Fishing With The Cullens

First Fishing Match of 2016 - Pidley Raven Lake

2016-03-20T02:34:00.003-07:00

So first match of the season at Pidley Rookery Waters on there new match lake Raven. The lake is approximately 13m wide and stocked with Carp, Tench and Barbel. The carp go to 10+ lb.

Yesterday was a cold day with a 6°C high.

We met in the new cafe on site at 8 am. Some of the chaps were already there. Whilst we waited for the rest I had a nice sausage sandwich with a cup of tea. My dad had the same.

After breakfast we had a quick mooch around the tackle shop located above the cafe. It is well stocked with various bits and bobs.

Once everyone was there I held the peg bag whilst everyone pulled out there pegs. My dad pulled out peg 4 and as we were in one car I asked if I could have the swim next door. No one had an issue so I tool peg 5. As it turned out the chap who had my original peg came joint second with 18lb 80z.

The match started at 10am and finished at 3pm.

It was very hard going in terms of getting any large fish I caught regularly on the day mainly on red maggot. My finishing weight was 3lb 1oz at least I didn't come last lol. Worse news was my dad had amassed 4lb 8oz and beat me ;).

The winner had a massive 25lb+. Which in the conditions was very good. He mainly caught the bigger fish on a feeder and maggot.

All in I enjoyed the day and am looking forward to the next one.

Me and Dad on the way there :)

Blog Later....

Kahlan Godmanchester Rec Fishing After Work

2015-07-05T01:16:00.003-07:00

Having taken Aoibheann to the Fishing competition last week. I thought it only right to take Kahlan for a quick session after work on Friday 3rd July. At Lunchtime on Friday Kahlan and I walked to the Tackle Shop and got our Maggots. Kahlan wanted Red and Bronze Maggots unfortunately they didnt have any Bronze. So we went with the tried and tested Red and White Maggots. After work Kahlan and I walked down to the Godmanchester Recreation Field. We found a swim in the bottom right hand corner where there were concrete steps leading down to the river. We could see plenty of fish at our feet. This time I had only taken the Whip and again only used size 18 Hook and 2 lb hook length. We pretty much caught immediately :). As the photos show all small Dace. After a bit of time regularly feeding micro pellet and maggots the perch started to move in. The biggest was this 5.6 oz. Which is by miles the biggest Perch Kahlan has caught. So big (for her) she wasnt too sure about holding it lol. After the Perch pictured it was time to pack up as it was already past Kahlans bath time. On the way home we stopped off to buy Mummy some flowers too.

Blog later.....

Godmanchester Junior Fishing Competition 2015

2015-07-05T01:01:00.003-07:00

On the 27th June Godmanchester community held the annual Junior and Senior Fishing competitions. To qualify you need to have been a student at one of the local Godmanchester Schools. As Aoibheann is now at one of the local schools she qualified for the Junior competition. The details are on the flier to the right.

On the Friday before the competition Aoibheann and I walked to the tackle shop to purchase our Maggots. Aoibheann choose 1/2 pint of Red and 1/2 a pint of White Maggots. We also got a 1/2 pint of Pinkies. Once we got home I added some pineapple flavouring to the Maggots along with some Strawberry Groundbait to help flavour them.

The next morning Aoibheann was very excited about the competition. We got our gear ready and waited for Aoibheanns cousin Ollie and Granddad so we could walk down together for the draw. The picture to the left is of Aoibheann waiting.

We drew peg 21 which was around the back of the recreation ground. Not a great swim lots of weed and we were quite high up from the river with a sharpish slope down. I set up 2 rods and a whip for Aoibheann. The first rod was a simple float with a size 18 hook 2lb hook length set about 18 inches from the float. The second rod was a exactly the same but the hook was set to sit just on the bottom of the riverbed. The whip was set the same as the second rod.

The competition was for 1.5 hours and in that time we had 8 fish (Dace and 1 Gudgeon) for a total weight of 3 oz. This ended up with us being somewhere around the middle of the 30+ contestants.

The main thing of course was that she really enjoyed it.

And of course she got her medal :)

Blog Later......

