Mega update! I'm back!

Crikey, it's been a while!! A few months back my blog kind of fell by the wayside it appears and it's been one of those things where the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get back into it! I've had one or two ideas to completely change the direction of this blog anyway but until I come up with a format I'm happy with then I shall just update it normally as and when.

A lot has taken place in my fishing and personal life since my last update so rather than giving a blow by blow account which would take forever to write and somewhat bore the reader I shall just put a few pics on with a bit of background info so you can flick through to anything of interest more quickly.

Ok, starting from early summer which is where my last entry kind of finished I enjoyed a couple of cracking days on Pitsford reservoir with the SHUK (specimen hunting UK) lads in pursuit of its predators and it didn't disappoint. Pikewise I never managed anything decent but there was plenty of them to keep a bend in the rod . I did catch some nice perch however and was most privileged to be on hand to photograph a cracking 4lb pb for my buddy Carl and witness another PB in the form of a 24lb pike to another friend steve. The other SHUK lads fared well also with numerous big perch landed on the other boats.

 

 

A trip up to the Lake District to fish an event organised by the Lure anglers society on esthwaite water proved interesting. We camped on the shoreline and got eaten alive by midges but after Potto managed a lovely double figure fish just casting from the bank upon our arrival we were hopeful of a good session the following day. Unfortunately it wasn't to be and we managed just one fish each between us. It turned out it fished pretty hard for everybody and our two modest Pike were enough for third place which was a result considering neither of us had even seen the Lake before! A truly stunning place to wet a line though.

 

 

I also joined a little carp syndicate this year with the intention of getting to grips with the lakes bream population, however, my burgeoning lure fishing obsession got in the way of those plans for the most part. I did mange a couple of trips though and had some nice doubles, no PBs but I have little doubt that I've found the right water to nail my biggest bream at some point.

 

Around this time I got notice that my unit at work was to be closed down as the powers that be decided a move to Scotland with its cheap labour would be more profitable. This threw all my plans into disarray as I had only recently put my house on the market with a view to upsizing. After the initial panic I decided to continue with the house sale and forsake any meagre redundancy payout in favour of getting a new job as quickly as possible so I could get enough time in my new job behind me to enable a smooth transfer into a new mortgage when I needed to. Trouble is the house wasn't selling and finding the right job wasn't easy!

In the meantime on The fishing front it was early July and the Cornish lure festival was beckoning so myself and Carl headed to Cornwall for a long weekend of camping and fishing. Registration at the art of fishing tackle shop in wadebridge was quite surreal, I was five hours from home and it was like being in the local tackle shop, everybody that walked through the door was a familiar face from the midlands!

Our target for the weekend was to catch as many different species as possible and From our base in fowey we covered a lot of spots all around the area from Looe to Mevagissey. The main problem for us was lack of local knowledge, we knew where we wanted to fish but really struggled to get to most of the marks and not being sea anglers whatsoever we knew nothing of how the tides affected the different species. We did manage a few fish though and it was a real eye opener catching fish on lures in tiny rockpools that you wouldn't normally give a second glance to!

 

A couple of weeks later I was in Cornwall again on a family holiday so I got chance to revisit some spots with my daughter charlotte. We had a great time and the mackerel fishing was mental!!

Within a week of returning home I had a couple of successful job interviews and accepted a new role with a company that designs and builds industrial machines for the food industry, I started there in August, things were looking up hopefully!

Soon enough it was time for the opening of two big boys of the UK reservoir fishing scene, namely Rutland and Grafham. I was booked to fish the Zandermasters competition on Rutland to kick things off and I came a very respectable 6th place out of a large field of very good anglers. My target had been to beat last years 11th place and I had blown that out of the water, really pleased.

 

A couple of days on Grafham again with the SHUK and perch hunters lads was next on the list and what a trip that turned out to be! Carl and I really got stuck into the perch and we lost count of how many we caught over the two days, it was ridiculous! Most averaged around the pound mark with numerous twos and whilst the real monsters eluded us I still managed fish to mid three. Carl found some small 3-4lb Zander and seemed to be catching them for fun whereas I couldn't get one to save my life! I even resorted to the same lure and fished right next to his yet still no joy. Some of the other lads in our party got amongst some monster Zander with one boat landing six doubles on one day! Fantastic fishing, no wonder they call it the theatre of dreams.

 

 

Much canal and river lure fishing filled in the gaps between the ressy trips and September also saw my appointment as an ambassador for Japanese lure company Ecogear. They manufacture some great lures and no doubt you will be seeing a lot more of them on here in the coming months. They sent me a few bits to play with and I have to say they certainly catch a few!

