Where did the time go?

As I type this it looks like Summer is making way for Autumn, Carp are getting their heads down and feeding hard in preparation for Winter and in the sea the Summer species are moving on and the annual Whiting infestation has already begun.

The reality is I haven't been able to do much fishing and when I have been able to get out it's usually been pretty hard going!

I spent a week down Cornwall with friends and though I fished every day and a couple of evenings I didn't have much success. I went down there dreaming of giant Bass, Turbot and Small Eyed Rays but the reality was small Pollack, Wrasse and my first ever Garfish on LRF gear. I did manage this Ballan Wrasse of about 2 lb whilst fishing a beach in the evening:

Other than that I had a day fishing lures down Brighton and managed to catch Mackerel, Garfish and Bass. The Mackerel and Gars took a Dexter Wedge and the Bass were caught on surface lures, at 1 lb 10 oz and 2 lb 14 oz they weren't monsters but it's always nice to catch something different.

After a bit of a break I'm also getting back into my Carp fishing, my first trip to Roosthole since going to France in May resulted in me catching eight fish with the biggest being just over 10 lb.

I started the year with all these plans to catch big fish and new species but it wasn't to be, I still have hopes of catching a few Flounders from the Adur and maybe a nice Pike from the Thames but the Small Eyed Rays and Turbot will have to wait until next year. The good news is I'm now on 4 on 4 off shifts so I plan to fish much more next year.

So much for doing more fishing this year, if anything I've actually done less, summer has come and gone and when I have managed to get out the fishing generally has been very poor.

Other than a week at the Labyrinth in France I haven't done any Carp fishing. Record rainfall the week prior to our visit caused the lake level to rise at almost an inch an hour which meant for a very tough week. It wasn't until the fourth day after I had moved swims and the lake level had stopped rising that everyone started to catch. I went on to finish the week with a double, two twenties and two thirties including two thirty pound Commons, not big fish for France but my first ever thirty pound Common and an enjoyable week nether the less.

 

38 lb 8 oz - Common Carp (France)

 

35 lb 0 oz - Common Carp (France)

29 lb 12 oz - Mirror Carp (France)

 



23 lb 4 oz - Mirror Carp (France)

In terms of sea fishing I've only done a couple of trips shore fishing and most of those turned into tiddler bashing as the bigger fish eluded me, looking back I really was spoilt last year with all those big Hounds, Rays and Cod I managed to catch. I fished at Samphire Hoe for the first time and can't wait to go back there as I caught a nice haul of Pollack on the float, nothing over a pound in weight but good fun on light gear and the first time I've caught sea fish on the float.

Nothing much to report on the boat fishing front with the only notable catch being this Bream.

 

Black Bream - 2 lb 0oz (Kingsmere Rocks)

 

I've recently invested in some LRF gear so I can't wait to give that a go targeting all the mini species and tiddlers around the coast and I'm still optimistic about catching my first ever Bass and Sole before winter arrives.

 





It seems like only yesterday that I last shared my fishing stories in this blog but it was in fact over three years ago! Outside of fishing my life couldn't of changed any more, redundancy, career changes, relationships and even moving up to London, needless to say I've still managed to do a bit of dangling over the years and these are some of my highlights.




49 lb 8 oz - Mirror Carp (France)

 

39 lb - Grass Carp (France)

 

 

23 lb 6 oz - Common Carp (France)

 

40 lb 6 oz - Mirror Carp (France)

 

 

5 lb - Thornback Ray (Wales)

 

 

10 lb - Blonde Ray (Wales)

 

12 lb - Cod (Devon)

 

11 lb - Ling (Devon)

 

25 lb - Conger Eel (Devon)

 

16 lb 10 oz  - Smoothhound (Selsey)

 

 

1 lb - Lobster (Deal)

 

 

19 lb - Pike (Horsham)

 

 

7 lb 2 oz - Tench (Yately)

 

 

40 lb - Catfish (Hawkhurst)

 

 

4 lb - Barbel (Kent)

 

 

190 lb - Hammerhead Shark (Lanzarote)

 

 

I've only just scratched the surface of my new obsession (sea fishing) and my new job working in the aviation industry means not only will I have more time to fish but also the opportunity to fish all over the globe.

