Anthony78

Tried the hot water in a small flask and even though it was boiling when I poured it in it wasnt hot enough to shrink the tubing 3 hours later. Also tried to use a lighter and just couldn't get in tight enough to shrink the tube without weakening th braid. Ant

When carp fishing I like to be able to make a hook length to suit the bait and the conditions but I also like to travel light which means that the stove, kettle and bottle of water stay in the garage and the trusty thermos goes in the rucksack. Trouble is shrink tube doesnt work without steam so I'm stuck when it comes to making my rigs on the bank. Does anybody have any ideas to help me out? I thought about a cordless soldering iron or something similar to shrink the tube down. Anybody tried this? Thanks Ant

JP, You braved weather on a day when most people would be at home watching TV, you used watercraft to fish in the spot that would give you the best chance of a bite on the day, and you fished the bait that tempted probably the biggest chub in the swim. It's a fish you should be proud of and a fish that alot of anglers dream of. Well done! Ant

I wont go fishing without fake baits now! Especially after the success I had at the Wingham fish-in last year where I caught 13 tench on fake maggots and corn. However I do soak my baits in a couple of different flavours as It gives me more confidence. It also helps the bait stand out a little if you land your baits on the silt that doesn't smell so good as plastic baits will take on that horrible smell. I have a mixture of colours, shapes and sizes in CSL and Pineapple. Do you guy's use your plastic baits straight from the pack or do you prefer to flavour them? Ant

I owned a pair of the 2 1/2lb tc Hyperloop Carp rods for 2 seasons and they were a fantastic buy. You'll need to match the tc to the style of fishing you intend to do. If it's small water carping then the 1.75lb would be perfect and a lot of fun however if your fishing waters where a decent chuck is needed or you want the option of using large PVA bags or a method feeder then I would go for the 2.75lb. Just my opinion Ant

Hi Tigger, No worries. Thanks for getting back go me. Ant

Hi Tigger, I'd be interested in one of these. Can you let me know price including P&P. Thanks Anthony

You could try Top barn. It's based near Worcester with great fishing and close to the city. I live about 20 mins away and think the fishing there is brilliant. There are 4 lakes on site with carp up to mid 20s and plenty of smaller fish. Websites good but if you need any more info give me a shout. Regards Ant

Hi Ian, Wye barbel respond very well to the fishmeal groundbait and pellet approach. I tend to use the Dynamites marine halibut groundbait mixed up with some fish oil and then add some halibut pellets in various sizes. Keep moving to. I usually give it about half an hour before moving on if you have no indications. Regarding the best stretches your best bet would be to contact the Wye & Usk foundation and let them know that you are interested in catching barbel and they will sort you out. Dependant on time of the year you can book a whole stretch of the Wye for £20 for the day. I pulled this from their website: 1.Contact us directly - by Tel on 01982 551520 or Email on admin@wyeuskfoundation.org, (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) with details of the day(s) you want to fish, what type of fishing you want and the numbers of guests. We'll do the rest: ◦Find an appropriate beat ◦Make the booking for you ◦Provide you with details of the beat, directions and a map. Failing that you could always contact Woody's tackle shop in the heart of Hereford and he will deffinately give you some pointers. I believe he runs his own stretch of the Wye too. The shop number is 01432344644 Hope it helps Anthony

This was my first year in 15 years of working that I couldn't take the magical 16th off. I was gutted! Been trying to work my way up the career ladder and this currently means working 13 hour days from 4am to merge 2 warehouse operations. On the plus side, in 2 weeks time when the merge is complete we will be changing over to a 2 shift pattern which hopefully means more time on the bank

8 - 10lb depending on how close your fishing to the snags. Good luck!

Hi, You could have a look at the Fox Warrior rods. They are selling them here for £44.99. I've not used these myself but Fox do sell some good quality gear. Just remember that you will only get what you pay for. Ant

Hi Watatoad, Thanks for the reply. I do tend to use both bread and lobs when fishing the estate lakes in my area as they are suited to close in fishing. However it looks like I will be doing some distance fishing to find bars etc so want to know that my bait will still be on when I'm leaving my rig out for long periods, or not if I get things right . I'll deffinately be taking a few pints of red maggots with me and this will probably be my main attack. I plan on covering my options with boilies, maggots and corn fished over the 3 rods, then changing to the winning bait on all 3 rods when I work out what they want. They do have another lake on site called Willow lake and this is suited to fishing down the marginal shelf so I'll have some of the baits you mentioned in my bait bag just incase the main lake tench are playing hard to get. Thanks again Anthony

