River Kennet Nr Newbury
0415 - 0815
Overcast and breezy - temp a balmy 16ºC. River in good nick, good flow with a tinge of colour - normal for this time of year. Also good to see some ranunculus returning to this stretch - it was barren last season.
6 Chub (4lb10oz, 4lb6oz, 4lb4oz, 4lb 3oz, 3lb 14oz & a chublet), 3 Brown Trout (1lb2oz X 2 - same fish??), 3 dozen dace, ½doz roach, 2 grayling and A gudgeon!
Lovely early morning session spent upto my thighs in mid river, trottin
Newbury AA Lake Thatcham
0430 - 0930
Hazy sunshine, 10ºC - 14ºC
6 Carp ( 14lb 11oz, 7lb 7oz, 6lb 12oz, 3X5lbers), 4 Tench (1½lb-3lb), 1 Roach (14oz), 2 Rudd, 1 Perch.
Pleasant session. Fish on a variety of baits and methods. Meat, s-pellet & floating crust all caught. Biggie was a opportunist fish right at the end - was packing/packed up when I saw the fish had moved into the margins to hoover up some of my groundbait that had dropped in. Re-ti
Newbury AA Lake - Thatcham
1330 - 0830
Overcast and almost no wind. Light persistent drizzle started at 1600 and continued uninterupted until 0400 when heavy persistent drizzle kicked in! 12º - 16ºC
9 Bream ( best 5lb 13oz, 7 between 3.08 - 4.10 & a skimmer), 6 carp (smallest 5.08, biggest 8.01), 2 Tench 1½lb & 4lb 10oz, 2 doz roach and rudd (mainly rudd), 1 perch.
Very pleasant session - despite the rain!! All carp on ledgered pellet but most other fish on float fished m
River Kennet - Near Thatcham
1800 - 2330
Still breezy and cloudless 18º->12ºC. River 'full' quite coloured with quite a bit of floating rununculus (very annoying!)
4 Barbel 8lb 2oz, 4lb 15oz, 2X 4lbers
Fished with Paul who had a 9+, 8+ and a 3. Two of my fish in the 1st hour, two in the last - all of Paul's fish came after 2200. Ledgered Halibut Pellet as per usual!
Northcroft Backstream - Newbury
0930 - 1200
Bright and breezy - 17ºC
A dozen Chub (4lb 14oz, 4lb 9oz, 3lb 6oz, 3lb 3oz, 2lb 14oz - & 7 chublets), 3 Doz Roach, Dace & Gudgeon (in roughly equal nos.)
Had a morning to kill in Newbury whilst the car was being serviced and MOT'd so a pleasant chubbing session was most welcome. All fish on trotted single red maggot - from a swim I last fished in 1982!!!!
Newbury AA lakes - Thatcham
1430 - 1100
Sunny becoming overcast. Breezy becoming VERY breezy. 13ºC-18ºC.
9 Carp (3½ - 8lb) 3 roach and a rudd.
Disappointing session on a usually prolific water. Paul did much better (eventually) and had a dozen on The Method - including a brace of 10's. Had hoped to do some surface fishing but legions of terns, ducks & geese made this sadly impossible - the buggers were insatiable - and did we try and sate them! Float fishing the margins - ano
Fished the Banker from 4.30'ish to 10 p.m on the opening day.
Good flow on the river and holding slight colour, just enough to still be able to make out the dimensions of the sandy patches but not enough visibility to spot fish in the deeper sections.
Spotted two good Chub under bridge leaving the town. Sidestream's in good nick although little apparent fish activity in the main carrier stream.
Fished the B for a small Chub of 3 1/2'ish at 6 p.m and then further down on the corn
Marsh Farm
0730 - 1930
Sunny, becoming cloudy and breezy. Temp 10ºC -> 20º -> 16ºC.
5 Crucians (1lb 13oz, 1lb 10oz, 1lb 8oz, 2<1lb), 4 Tench (1½lb - 4lb 11oz), 3 Bream (1½ - 2½lb), 2 Roach (best 1lb 2oz), 2 Perch, a dozen+ Rudd.
Started on Harris and struggled all morning for bites (even using maggot) though did manage the bigger of the crucians from here. Paul started on Richardsons and faired much better so I joined him in the afternoon
Well the plan today is to finish work at half 12 and head off to Charity Farm at Wrightington for an afternoon to early evening session. I have to admit I was a bit miffed with the rain this morning but its stopped now so hopefully it will hold off for the day now
Will get back on here tonight and let you all know how it goes.
Right well the session went ok. Fished pool 1 on waggler fished corn and managed to catch a small bag of roach between 8 and 12 oz. Not as good as Charity ca
Sunday 8th June 2008: 05:45AM
Not a cloud in the sky, the mist curling up from Gawsworth Fisheries Park and Wood pools, the setting looks ideal for a good days fishing. Along with new fishing mate Garath we are both fishing two rods, buzzer and bolt rigs are the order of the day;
06:20, finally set up in what looks like a fine carpy looking spot, after a walk around we discover the half dozen or so bivvy dwellers have had a very quiet night, with not a single run or fish between them. I see
I joined Kingfishers (KAPS) late last year, mainly to fish the rivers, and to fish with friends who are already members.
But they do also have a number of stillwaters.