East Delph Lakes Fishing Match

2014-09-29T01:58:00.002-07:00

So this Saturday (27th September) my father and I went along to The Riverbed Fishing Club match held at East Delph Lakes. The RFC fishing matches are always a good laugh and the normal format is as follows. Meet at McDonald's for x. Drive to Lake. Set up. Fish a match over 5-6 hours.

Saturday was no different. We met at McDonald's in Huntingdon. Obviously my dad and I had a Maccy D breakfast and black coffee. Met the guys out the front. Nice to see some faces I hadn't seen before. We all then headed over to East Delph Lakes at about 10:15. So off the convoy of cars and vans headed off. East Delph Lakes is about a 30 minute drive from Huntingdon. Maybe less but the head of the convoy took a wrong turn :).

Once at the lakes we were met by the new owner and talked through the rules for the match. The owner also recommended we use mixers off the surface. The price for the match was £6 for the fishing and £2 for the couple of pints of mixers. Plus the obligatory £1 towards the prize money and £1 to the club.

I drew peg 3 and my father drew peg 17. As it happened I swapped with a chap to peg 14 so I was closer to my old man as we loaded up my carp barrow to get the gear to the pegs. The picture shows the view from my peg I had an island in front and plenty of margin down my left. I started with a pellet waggler approach as unfortunately I had no floating line but hoped this would work with the mixers. Having had no success straight away with plenty of carp visible I moved onto pellet waggler with sinking bait only. I caught the carp shown within 30 mins of the change which I would guess was about 5lb.

The picture to the right shows the view from my peg to that of my dads.
As the match went on the carp just stopped feeding everyone was struggling for a bite. I had been feeding my left margin in the hope of pulling out a big'un towards the end but I started fishing it for silvers to try to build a weight.
I had a couple of nice Roach, a couple of nice size Roach hybrids, lots of small Roach and a few skimmers. In total by the end of the match I had 3lb 9oz in silvers. At least it kept me busy.
After a while I moved back onto the carp same method no joy. Changed to a free running lead simple hook length with a hair rigged large pellet topped with a white corn shaped boilie stop. After about 10 minutes I had another carp to 5lb.
I also got snapped up by a very large carp which if landed may have won me the match. My father lost 3 big carp two hook pulls and one snapped!
So to the weigh in. When it go to me the current winning weight was 12lb something. I weighed in with 10lb of carp and 3lb 9oz of silvers for a total of 13lb 9oz and into the lead. This lasted until the very next peg where my dad had 2 carp to 15lb and 1lb 1oz of silvers and into the lead. Come the end of the weigh in I finished 4th and my dad 3rd out of 12 so not to bad on a hard day. Interestingly the chap who won it had an Eel to 2lb 14oz!

Blog later....

Fishing with Kids before work trip away

2014-09-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I had a trip coming up with work that meant I had to go to the U.S.A for a week. As this would be the longest trip away from the wife and kids we took them to the local river in Godmanchester so they could play on the park and do a spot of fishing. Very handily the park has several swims very close to the park. This was also Parker, my son's, first experience of going fishing. Ok he didn't actually do any fishing but he was fascinated with the little fish Daddy and his sisters were catching.

So in preparation I for fishing on the Sunday the girls and I had walked to the tackle shop to pick up some maggots. The girls wanted the multi coloured ones even though I prefer red and white. However the girls won the choice and so we were ready for the next day. We walked down to the river as a family and whilst I got set up my wife took the kids on the park. Once I started to catch the kids came over to join in or watch.

As per usual from that spot there were plenty of little bleak and perch about which I could see easily with my polarised specs on. Kahlan and Aoibheann booth caught easily as you can see from the picture of Kahlan. Aoibheann didn't want to hold any fish on this particular day so I dont have any photos of her.

Now Parker bless him was shouting "Ish, Ish" when we were holding the fish and he wanted to hold one. So we let him. It was particularly funny when he refused to give it back! We did get the fish off of him and retiurned it safely back into the river. When I caught a Perch given the spikey fins I thought it best just to show him that one lol.

I love taking these guys fishing. Its just the done thing in my family.

Blog later.....