Thanks Andy, I tend to use molasses to gain the same effect but this is an interesting alternative. Might have a wonder around my local supermarket later to see what other flavours I could use. Definately another cheap bait additive. Thanks again Anthony

Thank you all for your replies. I have been trying to gather as much information about this lake as possible and managed to get hold of the fishery manager himself who gave me alot of pointers regarding baits and tactics. Thankfully this lake appears to be very similar in features as Wingham and has done numerous 9lb tench in the last few weeks. This will make the tips and advice I gained at the Wingham fish-in this year invaluable and I'm chomping at the bit to get down there. I have been told that the tench do get harder to catch as the summer wears on and they tend to switch over to the boilie. I would assume that this is down to the amount of extra bait being used by the carp anglers or would they just be switching to naturals?? I don't want to go there with an all out boilie approach so have decided to just add them to the spod mix to give myself some options. I'll also be adding mini pellets, corn, and hemp to the mix along with plenty of red maggots. I have found these and thought they would be perfect. They also come in 6mm which would be perfect for the spod mix. Anybody had any experience of these? Thanks again for the replies. Anthony

All, I'm going to be fishing Kingfisher lake in Norfolk at the end of the month and having asked loads of questions it appears that the tench tend to switch over to boilies throughout the month of June. This is apparently down to the number of boilies used by the carp lads down there. Now as I have only recently started seriously targetting tench I have no idea of the best boilies for them. I have some small 10 mm red Strawberry & cream boilies which I've had soaking in strawberry flavouring and will be taking these but does anybody have any favourites that they use primerily for their tench fishing? Also does anyone know of a yellow sweetcorn boilie in small sizes that I can use to put in my spod mix just incase there are alot of small fish around? Thanks in advance. Anthony

Hooklength material - braid or mono and what length? I have had alot of success with Korda's soft IQ hooklength in 10lb bs. Almost invisible in the water and as it is heavy it sinks, stays near the bottom and doesn't waft around too much with the current. 18 inches is a good length and I would use this by tying a knotless knot and leaving a 1 - 2 inch tag of line. Then I would glue 3 - 4 fake casters to this tag leaving my size 10 Korda wide gape free to hook the fish. Finally, does anyone have a length to weight table for barbel? I think you will struggle to find this anywhere as the fish vary so much from river to river depending on the characteristics. For example the barbel from the river Severn tend to be deeper/fatter fish due to not having to fight a fast current. Whereas the fish from the river Teme and Wye tend to be long lean fish. Although I think your barbel will be the long lean type I have never measured the barbel I have caught so unfortuantely cant help you with this. Sorry! Regards Anthony

Hi Andrew, The setup you mentioned will be perfect for the small streams you plan to fish. Only if you plan on fishing close to snags would I be tempted to move over to the heavier gear. One tip I can give you is to get down to the rivers now and find the fish as they will be gathering on the shallows for spawning and now is the best time to gather information on size and stocking densities of the stretches you plan to fish. Get yourself to the shallow gravels and look for cleared patches of gravel that the chub and barbel have created during their spawning rituals. Once you find these patches you know you have found some fish. The best time for spotting them will be from 6pm onwards when the sun starts to dip in the sky. The big girls will usually move in later in the evening and if you can stay after dark you can use a very strong lamp to spot them on the shallows at night. This works better when you have high banks though as the steaper the angle of the beam the better. Regarding baits, If pellets and boilies have not been used a great deal then I wouldn't neglect the smaller baits like maggots, castors and hemp and would probably fish with hemp and caster in the fast water through a maggot feeder (remember to enlarge the holes to allow the bait to release). You will deffinately catch the chub but there's not alot you can do if they are in the area as they are so greedy and will take anything. What you can do is lower the chances of hooking them by using a longer hair length. Chub are known for picking a bait up between their lips and giving a sharp pluck on the rod tip so by fishing a longer hair and ignoring these sharp plucks and waiting for the rod to hoop around then you should give yourself a better chance of singeling out the barbel. If you do have to fish blind then at least by finding the fish on the shallows during their spawning then you know the fish will not be far away, at least for the first couple of weeks anyway and the deep water directly after rapids, shallows and weirs are always a good holding area for barbel so these would deffinately be an area I would concentrate on. Once the fish have spread out then look for overhanging trees, deep glides, undercut banks, streamer weed. Barbel will also sit quite confortably in very fast, boily water and I have fished areas where a 4 - 5 oz gripper lead will only just hold bottom and have caught barbel. I'm no expert at barbel fishing but have learned a few tricks over the years fishing rivers like the Teme, Severn, Avon and the Wye but I'm sure that if you put as much thought and effort into those barbel as you obviously do with your other fishing I have no doubt that you will find and catch them very quickly. Good luck and remember that the offer is still there for a session on the teme. Regards Anthony

