Angling

WITH many of the ponds and lakes frozen over the holiday period anglers have been turning their attention to the rivers. Some have been pike fishing and there are reports of predator catches from all over the county. On the Wallers Haven members of the Pike Angling Club of East Sussex have managed to find a few decent specimens while dead bait fishing with sea fish baits such as sprat, herring, mackerel and sardine.

There have been no huge fish of twenty plus but several fish in the 13lb to 15lb class with lots of single figured pike. The best areas have been Ironbridge and Middle Bridge, the low water levels making fishing difficult at Boreham Bridge.

The pike fishing on the River Rother hasn t been as good as expected and the large bags of fish which were caught at Blackwall Bridge a few weeks ago no longer appear to be present. However, some good fish have been caught by anglers willing to walk to cover a long stretch of river.

Cliff Barwood of Winchelsea Beach and Mark Ray-Gain from Bexhill walked for miles plug fishing and spinning at Newenden before finding a pocket of feeding fish. In a short while they landed seven pke with Mark catching the biggest scaling 18lb 8oz and Cliff landing one of 12lb.

On the Sussex Ouse above the weir Jiff Flook float fished with a roach suspended 2ft off the bottom to catch a pke of 21lb on Christmas Day and there have been a number of pike in the 8lb to 10lb bracket mainly caught below the weir. There were even a few taken from the Andrews Stream and back waters on the mill.

On the Bevern Stream it was mainly roach to 10oz and chub to 1lb, but above Bell Hole on the main river a pike of 12lb 8oz was caught.

The River Uck has fished well for chub to 1lb 12oz and perch to 10oz with anglers catching bags of these fish from the water which runs through the industrial estate at Uckfield. Bread flake, worms and sweetcorn has accounted for most of the fish.

The Pike Anglers Club of East Sussex fished a competition at Blackwall Bridge on the Rother but found fish hard to come by. 1 Ray Edwards with two pike for 16lb 6oz, 2 Carl Melbourne with three fish for 13lb, 3 Malcolm Paget with one fish for 9lb 7oz.