Aoibheann's First Carp

2014-08-04T12:25:00.004-07:00

On the 27th July 2014 I took Aoibheann to Fenland Fishery for a few hours. We could only commit to a few hours as we had a Family BBQ around my in-laws. We got to the lakes around 8:50. The shop doesn't open until 9:30 so we got set-up and started fishing.

Aoibheann wanted to use her rod so I set it up for her to fish a few feet under the surface. We started using red and white maggots. Aoibheann pretty much caught straight away with a small roach. Roach were the main course for the morning.

Once the shop opened we reeled her rod in and went to pay. Once again I only had to pay for one adult with two rods as Aoibheann and I shared a swim. On the way out of the store I saw some plastic fake corn which I purchased. From the last time I was here with my youngest daughter Kahlan we were catching a bigger stamp of fish on corn. My thinking was that with Aoibheann only just learning to cast we may lose the real corn on the cast.

Once back in our swim I set up a rig to fish a wafter on the deck with a simple ejecting lead system. Once I had cast out I put the fake corn on to Aoibheann's hook and he cast out again.

Within seconds she was into her first carp. She squealed and clung on for dear life as her rod bent around. I helped her bring the fish in as shown right.

Over the next few hours Aoibheann caught several Mirror and Common carp as well as a few Roach. She counted 24 fish in total. Over these few hours I had several carp all off of the wafters.

Aoibheann's largest fish is shown to the left which was a mirror carp to 3lb 2oz. Her biggest common was 1lb 6oz.

The video to below shows Aoibheann casting :)

The fish I caught are shown below.

Aoibheann being interviewed lol:

Big Thanks to my beautiful daughter for taking my pictures too :)
Blog Later....

Kahlan's first trip to a lake

2014-07-24T00:33:00.001-07:00

On Sunday the 20th August I took my daughter Kahlan whose 3 on a fishing trip to Fenland Fisheries near Bluntisham. We arrived at 9am to find perfect fishing conditions very warm and overcast.

The shop didn't open until 9:30 so we got set up in a swim which was basically in the car park. The swim enabled Kahlan and I to be fishing in the same swim as my father and my nephew.

I was very pleased with the action as it was fast and furious. We caught fish on every ship of the pole. I lost count over the day how many fish I caught ranging from tiny roach to carp of a few pounds.

Once the shop opened we pulled in our poles and went in to pay for the days fishing. After explaining that my daughter and I would be in the same swim the chap only charged my for one swim and two rods (£7.50). Next to the shop they also have vats of Koi Carp for sale which Kahlan enjoyed watching for a while.

As you can see from the photos Kahlan loved the whole day. The only downer was that I got a migraine at about 15:00 and had to leave Kahlan however didn't. She wanted to stay with Grandad which was fine. She didn't get home until 17:00!

Blog later....

British Carp & Angling Show

2014-01-24T00:51:00.003-08:00

So January the 18th is my Fathers birthday. This year it fell on one of the days that the British Carp & Angling show was due to be held in Norfolk. Having never been I asked my dad if he would like to go with Aoibheann and I. He thought it seemed like a good idea and as we only had to pay for the tickets for Aoibheann as Dad and I had the voucher that was in the January issue of Total Carp magazine it would be cheap too.

I ordered the kids tickets online for both Aoibheann and my nephew Ollie who you have seen in a previous post. Unfortunately though on the day Ollie was unwell and couldn't make it. We set off at around 9 am and arrived at the Norfolk show ground around 11:30.

First things first we did a couple of circuits of the stalls as usually prices on products very greatly as we found on lures for example.

After the couple of laps I stopped at "Uncle Jim" Jim Shelley purchased his book Carping Re-Cut and asked for a photo of him with Aoibheann. He duly obliged and I got this great snap. The only snafu was that I genuinely thought that his partner had not given me the change so I asked for it. The partner thought he had, but gave me the change. As I walked away I found the change that he had indeed given me! I walked back to Jim and his partner apologised profusely and gave them the change back. Jim took this very well and shook my hand not sure many other people would have given him his money back :).

For those of you that don't know about Jim he pretty well regarded as a top top carp angler. You can find him writing a regular article in Total Carp magazine, on twitter @jim_shelley and of course his book as mentioned which can be ordered via his website jimshelleyuncut by the way you can also book Jim for a tutorial which again prices etc can all be found on the his website.

