Whats your best days fishing ever?

[ken.furness]

my best day was last year at allens pool near worcester when in a 24 hr session i landed over 600 lb of carp ranging from 10lb to 15lb on pawn pellet melted down to a paste on a running leger

[medwaygreen]

My best days fishing sends me all the way back to 1976.The venue was Johnson's lake Larkfield.

Four Tench 8lb 12ozs, 6lb 5ozs, 6lb 3ozs, and 5lb 10ozs.This was complimented by two Roach of 2lb 13ozs and 2lb4ozs.

 

Only thirty years ago in seventeen months time.

 

Time stands still for no man not me anyway.

[Alan Stubbs]

In terms of what it meant to me, it has to be the last time my father went fishing. He was in a wheelchair, with a portable oxygen supply, and my son joined us as well.

 

We all caught, but nothing dramatic. The important thing was seeing the smile on Dad's face.

 

A year ago, I went roach fishing on the River Len with leon ROskilly, who was teaching me how to use a centrepin. That was a brilliant afternoon... the highlight being watching Leon in paroxysms of laughter because the roach could remove a hook bait faster than I could strike!

 

Then....

 

Yesterday. I went to Pennington Flash, between Lowton and Leigh to fish the feeder stream, primarily looking for roach.

 

I had planned only to go out for a couple of hours, but ended up spending over 6 hours fishing a stretch of little over 200 yards. Using bread mash and flake and a 3BB stick float, and later using red maggots and size 18 barbless hook, I caught roach and perch on a bite-a-chuck rate after 45 minutes without a bite. When I did get a bite, the combination of the very soft rod tip and the barbless hook conspired to get the first few roach off the hook.

 

None of the fish were especially large - the biggest might just have made 4ozs, but it was the first river session I've had for a few months where I didn't have to leger.

 

The other side of the stream, about 50 yards from where I had spent much of the time, a man had a 12lb pike, at the point where the stream enters the flash. It's the first time I've ever seen a fish tail-walk.

 

What made the day for me was a pair of youngsters stopping to ask about the reel, and the technique used. I was not only able to show them, I was able to catch as well, to prove the point. For 20 minutes I let them have a go, and they caught as well. One of the lads in particular had a real talent. All I had to do was show him how underarm cast (the way Leon had shown me a year before), and he was away.

 

In itself, it wasn't an earth-shattering day's fishing, but it was truly relaxing, and simply - fun, which is why I go fishing in the first place.

[Peter Waller]

My most memorable day must be when I first fished Rockland Broad in Norfolk. I was about eighteen at the time, and totally sold on lure fishing. It was pike after pike, good pike too, until I'd caught forty. I could have had more, but I was tired, had had enough, went and and sat in the pub, all of a dither with a silly smile on my face. Sat there with my pint and a local came up and asked if I'd been piking, obviously knowing full well that I had. 'Just keep the secret', he said. I did, and enjoyed some fabulous angling there for a number of years, untill the 'guides' and book writers discovered the place, the secret was out, and Rockland went into decline. I was previledged to have enjoyed some of the finest, and easiest piking that the Broads had ever had on offer.

[Paul Boote]

My most memorable day must be when I first fished Rockland Broad in Norfolk. I was about eighteen at the time, and totally sold on lure fishing. It was pike after pike, good pike too, until I'd caught forty. I could have had more, but I was tired, had had enough, went and and sat in the pub, all of a dither with a silly smile on my face. Sat there with my pint and a local came up and asked if I'd been piking, obviously knowing full well that I had. 'Just keep the secret', he said. I did, and enjoyed some fabulous angling there for a number of years, untill the 'guides' and book writers discovered the place, the secret was out, and Rockland went into decline. I was previledged to have enjoyed some of the finest, and easiest piking that the Broads had ever had on offer.

 

Know the feeling, Peter (see my posting in Fly Fishing Abroad / whatever thread on the Fly Fishing Board).

 

It's not all about sizes and numbers, you know. Scratching to catch on poor water or in unfavourable conditions, and finally catching something after a lot of thought and effort can be enormously personally rewarding.

 

A.K. Best the great American fly-dresser, a long-time fishing buddy of the author John Gierach, penned a line awhile back that I still remember:

 

"The fishing was great; it was the catching that was bad."

