of the river to gain access to the run only known by a few. The journey to the run was not to bad, as I have said, I crossed the river in around two foot of water. It was not as bad as I was expecting it to be to be hone...

Both myself and the Ginger One have been longing to go back to the . . . . . . Little River Yarrow in Bolton to continue our  . . . " Search For Silvers ". The last time we fished it we hammered the trout but only caught one silver between us which was a little disappointing.  We were a little low on bait so we called into "Adlington Angling Centre "  to stock up on some bits. John is a regular at the shop and introduced me to the owner, Andrew Gibbs. A nice guy with a top shop. Andrew sorted us out with our bits and bait. We had a chat about the days horse racing then we hit the road.  John has located a nice stretch of the River Yarrow to fish as the river is in his back yard and directed me to a stretch where he had walked but never fished. We tackle up, while chatting, donned our waders and clumped up the path to the first of Johns secret sections . . . . . . “ I’ve seen chub here Peanut . . . . . . loads of them “  said ...