Specimen Catch Reports
I recently had a trip to France with some of the guys from work and some mutual friends, for a friends 50th birthday. The venue in question was Napoleon Lakes, just south of Reims. At 9 acres in size, it’s an intimate venue and ideal for the group of six [...]
It’s been a while since I last went crucian fishing. In fact, looking back I realised that I hadn’t fished for them since last season, so I thought I would go for a quick 48 hours chasing them at my favourite local venue, Enton Lake (aka Johnsons on the Godalming AS ticket). I love [...]
When Coarse Angling Today magazine announced it would no longer be running as a publication I made a mental note not to allow the fact I no longer had magazine deadlines to meet to stop me from writing regularly. Prior to this I had been writing articles and blogs almost monthly for the best [...]
If you’re a river predator angler, then the last few months have been pretty awful! With nothing but dirty brown floodwater filling our running waters for what has seemed like an eternity, with opportunities to do some pike fishing having been limited to say the very least. We have floods every year but I [...]
Over the last few years, I have always got out and fished over the New Year period, and this year was to be no different. However, my original venue of choice, the River Severn, was a whopping 6.7 metres up at the time and consequently flooded right across all the neighbouring fields. A far [...]
During the late autumn months I often find myself packing away my barbel and chub kit for the season as in recent years I have found myself spending most of the colder winter months in search of big pike. Pursuing big pike can become very addictive and when targeting any species to specimen sizes [...]
So where do I start for my overview of the year. I suppose the best place would probably be at the start. It’s been a bit of a year of ups and downs for me. After fishing really hard the year before, I had planned to take things a bit easier this year and [...]
It’s safe to say that 2015 has been a year I won’t forget in a hurry. I’ve caught some amazing fish from a variety of venues and mid-way through the year I had the pleasure of becoming a dad for the first time. Great memories have been created by the bucket load during the [...]
After what seemed like an eternity of catching nothing of note this summer, I finally managed to slip the net under something a bit special. I had been trying to break my old perch PB of 4lb 1oz for many years and although I’d managed to land a few big 3’s last year, I [...]
For as long as I can remember my barbel fishing has been focused around location. Finding where the fish like to be at different times throughout the season and once located keeping my methods minimalistic and simple. The less components that are used to make a rig, the less there is to go wrong. [...]
June the 16th is almost upon us and after a 3 month hiatus, running water enthusiasts will be chomping at the bit to get to their nearest river for opening day of the new river season. None more so than the nations barbel anglers. Barbel can be found in many rivers up and down [...]
I can’t believe that’s another whole month gone since my last blog! Where does the time go? Well following on from last month’s blog, in which I raised doubt that I ‘d be able to get out for a last blast and hit my 100 pike winter target, in the end I did actually [...]
Spring is finally here and for me that generally means one thing, it’s time to start targeting the population of canal carp that inhabit the Midlands canal network. Don’t get me wrong winter is a great time to be canal carping as a good friend of mine has been proving recently, but with pike [...]
Yes folks it’s blog time again, so rather than being out on the bank like the rest of my angling friends, I am sat here on a Saturday evening jotting down a few words about how my February went. Unfortunately at the time of writing, my 100 pike target for the winter is still [...]
Following on from my 2014 overview I thought I would scribble down a few bits and bobs about my start to 2015. Well, I would like to say I set the angling world alight with hundreds of catches of earth shattering fish, but in reality is was a bit of a wash out. I had [...]
Deepest Winter. It can conjure up such romantic images such as walking over crisply frozen grass on a frosty winter’s morn’ with cute little robins and all that. In reality it can be a cold, windswept, frostbitten and somewhat arduous task to get the rods out for a few hours. My serious advice if you [...]
Perch were high on the agenda this month and I soon had the kit loaded in the van and was the long drive. Arriving at dawn I had a good look around to familiarise myself with the venue before settling into a peg with an inviting snaggy margin to my right. I was soon using [...]
Imagine we are now leaving the summer behind, the greens will be turning to golds, browns and oranges and the nights will be gradually getting longer. What does this mean for the nation’s barbel anglers? Well we certainly need to start thinking about what bait we are using and more importantly how it’s going to [...]
Barbel fishing throughout the winter months can be a very hit and miss affair. If you get it right and fish when conditions are great then the results can be spectacular - but if the conditions are poor (which is the case more often than not) then unless you put your hookbait on the nose [...]
This autumn and early part of the winter and I have been bang into my barbel fishing. After gaining a ticket to a rather special stretch of a Thames Tributary, I have dedicated a fair amount of my time trying to track down and catch some of its big, yet nomadic residents. I have fished [...]