Edited January 9, 2006 by Paul Boote

[Peter Waller]

'Tis true, paul. I fish my local water rather less nowadays, mainly due to the pressure its been under. Nevertheless, having a few hours to myself on Saturday saw me out fishing. The fish were seemingly dormant. Recently my local rag had a picture of a 22 pounder, plus location. Needless to say the previous 'on' spot was deserted. Argyll, and others, know that area as 'The Flats'. It has fished well for a number of years but has gone into serious decline recently. I just had a gut feeling that, since no one else was there, that it was worth fishing. Nearly six hours for just one fish though, nice fish too, but it came late in the day. Don't really know why I had persisted, normally moving on after 40 minutes or so, but suddenly there was life at the end of my line, it was going off to the right, I knew I had hooked into a worthwhile fish. Don't really know why, but I really enjoyed it. Its not an attractive place to fish, far from it infact, but I caught from an area that others had deserted. It hadn't been easy, but I just had this feeling that my noisy, silver 'mugger' lure would eventually wake something up, and it did. I went home, past other boats, their occupents admitting to blanking, feeling rather smug, just one fish had made it a good day.

[musicmick1973]

my best day would have to be august last year, had just been put out of work, had my holiday book down in Dawlish, have been going there for the last 7 years, had not caught a carp there for 3 years, so during the week I had bream to 3lb and 2x carp to 10lb, so to last day, a day in which i could not believe my luck,

got up and had a look around the lake, went in had breaky, then went for another walk up the lake, found some big carp, but was going out so put a young lad on to them, went out won £32.00 after only putting 50p

in, so left, then found a £10 that i lost the day i left work. Went back to base found the young lad fighting his biggest fish a 14lb carp.

As his net had broke I decided to go out and have a go so went down with him, there were loads of kids mucking around including this lad so I went down the other end had the usual bream, I then notice the lads

had gone, so as i was going to pack up, something had told me to go back down and give it a try, so went down with my waggler set up, with a whole slice of bead on the hook, and through it into the sluice area where all the carp had been, 2 mins later the float sailed away, took 20 mins to get the fish in, just cept going around in circles and stuck to the bottom, the lad came back got the net ready in the water, but fish went under the net, thought i was going to lose it, grabbed the net out of the water, left it out until the fish finally came to the top and was netted, I was totally shocked when i see the size of it, knew straight away it was a personal best, had about 10 people all watching so glad i didn't lose it, so when I weighed it and it went 23lb 12oz of beautiful mirror carp, at last the 20 I had been after for 7 years, later that afternoon I

had a offer of a job, also that night went out again still on a high, late at night just as it was getting dark

went down in a corner where i had the OTHER 2 CARP EARLY that week, fished into dark through bread on the top, had slurping all around me, but missed 2 more, but that didn't matter I had my luck that day

was on a high for ages after, but as yet still havent found a job,

[The Flying Tench]

pork sausage on a 3lb line ?

Should have been. No, it was 15lb line tied round her collar. Still smashed me up!

[peter mccue]

On an individual level, my best day was 35yrs ago fishing the river Tees at Yarm under the road bridge on a half tide going down. Having never caught a Roach topping 3/4lb, I had 11 Roach averaging a 1 1/4lb topped by two fish of 1lb 10oz & 1lb 13oz, incredibly exciting. I've never beaten those two Roach to this day!

 

 

My other best day was Aug 2003, fishing a private lake with my son on a overnighter, I had a 23.06 Mirror through the night & my son had had 3 double figure Commons. Breakfast was a happy affair, both of us basking in the early morning sun knocking back bacon/eggs/tomatoes with a lovely cuppa & recounting tales of battles through the night.

 

At midday my son had a scorching run on his light Carp rod baited with Halibut pellets, picked the rod up & after a second or two thrust the rod into my hands with a look of shock on his face (he was 9 at the time) I soon understood when a powerful fish ran down the lake. To keep it brief, my son was running up & down the bank giving me a running commentary on the fight, incidentally due to the nature of the lake we could measure that unreal first run....96yds!!, 30mins later a 31lb Wels Cat found it's way into the bottam of the landing net wielded by my son, no mean feat on his behalf I can tell you. It was such a combined effort & the fact the photo's of us both holding the fish turned out well, mean't that the photo has pride of place in the house & the day has pride of place in my memories.

 

What a day!!

Edited January 10, 2006 by peter mccue

[chappers]

Have had many outstanding/landmark days but two days in particular stand out.

In the 90's I was fortunate to be able to fish the waters on the Blenheim estate pretty much whenever I wanted, as my friend lived on the estate and my most memorable days fishing was in fact spread over two days one year at the very tail end of the season.

My mate Don phoned me to say that he had seen a few pike moving in a pool on the river below the main lake so that evening we set off down the river to our favourite livebaiting spot to catch some bait in preperation for the next day. Well in a hectic couple of hours we caught plenty of roach for bait and included in them were no less than 9 fish over 2lb.

The next day saw the most hectic pike session ever between 9 in the morning and about 7 that evening we landed over 100 pike between us think the biggest only went about 12lbs but hectic action to say the least, we were casting our baits high into the air so they came down onto the water with a slap and quite often watching two or more bow waves homing in on it wondering which one was going to get there first.Was a truely remarkable couple of days.