 

Keep checking back here regularly as I aim to update this blog more often with catch reports and stories.

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

 

 

 

 

 





Readers Lake - 19/11/09

I arrived at the lake at 08:00 to find two other anglers already fishing but thankfully my favourite swim (13) was still free. I set up a small Porkies elasticated method feeder as usual but this time I incorporated a small piece of tungsten tubing into my rig to help pin the mainline down in the choppy conditions. The bait of choice was the ever reliable three grains of corn on a hair which has been responsible for catching me more fish than I can remember at Readers this year.

Because of the wind I set the tip so it was almost touching the water and waited for the inevitable wrap round bite that usually happens when fishing the method. Within half an hour of dropping my feeder near the island I was into my first Carp of the day, the Carp in Readers had certainly been getting themselves ready for winter as though it only weighed 4 lb it was solid and fought like a fish of twice its size.

For regular readers of this blog you may recall me catching a new personal best Crucian from Readers a few weeks back and my second fish of the day broke my P.B yet again with this 1 lb 6 ounce specimen.

From that point on bites and fish came thick and fast and I decided to call it a day at 14:00 having caught six Carp to 11 lb plus one Crucian, not a bad haul for six hours fishing especially when the two other anglers on the lake had only managed one Carp between them.

The one disappointment of the day was that I also lost a decent Tench at the net but that's fishing I guess.

Roosthole Pond - 14/11/09

Roosthole has definitely become one of my favourite waters this season so I didn't need to be asked twice when my friend invited me to fish there on the 14th of November.

I woke up Saturday morning to find the South East being battered by 50 mph winds and torrential rain as the first storm of the year hit the UK. After a quick glance outside and a text from my mate we decided to chance it, it should be good for a laugh even if we didn't catch.

No sooner had we arrived at the lake we were hit with a hail storm as well as thunder and lightening, it was hardly surprising to see no one else at the lake (only lunatics would fish in this weather!) but at least we would get our favourite swims.

I went with a standard bolt rig but as the weather was cooling down I decided to get away from the fishmeal boilie/halibut pellet combo and instead opted for a 15mm Mainline Cell on one rod and a 15mm Dynamite tiger nut boilie on the other, both rods had small PVA bags of chili hemp attached for each cast.

By now the wind was really starting to get up, thankfully for us we were quite sheltered but that didn't stop a huge gust causing my friends brolly to turn inside out and take off like something out of Mary Poppins. It was only when we looked at the trees higher up in the distance could we see how windy it really was as they were almost doubled over! I had to spend a lot of my time holding the sides of my brolly just to stop it collapsing and the torrential rain made it impossible to use PVA as a whole tube of mine turned to mush whilst trying to make up bags. The wind had also caused branches to fall from the trees and these were drifting around the lake and all over my lines giving me indications on my bite alarms and hampering rig presentation, if I could catch in these conditions I could catch in anything!

I filmed this clip on my phone just to show how wet and windy it was:



Over the course of the day I had six runs (all on the tiger nut boilies) and I ended up landing three Carp, two were around the 7 lb mark and the biggest just over 13 lb. For some reason I always get plagued by hook pulls at this water and today was no different, I suspect today it was due to me bullying the fish just so I could back under my brolly and out the rain!


My friend managed two Carp which meant another point to me in our match series but I sensed a severe lack of enthusiasm and competitiveness from him today, obviously it was completely down to the weather and nothing to do with the fact that the score now stood at a 8-3 and he was getting beaten like a drum.

Yateley Pads - 27/10/09

I only started specimen Carp fishing this year and the goal has been to catch a 'twenty' a feat which has eluded me in 15 years of general course fishing so when my friends asked me if I'd be interested in spending three days at the famous Yateley Pads I jumped at the chance.

Pads is a Cemex water at the famous Yateley complex, it's roughly 4 acres in size and costs £125 a day to book the entire lake, you simply divide the costs up amongst you and your friends. The lake itself contains somewhere in the region of 90 Carp which have an average size of over 20 lb, if I was ever going to catch my first twenty it was going to be here.