Just thought I'd mention that I emailed John Bailey with some questions about the fishery and he got back to me within a couple of days with some great tips and he also said that he may be able to meet me when I'm there to give me a few more pointers on areas etc. So for anyone who may be thinking of taking a trip out to kingfisher then you can email John directly and he should be able to help you out. I'll post a review of the lakes and accomodation when I return. Regards Anthony

I use alot of flavoured meat during winter when there is extra water and colour in the river. I fish both the Teme and Severn and the flavour I use is Turmeric and curry powder and this works a treat. As 'teme man' mentioned freezing the bait will draw the flavouring into the meat and this will ensure that the flavour takes much longer to leach from the bait. I normally cut the meat into 1 1/2 inch square strips and then break the meat into chunks with my fingers. This creates rough edges that will break off and run down stream and will also hold the flavour better. It will also fool those clever fish that know a square bait is usually attached to a hook Regards Ant

Hi Dales, Thank you once again. That's great news about the 3 rods as it makes experimenting with different baits/methods much quicker and easier. Seeing as it's my birthday soon and I'm not getting any younger I may have to add a new barrow to the wishlist Getting very excited now. Regards Anthony

This is great. I was surfing for ages the other night and couldn't find alot. I couldn't even find anything on rules and regulations and had to email them for a copy. Thank again, you've been a great help. Angt

Hi Dales, Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I knew about the extra charge for the fishing. You'll be surprised to here then that it has now gone up to £25 for 25 hours fishing! As It's a fishing holiday I will probably fish during the night for the bream and tench and then go out and do the usual tourist thing during the day to keep the girlfriend from getting to bored. I'll probably be shattered by the end of the weekend but It's probably the best chance I will have of catching one of the specimens. That's a great idea to pay for the 25 hours fishing on the day you leave and then bivvying up over night. Did you check that this was ok when you were there? I have to go back to work on the Tuesday after we're due to leave but this place sounds great so if we like it I think we will deffinately go back. I do have a couple of questions that you may be able to help me with: How far is the main lake from the apartment building and can you take you car near to the pegs? I do not have a barrow yet and will need to invest in one if it's a long treck. ( wonder if Glyn or Terry are available that weekend ) Do you know if there are alot of nuisance fish in the main lake as I would like to base my approach around maggots? Also can you fish 3 rods on the main lake and willow lake. Thanks again for the reply Ant

Hi, My girlfriend has kindly booked us into the Kingfisher lakes complex for my Birthday weekend. It holds some very large fish but after the Wingham fish-in my mind is firmly set on upping my new Tench pb. The main lake on the complex has tench to double figures so I'm going to concentrate on these. Has anybody fished these lakes and if so any pointers?? Thanks Anthony

