Carp and Water Voles

I made 3 trips to my regular Essex fishery in 2012. Once in April, June and August. We later 2 trips, I fished with a friend and his nephew, we saw water voles which is always nice as they are not all that common these days.

On the first trip I had a few smallish carp and a few really nice bream. Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama

The second trip in June, there was a little more variety. Roach - Rutilus rutilus Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus Bream - Abramis brama Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio European Water Vole - Arvicola terrestris

The final trip in August was extremely wet and we fished it in thunderstorms. The fish were still feeding and we had a lot of really nice sized carp in the middle of the storm. Roach - Rutilus rutilus Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius Bream - Abramis brama Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio Leather Carp - Cyprinus carpio

Silver Bream and Barbel

I had been searching for a venue where I could catch Ide or Golden Orfe and stillwater Barbel when I came across a venue with both. The only problem was that it would be about 2 hours on the train and not a very regular service. At least it was quite close to the station, so I didn't have to do too much of a hike.

So I set up with my usually two rod setup. A ledger with corn or halibut pellets and a wagler setup. First cast... landed the first of my target species albeit about a tenth of the expected size. It was a 2oz fully formed little Barbel [#140] Barbel - Barbus barbus #140

I then proceeded to catch a whole lot of F1's on both rods, then a nice little Crucian. F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius Crucian Carp - Carassius carassius

Then several fish which I though were just Roach/Bream hybrids which really big eyes but in fact where a species I had never caught before, the Silver bream[#141]. The best way to identify these is the large eyes and the red coloured fins. To be sure, you will need to count scales and fins which are always hard to do without photos. Silver Bream - Blicca bjoerkna #141 Silver Bream - Blicca bjoerkna Silver Bream - Blicca bjoerkna

Into the day, I continued catch a few more species, perch, roach, bronze bream and a really nice sized gudgeon, but didnt get any Ide or Orfe. European Perch - Perca fluviatilis Roach - Rutilus rutilus Bream - Abramis brama Gudgeon - Gobio gobio

Perch and Trout

During a trip to the Peak District, I dropped into Arnfield Reservoir. I made two trips here. I first I fished along the show line and caught a nice rainbow on a blue flash damsel. Rainbow Trout - Oncorhynchus mykiss Rainbow Trout - Oncorhynchus mykiss
On the second trip, I decided to hire a boat, and fished the far bank. It was a lovely way to fly fish having never done so on a boat before. I ended up catching a load of perch fry on buzzers and bfd. I even caught a double head perch and trout. European Perch - Perca fluviatilis European Perch - Perca fluviatilis European Perch - Perca fluviatilis Rainbow Trout - Oncorhynchus mykiss

Some bream and tench.

I started my 2012 UK fishing in a Sussex fishery, just before my rod license had expired. It wasn't too successful but ended up with a few tench and bream. Tench - Tinca tinca Bream - Abramis brama

Hong Kong - Only a Pony

On the way back home from Melbourne, I had a three day stop over in Hong Kong. I stayed in the Tsim Sha Tsui area so it was pretty good access to the East Promenade near the Avenue of Stars where I fished previously. Bait wasn’t very easy to get as I didn’t know where the nearest wet fish market was and ended up buying some fresh prawns at Yau Ma Tei fish market which was about a 2 mile return trek from the hotel. I’m sure I could have got it somewhere closer. I found that a nearby supermarket had frozen prawns and fish, but I preferred fresh anyway.

Day 1 - East Promenade

I had only brought a single rod to Hong Kong, and set up a paternoster of quite small hooks and a small bit of prawn. I had many small bites but wasn’t able to convert them into fish. After a little while I landed a small silver fish with a black spot on the nape and front of the dorsal fin, various yellow stripes and spots, an extremely protrusible mouth and very slimy skin. I knew it was a ponyfish, but wasn’t able to identify it as a Spotnape Ponyfish [#139] until I got home.



