Specimen Catch Reports
As the year is coming to a close, I thought I would give you an insight as to how my fishing year has gone in 2014. I had planned to do a fair bit of barbel and perching over the winter on the rivers, but unfortunately due to most of the South of England being [...]
Well, hopefully by the time you are reading this, the weather will have finally cooled off enough to dig out the old pike gear again and I will have put away the summer gear. Lovely though the long summer has been, I am glad to see the back of it. Not only as with my [...]
This autumn I have been bang into my barbel fishing. After gaining a ticket to a rather special stretch of a Thames Tributary, I decided to dedicate a fair amount of my time trying to track down and catch some of its big, yet nomadic residents. I have fished some hard and low stock section [...]
The particular stretch of river which I am going to write about this month, is one I’ve had a love hate relationship with over the last five or so years. I know there are some very big barbel in there, I have seen the photos of them, I’ve seen them in the water, and on [...]
Where do I start with this piece, well if I am honest, I think the best place to start is by asking you to read (or hopefully re-read) Alan Stagg’s article entitled ‘Bream Dream’ last month, as this one runs alongside and follows on after Alan’s piece. Going back a few months, I too was [...]
Picture the scene: Low water levels, high light levels, barbel that have probably been hammered in the weeks leading up to my visit, a complete change of scenery, totally varied aquatic topography and a few as yet unknown technical challenges thrown in for good measure. All in all a perfect set of circumstances to charge [...]
After a setting a new PB during my last session, I couldn’t wait to get back to the Southern Stillwater I had been targeting this spring. I arrived early Friday morning and with it being a Bank Holiday weekend, I knew the venue was going to be busy. After a few laps of the lake, [...]
In recent years I've had a burning desire to better my PB bream of 16lb 7oz. I always set aside some time each year, with the hope of achieving this. Well this season was no different and I had been putting in a lot of ground work through the colder months in the hope that [...]
Much of my stillwater fishing in recent years has evolved around one technique, introducing groundbait and lots of it, known as the baiting pyramid. The idea is to try and attract a wide range of species to dine in the swim, create competitive feeding and hopefully tricking the fish into making a mistake. This method [...]
This winter has been a real disappointment for my usual winter river fishing exploits due to the excessive flooding across the country that we have had to endure. I love my winter river fishing but apart from a few windows of opportunity resulting in some good grayling and roach fishing, I have had to constantly [...]
When it comes to tricking wily chub there is one rig that does the business and that’s the mag-aligner. The rig was devised by two hugely successful big carp anglers who cleverly incorporated an Enterprise Tackle Mag-aligner grub slid over the eye of the hook, creating a line aligner effect which ensures that the hook [...]
Targeting Roach and Rudd lends itself to two very different methods; the float and the feeder. The float is the more traditional approach of the two and wading out in the shallow margins spraying maggots can lead to some good fun fishing. When the winds strengthen, things can become difficult on the vast open water [...]
Well, this article was originally planned to be one telling you all of our amazing exploits of non-stop hauling of twenties and thirties from pike mecca Chew, but alas after spending a few days there in November (not to mention quite a few quid in the process), we came away with just three fish landed. [...]
Target Team Member Sam Meeuwissen has been getting amongst some nice fish on a local stretch of the River Thames in Berkshire. Predominantly after the barbel that inhabit this particular stretch, it has come as no surprise that Sam has landed some nice carp and chub along the way. Using his tried and tested Carbelling [...]
Last week I had a call from my mate Chris ‘Tinca’ Taylor, asking if I fancied a couple of days piking on Chew Valley Reservoir. Chris has offered me a place several times over the last few years and I have had to turn him down due to work pressure. This time was going to [...]
I have been having some very good success during the last month whilst predator fishing on the River Thames in my boat. I love the autumn on the Thames for perch fishing and my favoured style to target the species is to trot with sliding float tackle and a small live bait on the hook. [...]
The helicopter rig is a tactic that has had a great effect on my fishing. I saw how effective helicopter rigs can be around six or seven years ago on my first couple of trips to Frensham Great Pond. At the time I was targeting the venues prolific tench population when in-between catching them, I [...]
Crucians are one of my favourite species to target during the spring. For me their golden scales glistening in the sun, are hard to beat. Crucians have traditionally been known as a tentative feeder, and sensitive float fishing tactics at dawn and dusk have been the accepted textbook way to target this species. I think [...]
I had been waiting for the weather to settle down before targeting tench this year as the weather seemed to be about a month behind. A nice warm weather front moving in over the south of the country at the end of May soon got me preparing the tench gear for my first over night [...]
Tony King is an angler who needs little introduction, an established specimen angler with an enviable list of PB’s to his credit. With years of experience under his belt, he is an angler who really knows what he is talking about. Recently Tony got in touch to tell me he had been slaying the tench [...]