We arrived at the lake to find that all five anglers on the lake for the two days prior to us had blanked and not only that but the weed was absolutely horrendous. According to the bailiff the temperature roller coaster in recent weeks had caused to the weed to die and start growing again which meant apart from a few areas the size of postage stamps the bottom was thick with about a foot of weed.

I drew number one out of the hat which meant I had first swim choice so I opted for the legendary end of pads swim hoping the pads which were dying for the year would still attract some fish and I could also find some weed free areas on the outskirts.

I cast out and waited....


and waited....

Nothing, not so much as a beep for two days despite trying every imaginable rig and bait going, chods, slack lines, bolt rigs, free running, popups, naturals, they just weren't having it, none of my friends had caught either and unlike me they had even tried raking and spodding.

The last night I decided to take a massive gamble and go all in, I switched to a completely free running (and safe) rig and with an underarm lob dropped my PVA bagged rig and double corn bait right into a hole in the middle of the pads no more than two rod lengths out. The pads were nearly finished for the year and there was a clear 5 x 5 foot hole right in the middle so I was optimistic of being able to extract any fish I hooked, not only that but I was using strong gear and was more than prepared to go into the lake and rescue a snagged fish if need be.

I decided to fish my line completely slack and without a backlead, I waited until near dark and dropped half a kg of chili hemp over the top, anything bigger would of drawn the attention of the lakes numerous resident moorhens and coots.

Nothing, nadda, zip, not a touch even though I could hear fish crashing all around me all night.

We were due to leave the lake at 10 am that morning so after accepting it wasn't to be I began to start packing up my gear. Whilst taking my winter skin off the bivvy I had two short beeps on the bite alarm and I looked round and saw the bobbin was up tight against the rod but no line was being taken, odd, quickly picking up rod I felt resistance as if I was snagged. It was only when I slackened off the line and noticed a tiny twitch of the pads and the my line zipping away that I even realised I had a fish on.

After a little gentle pressure my line cut through the dying pads like a hot knife through butter and within 5 minutes my mate who had heard my screams of "GET IN THEEEEERE!!!!" from across the lake came running round and slipped the net under the fish. It's just as well he was there to help as I was fishing between two overhanging trees so I would of had trouble netting the fish on my own.

I could tell she was a definite twenty (my first ever!) but how high would she actually go.....

.....the scales revealed 30lb 15 ounces!

There can't be too many Carp anglers who's first 'twenty' is actually a 'thirty' and with it coming just an hour before packing up I definitely felt lady luck was smiling on me even though I'd waited 71 hours for just one fish.

My friends had found it equally tough going, one had blanked, another had managed just a 5 lb Bream, another a 32 lb Carp and the other Carp of 25 lb and 29 lb.

I definitely feel privileged to have fished such a historic water and we've already booked the lake again for April.


Happy days.

Readers Lake 09/10/09

After my recent red letter day at Readers I was itching to get back there and with the mild weather forecast I decided a midweek session was in order. The plan was to be at the lake by 07:30 and fish peg 13 just as I had done previously so it was a little disappointing to see the only other angler on the lake was already fishing that swim when I arrived.

I decided to fish the same island but on the north side which I've recently nicknamed the north pole because it's usually much colder due to the surrounding trees blocking out most the sunshine. I setup exactly as I had done on my previous trip and dropped my treble corn hook bait next to a set of lilly pads by the island.

In light of my recent trip you could forgive me for thinking sport would be relentless but in typical Readers fashion the lake was predictably unpredictable and I had to wait over an hour for my first bite which resulted in a small Carp of approximately 4 lbs ending up in the net.

As the morning progressed and the temperature increased the fish got their heads down and started gorging themselves on all the bait I had been putting in with my feeder, hooking fish wasn't a problem but the pads made landing them hard work and I lost two fish to hook pulls and one that managed to straighten the hook!

I decided to call it a day shortly after lunch as the chill in the air was starting to get to me, I had only managed one fish but I suppose I should just be grateful that I haven't blanked since way back in May, there can't be too many anglers than can boast that.

As I trudged back to the car I caught sight of a Kingfisher as well as a Grass Snake that was meandering slowly across the surface of the lake, a bit late in the year to be seeing Snakes I thought to myself (global warming?).