Backend of September and early October saw me back in a boat again with my old mate Potto. Firstly a trip to Rutland to celebrate my 40th which turned out to be much tougher than I'd expected. We'd spent a good portion of the day drifting over fairly deep water for very little action indeed, all the usual spots seemed devoid of fish and we were scratching our heads a bit. On one drift we overran into shallower water around 35ft deep and immediately started getting pulls and catching. After this we concentrated on the 25-35ft depth band and caught well for the rest of the day, the consistent warm weather had obviously moved the fish into the shallower areas.

 

The next trip out with Potto was a couple of firsts for me, it was my first trip to the river Severn and my first time fishing a river from a boat, I had no idea what to expect but Potto assured me of a good day and he didn't disappoint! My second cast produced a Zander and from then on we caught consistently throughout the day. Several Pike and Zeds plus a ruck of Perch made for some great fishing and I was amazed to catch fish below the boat in less than 10ft of water. I was previously convinced they would've been spooked straight away but the reality was far from it. Another thing I learned was the need for good boat control, pottos skills on the leccy motor worked wonders and certainly kept us on the fish. The ability to tackle snags from different angles was also a massive bonus and saved us loads of lost gear. After that trip I'm now determined to get a boat of my own now to tackle my local bits of soar and Trent.

 

 

Since then I've had a bit of a grueller on the fishing front, yes I've caught a few littleuns but it's been hard work. The weather has cooled dramatically and all the leaves seem to have come off the trees at once filling up my local waterways with crap.

I did have a fairly impromptu grafham trip last weekend but the wind was horrendous and for the first time since I've fished the ressies I actually got a bit seasick. I don't think anchoring up in the waves helped the situation because I was fine once we started fish the drift again. I lost a good Zander just beneath the surface and managed a couple of decent brown trout but bites were very hard to come by.

 

 

Going forward, I have my own DRAC match to look forward to in December, the LACC predator pairs next week and a whole load of ideas for new waters to try. Oh and my house is finally sold and I'm looking forward to a January move to my new house which just happens to have a fish filled stream at the end of the garden! Tight lines all :-)

 

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Canals, rivers and the big G

This is going to be a busy update as I've been covering a lot of water in recent weeks! The canal lure fishing has continued unabated as have my quick 1-2hr trips to the local river. I did break the habit one Saturday with a bait fishing trip chasing chub before embarking upon my first ever trip to the theatre of dreams, or Grafham water as it is better known.

I recently joined the lure anglers canal club (LACC) and have been down Warwick way sampling some of their Zander and Perch sport. The grand union there is deeper and wider than the canals I'm used to and although the sport wasn't hectic we still caught a few. Dropshot tactics with micro lures seemed to be most effective although we did bump into another angler on one occasion who had caught a few on much bigger 4inch lures and jigheads.

 

Urban angling

 

The average Warwick stamp

 

The perch seemed bigger than the usual 'wasps' too

 

 

Unlike those at the other end of the LACC stretch!

 

 

Another area of grand union canal I visited recently was out towards Northampton. I had attended the annual Milton Keynes Specimen Group shindig in Newport Pagnell the previous evening where we were treated to a fantastic talk by well known big fish man Terry 'Theo' Theobold. Having booked into a local hotel I had taken my lure gear with the idea of exploring some waters in that area the following day. The locals directed me and Phil towards a couple of promising areas.

Although We awoke to the first decent frost of the autumn and had to scrape the ice off the car, the fishing didn't disappoint and plenty of bites were forthcoming despite several other lure anglers also working the stretch.

At one point Phil caught a perch which was followed right up to the bank by another of a similar size, I dropped in next to Phils fish and caught the other Imediately!

 

Double trouble!

 

A lovely stretch indeed

 

There was even some zander to be found

 

 

The following weekend I had a massive urge to go chubbing on the Trent so I packed my feeder rod, liquidised some bread and got myself down there! It was absolutely chucking it down which made for some uncomfortable fishing and bites were Initially hard to come by. After dropping in a couple of different swims though I managed to locate a few fish and even caught some before the rain finally beat me back to the car and home.

4lber, nice to watch a quivertip for a change!

 

Bread caught Bream

 

 

I'll never tire of catching these!

 

 

I used a couple of short trips to my local river soar to experiment with some flex-head jigs I'd recently aquired. I figured the extra joint in the rig would help impart more movement into the lure whilst possibly improving hookup rates, early results have been promising!