Wow! What a weekend! Even though I go fishing pretty much every week the Wingham fish-in is the highlight of my fishing year and I'd like to start by saying a huge thank you to Steve, Glyn, Terry, Tom, Will and Peggy as if it weren't for their hard work and dedication we would not have the opportunity to fish such an amazing and beautiful fishery. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to both Andrew (Anderoo) and Mr Richard 'Bream' Capper himself who spent ages in my swim helping me identify the features and filling my brain with an unbelievable amount of information. Thanks guy's. Now to the fishing: The weekend was full of highs and lows for me as I was due to travel down with my fishing partner Cliff63 but unfortunately he came down with a virus and lost over a stone in 48 hours. Unlucky mate and I'm glad to here your feeling better After arriving at the fishery gates at 7am after a 3 1/2 hour drive I was met with a beautiful misty morning and couldn't wait to get to my peg. After a quick chat with both Steve and Anderoo I was unbelievably excited to find that I had been allocated the most productive bream swim on the lake. No pressure then!! All the gear was kindly transported to my peg, along with myself, by Glyn, cheers mate! and what a peg it was. A kind of self contained bay cut off by gravel bars from the rest of the lake and after Steve had described my peg as an 'all or nothing' peg I was very happy that within half an hour of being there I'd witnessed no less than 6 tench rolling within 20 yards of the bank and had to resist the temptation of putting a feeder out blind. However, I didn't, as after speaking to both Anderoo and Steve I knew that I needed to find specific areas within my swim to place my bait. This is where Anderoo and Richard came to my rescue as although I do do alot of fishing, this style of fishing I only get to experience at Wingham and with 3 days ahead of me I didn't want to waste time and bait by putting it in the wrong spot. After a fairly intense lesson from both of these very experinced anglers I went about mapping out my swim and although it was very tempting to put 2 of my rods against the main bar which formed the biggest feature of my swim but I chose to fish 3 different areas with ranging depths to see if I could figure out the tench's prefered feeding depth. The left hand rod was fished against the main bar out at about 35 yards in 3ft of water and was fed with 6-7 spods of groundbait and then fished over with an inline lead, PVA bag of red maggots and 2 fake maggots on the hair. The middle rod was fished to an area of shallow silt between a small gravel patch and a small bed of eel grass. Once again this was fed with 6-7 spods of groundbait but this time I fished with an inline maggot feeder filled with red maggots and 2 fake maggots on a hair. The right hand rod was the rod I had most confidence in as this is the area I had seen 4 tench roll in very short succession and after feeling around with the marker gear I found that this was at the edge of a gravel bar wich finished 15 yards short of the bank and I thought this rod would give me the best chance of the bream should they be in the area as this was the deapest of my 3 chosen spots at 5ft. On this rod I put around 8 spod loads of groundbait and once again fished the maggot feeder over the top. At about 1pm and after thrashing the water to a foam with the marker gear I was very happy with the areas I had chosen and out went the rigs. Within 45 mins my middle rod screamed off and I had my first ever Wingham tench on the bank. I was over the moon. Ok it was only 4lb 11oz but fell only 6oz short of my PB. I was ecstatic!(sorry about the crap photo's!) Then half hour later I had another on the same rod at 6lb 7oz and I'd done it, I'd caught my new PB tench. This was incredible. Within 2 hours of fishing I had doubled the catch rate of my previous 4 Wingham fish-ins and got another PB from this 'lake of dreams'. At this point I was stunned and having spoken to some of the guys from around the lake I had heard that there had been 9lb tench caught already and was starting to dream of even bigger tench. After the bbq, to which I didn't go as I was hoping to get some shut eye after only 3 hours sleep the night before, I had a visit from the Burgess boys. As they pulled up in the pimped out Budgie mobile I had another take on the middle rod and Budgie did the honours with the net. This was definitely a bigger fish, once again, and Budgie was sure it would go 8lb. It wan't to be as it, along with all the other tench caught the weekend, had a very empty belly. She went 7lb 6oz and I had beaten my PB twice in 3 casts. What a lake Wingham is! This was to be my biggest tench of the weekend but I was deffinately not dissapointed as I felt that I had fished to the best of my ability and managed 13 tench over the 3 days which is my biggest catch of tench ever! I did not see any sign of the big bream that my peg was known for, but I did see at least a dozen different carp which happily swam under my rod tips and definitely looked like they had spawning on their minds and even though I set up a carp rod with a zig rig set at the level they were swimming at they didn't sow any interest. So, all in all this was by far my best weekend session ever and I learnt so much from the likes of Anderoo, Steve and Richard. I met some great people and will definitely be back at Wingham for another go at catching that 8lber. In order of size, my tench went: 2lb 11oz(male) 3lb 2oz(female) 3lb 2oz(m) 3lb 3oz(m) 3lb 8oz(m) 3lb 10oz(f) 4lb 11oz(f) 4lb 13oz(m) 5lb 8oz(m) 5lb 11oz(f) 6lb 2oz(f) 6lb 7oz(m) and my new PB of 7lb 6oz (f). Thank you all and I hope to see you all again at the next Anglersnet Fishin Anthony78 Just some shots of my peg. Float fishing at dawn My peg