One of these is comprised of three lakes that are only about 20 mins from where I live (Why did I buy a house so far away from decent fishing, 20 years before retirement - No longer working, I'd love to be able to just pick up my rods and stroll down to the local river, rather than having to plan a journey).
There's
A friend took me to a little fishery today and I must say I was quite pleased with it. Although the day started off slow it did pick up towards late morning at which point I was getting a fish a chuck on pole fished corn at 13metres to an island in about 18 inches of water.
I managed to get quite a range of species to, roach, bream, tench, chub, golden tench, golden orfe and ghost carp. The golden orfe was actually a PB for me, I didn't weigh it but estimate it at around 2lb which is much
Well its coming up for 19:30 on Monday 2nd June and I am getting ready for a trip out tomorrow. It'll be my first one as a member of the Crawley Angling Society and so i am going to head over to New Pond which is at the end of the M23. At around 4 acres with 30 swims I am hoping for a nice quiet day. With Roach, Rudd, Tench, Perch, Mirror/Common/Crucian Carp, Bream and Gudgeon swimming around i am also hoping to have plenty to talk about when i come home!
I'll be heading for Jack Frost Tack
As the title may suggest, I've managed to get a session at Bradshaws today with my mate Mark and his son, Danny. Anyways we decided to fish on Lodge 4 which is the main match lake at the venue. First impressions seemed ok but as the day went on the lodge became a bit crowded for my liking, not to get deterred by this we carried on with session. I was getting a few roach and bream on my pole line with 1 carp of about 3lb as well, the carp had a bit of a deformed mouth which is a shame to see,
Well its just gone 09:00 on Wednesday 28th and i have returned home from my last shift at work for nearly 4 weeks. I have been awake since 17:00 yesterday so I'm just pottering about now trying to stay awake to get through the tough part of the morning. I have decided that tomorrow I'll head out to Beaver Farm Fisheries for the day while i wait for my Crawley Angling Society membership to go through. With a mixed set of lakes I'm bound to hook into something!
The current forecast is for Sun
Still not wet a line yet which is getting most distressing, to many other things getting in the way.
On a plus note I did manage to get an hour out this morning and went to look at a couple of waters on the Wigan and District Anglers Association card, Ince park and Mellings number one. Mellings was quite a surprise to be honest because it actually looks quite fishy - I'm going to have a few sessions down there I think but whether or not it will produce the goods is another matter. Ince pa
Right then, I've never done a blog like this before so i'll probably bugger something up.
I am going to use this as a diary of my fishing exploits this year I think, i've never really recorded any details about my fishing so it may be fun to see how I get on.
If I can get my thick old brain to figure out how to put pictures up then I'll do so if I have any of note.
At the minute I've a lot of work on in the house so I've only got one trip planned and thats to Bradshaw fisheries in
After having a bit of a hunt around i have picked out some of the Day Ticket waters that i will be visiting in the coming weeks. While i have managed to get a nice stretch of time off work (May 28th - June 22nd) i want to try and get out at least once a week and hopefully twice to try out some of the different venues in the area.
My choices so far are:
Beaver Farm - £8 - 41 minute drive 07:00 - 19:00
Bury Hill - £11.50 - 50 minute drive 07:30 - Sunset
Frant Lakes - £8 - 60 minute d
Its currently 09:00 and i am finishing my preparations for the day. After reading the DAS rules i discovered that tins are not allowed on the bank so i emptited my Tescos Value Corn into a bait box. Nearly 2 pints of sweetcorn for 30p cant be bad!
The TomTom is prepped with all of my destinations and i have printed off my rod licence for today. I also still need to put my eyes in (contacts) so that i can wear my sunnies in the lovely weather we are having in the South East.
One thing
Well i have spoken to my uncle and we are going to head for the same lake as last time, Castlefield Lake in Dorking. Apparently it is fishing well at the moment and with the good weather we are having in the south at the moment it can only get better i hope! Since we are going on the Monday hopefully it'll be quiet as well which will be great for me.
He has told me that the best baits for the lake are the simple ones, maggots, bread flake, corn and meats. We can get maggots at the tackle sh
The Gigantic Book of Fishing Stories - Edited and Introduced by Nick Lyons, Foreword by David Halberstam.
OK, I admit I'm a bit of a 'sucker' for angling anthologies - in fact I've just counted up the number of such volumes in my modest angling library and realise I already have 10 such books, not counting this one. Of these, my favourite 3 - and most comprehensive - are BB's, Fisherman's Bedside Book, The Magic Wheel, & Fish, Fishing & the Meaning of Life. I like anthologies
After a hectic weekend in Devon and then work on Tuesday and having the family round on Wednesday (my birthday) its been nice to have an actual day off to chill and do what i want. And what i wanted was to go shopping!
Gerrys of Wimbledon is a large tackle store some 25 minutes drive from me and i thought it only fair to have a poke around to see what they could offer. I had a list of tihngs i definatly wanted to pick up on the trip, the primary one being a chair to sit on (a Korum Deluxe A
This book is already well known to most ANers!
Angling Vagabond - a Glorious Boyhood by Dave Park
If I have one complaint about this book it’s that it finishes too soon - and somewhat abruptly. A sign of a good book - leave the reader wanting more! I hope the author sees this volume as no more than the opening salvo’s of a full angling autobiography. Dave Park (known to all on the AnglersNet forums by his nom de plume, Vagabond) is a much travelled Ichthyologist and I’m s