One of four in less than an hour

 

 

A hastily arranged trip to Grafham water was next on the agenda. Its not a water I've fished before and has a tough reputation but I figured my experiences on other large Trout reservoirs would stand me in good stead and I would be in with a chance at least. My boat partner Jamie had never fished it either but as luck would have it we met up with our old mucker Steve who was meant to be guiding on there but his client had cancelled due to bad weather in his part of the country stopping him flying down. His loss was our good fortune however as Steve agreed to come out in our boat for a couple of hours and hopefully show us the big G way.

We went straight to a mark Steve had found on previous trip and started to get the odd tap from the off. It turned out that these were mostly small perch but I was well chuffed when the first bite I connected with was my first Grafham Zander albeit a small one!

We had more Perch after that, Steve also nailed a Zed of around 7lb and I managed a feisty rainbow trout but it was tough going despite trying several other spots. After dropping Steve off at the boat dock around lunchtime Jamie and I headed back out to the first area as news filtered through that a couple of the other boats had found a few fish out that way.

It wasn't long before Jamie hooked what we initially though was a huge Zander or maybe a Pike but we were surprised to find he'd caught a lovely brown trout of maybe 4-5lb. We caught more perch and both lost what felt like good sized Zeds before all to soon it was time to head back in. I did snag another small Zander before hometime though which was pleasing. Upon our return to the lodge we were pleased to discover that Phil, another of our party in another boat, had caught a new PB zed of over 11lb which was a happy end to a most enjoyable day. It illustrated perfectly that Grafham has so much potential to obliterate those PBs, I've a feeling that I will be fishing there a lot over the next couple of years!

 

First one from the big G!

 

Typical grafham perch

 

Jamie bending into a good fish

 

Result!

 

Another little one at last knockings!

 

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Back to some proper fishing - part 2

....... The next evening I found myself on yet another different area of Trent in pursuit of a Barbel. It was quite late by the time I arrived and I didn't get much time to setup before dark. Straight away I was getting taps on the rodtip so there was obviously fish out there.

I didn't have to wait long to get an idea of what they were however because within minutes a large bream rolled out in the middle where my baits were, then another and another, the place was alive with them!

It didn't take me long to catch one, a typical Trent stamp of 6-7lb, and realise that I would be struggling to catch a Barbel amongst them. It was too late for a move so I resolved to stop till around midnight and hope a whiskered beast would be able to bully it's way through.

Of course it wasn't to be and after catching a more than respectable bag of several Bream to 8lb2oz I packed up still frustrated at the lack of barbellage. Looking at my records I now realise that I've never done great for Barbs at this time of year and my best results by far have come in late august through till early October, I'm not giving up just yet though!

I decided upon something completely different for my next trip as I'd recently acquired permission to fish a very private estate lake. I had no idea what to expect and even the gamekeeper couldn't tell me a great deal other than he reckoned there might be some carp and tench in there. The only way to find out was to fish it I guess so I planned a short Saturday afternoon session on there.

Armed with bread, maggots, sweetcorn, worms, ground bait and pellets I think I had all bases covered and upon arrival I settled into a nice looking corner swim fishing off a boat jetty. It was overcast but very muggy and a lot of Rudd could be seen milling around under the surface. A couple of balls of groundbait introduced alongside a overhanging tree soon turned that area of the swim into a jacuzzi as the tench homed in on it.

A good plumb around revealed that the lake was no more than 18inches deep all over and after casting a grain of corn into the jacuzzi it didn't take long to get an enquiry. A small Tench was soon swung to hand and that was followed up by several more and some Rudd aswell.

 

After around half an hour I finally managed to hook something a little more substantial which turned out to be a small carp. Well so far the lake certainly wasn't what I was expecting, it was stuffed with fish but they were all small!

 

I could see some bow waves and other signs of larger fish moving out in the middle of the pool so I decided to setup a small bolt feeder rig baited with a large pellet in bid to catch something better.

I placed the rod down on the edge of the boat jetty and before I even turned away the tip was pulling round! After a spirited scrap another little carp was soon netted.

 

And so that set the tone for the next 3 hours, cast, catch, net, rebait, cast, it got to the stage where I wasn't even putting the rod down, I just held it till it pulled round. It was still very shallow in the middle because every bite resulted in a splashy swirl out where I'd cast to.

 

I even attempted to fish two rods at one point but gave that up as a bad idea after three double hookups on the trot! The place was absolutely heaving with small stunted carp.

 

Eventually I ran out of bait and although I'd just had one of the maddest few hours fishing of my life it was a bittersweet end because I was almost expecting such an old estate lake to hold some really special fish. I'd enjoyed my trip on there though despite small carp not really being my thing, every one pulled like a demon and every one had a perfect mouth and was in great condition, certainly a lake to rival any commercial I've ever fished.

Anyway, having had my lake fix, I was soon back on the river with the lures for my most recent trip .....

 

 

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