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis #139



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis

I little while later, I had a different type of bite, it was more of a snatch than a nibble and out came a little goby. I could tell that it was a Tridentiger goby beause of the yellow band on the pectoral fins but was hopeful that it might be a species other than the Chameleon Goby. Well, hopes of a new species faded as I discovered that the only other Tridentiger species in Hong Kong, Tridentiger bifasciatus was an estuarine species that never enters 100% sea water. Like its cousin, it has also travelled the wolrd in cargo ship ballast water. In San Francisco Bay, both species occur but live at the different salinity levels.

I did catch a few more ponyfish and gobies, but not much else for the rest of the session. Just to point out, the Chameleon Gobies here seem to look a little different to the ones I have caught in Australia (see previous post). I'm not sure what it is but the jizz is slightly different somehow and the colouration, especially the darker patterns seem different to me as well.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Day 2 – Hong Kong Ferry Pier

On the way back from Lamma Island, I decided to fish between Pier 7 (the star ferry pier) and Central Pier 8 which was being renovated. It was quite deep water here, but I fished using the same tactics as on the other side of the bay. Again, it was quite hard to hook any of the fish but felt a lot of bites. When I did hook up, I caught a Marbled Rockfish, a species I had caught on the previous trip. These little scorpionfish are called False Kelpfish in Australia because they do look a little like Kelpfish. I noticed that there were a few businessmen fishing with handlines catching small rockfish. They seemed to really enjoy catching them, enthusiastically placing their tiny morsels in a bucket for the pot later. I was only able to catch another tiny rockfish before heading back to the hotel.




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus

Day 3 - East Promenade

I wanted to fish again at the Promenade to try and catch something different, but only more caught gobies and ponyfish again. They trip was quite disappointing, I had only caught 3 species even though one of them was new. The previous trip got me 7 species and was only 3 week later in the year than this time with only 1 overlapping species. Well better luck next time.

Triple Goby and a Pinky at the Warmies

The last fishing trip on my holiday to Melbourne was to the Warmies in Newport. I hadn’t mentioned in the previous blogs but I did go fishing here a few days earlier on an evening trip but completely blanked. On my last full day in Melbourne, I didn’t want to be defeated by this venue so I needed to give it another go.

The idea was to try and catch as many species as possibly so what I did was to fish a tiny hook with pippies about a rod length out. This would surely get my a few Chameleon (Japanese) Gobies or baby Bream, and sure thing, I caught a few Chameleon Gobies. They to change colours like Chameleons and I've hardly every caught them striped, but this time I caught a couple of them in the striped colouration.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Next came a Yellow-fin Goby. I had actually never caught these guys in the Warmies but just around the corner in Greenwich bay in about a foot of water, not about 6’ down.



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus

Then finally a new species, the first (and only) new saltwater species on the holiday. It was a Half-bridled Goby [#138]. These are quite similar to the Bridled Gobies I caught decades ago in the Maribyrnong, but have yet to recapture to photograph. Their fins aren’t as long, and have some spots instead of full stripes ('bridles') around their head. They still have beautiful iridescent blue spots all along its body and head.



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus #138



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus

After about half a dozen Half-bridled Gobies, I decided to move out of the Warmies and fish directly into the Yarra River. It was weird that I hadn't caught any baby Bream so I thought I would have better luck in the River. My plan was to fish the little jetty but it was already full, so I fished between that and the power station wall. I used the same rig but I upsized the hooks. After several dropped takes, I managed to land a lovely pinky snapper. I put up a really decent fight, but I kind of wished it was a Bream. The colours on the fish were awesome especially when I released it.



Snapper - Pagrus auratus




Snapper - Pagrus auratus

After a little while, I gave up on catching a bream, and targeted the yellow-eye mullet that were hanging around the shallows but I couldn’t land any, although I did hook a few of them. For me this wasn’t such a bad day’s fish, but others may disagree. I caught three species of goby with one of them being a new species and a nice snapper.