Aoibheann was starting to complain that her stomach thought her throat had been cut so we stopped for lunch in the food court section. Dad grabbed a table and Aoibheann and I went and got some burgers and chips.

After the food we all did another couple of laps and I bought a keepnet, several lures, glug pots and 3 x stuffed toy fish for my three kids lol.

New Years Day Piking With My Dad & Nephew

2014-01-03T02:05:00.000-08:00

So Happy New Year Folks. My wife and I are well beyond staying up late to bring in the New Year and so were in bed asleep by 23:00. The only bugger to this was being woken up at midnight with fireworks that seemed to go on for ages. I could have done without this as the plan was to be down at the BIGHITAA river stretch at Brampton early New Years Day.

I was up and at the bank side whilst still very dark and I had to use the light in the boot of my car to get set up. It was at this point I noticed that one of the eyes on the spinning rod I had was missing! It was the second one up and as I didn't have a spare rod I chose to use it although until I repair it I won't use it again.

So having set up I started off spinning with a Lure that had a rattle in it as well as being mainly white with a splash of red on the head. At this point I couldn't see the water although after all the flooding it was flowing very fast. I did get to witness quite a nice sunrise though as pictured above.

After the sun had come up it was clear to see that the water was very coloured and moving very fast and I wasn't hopeful of catching a pike. As I was here though why not keep trying. At about 08:15 my Dad and Nephew Ollie arrived. Whilst my Dad set up their rods Ollie had a go with my rod. This proved a bit tricky for Ollie as he was struggling to bring the Lure in before the current swept the lure around into the reeds on our left. Ollie did well though persevering. Although I did have to help him out a few times when it got stuck.

After my Dad was finished setting up their rods we decided to venture upstream and see if the swims were any better. The BIGHITAA stretch of river is roughly 1 km and I would say we were pretty much near to the bottom end by the time we settled on a stretch of river.

Ollie and my Dad settled a bit further downstream than I did and we settled into a couple of hours fishing. I had one follow in which I think was a small perch other than that we blanked. I left at about 10:15 as I had a family meal planned at my father in laws. My Dad and Ollie stayed for another half an hour as Ollie wanted to see a pike. I have promised him I'll take him again maybe to gingerbread when the weather settles.

To be honest though I think the moment of the session was getting the photo below of the three of us :)

Blog Later......

Aoibheann's First Pike Session All Be It Very Short

2013-12-29T02:27:00.000-08:00

So I decided to take Aoibheann on a short Pike session at Gingerbread Lake part of the BigHitAA waters in Eaton Socon. It had to be a short session as we had my nephews 9th Birthday party to go to at 3pm. After getting us both dressed up warm I loaded the car and off we went.

First we had to pop over to my Dads to pick up our tripod for the video camera as we'd left it there during christmas day.

So finally we were off proper to Gingerbread. When we pulled up at the first gate there we two chaps walking down from the pit. We had a brief chat and they said the pit was flooded with only a few swims free. Aoibheann and I decided to go and have a look.

We parked the car near to the second gate and unloaded the car put on our salopettes and wellies and went for a walk around. After walking around part of the lake and carrying Aoibheann through some of the bigger puddles we decided to head back to the car and try the lakes at Sandy. On the way back to the car Aoibheann whilst hopping and skipping fell over into the mud. As you can see from the photo to the right that I took once we arrived at MacGregor Lake on the Sandy complex.

Aoibheann had taken her Disney Princess Rod which I attached a small Goldfish lure and she cast out with the Rod. Unfortunately I don't think these rods are very good the trigger to cast can be tricky for a 5 year old and the line kept getting caught. So we binned using that rod and she used my 6ft lure rod.

We had a few casts around but Aoibheann after 30 mins or so was cold so she wanted to go home. As we were only a 2 minute drive from Manor Farm Fisheries we went to have a look in the tackle shop. As we'd forgotten our lunch I bought Aoibheann some Hob Knobs which she tucked into in the car. Whilst we were in the tackle shop Aoibheann noticed the wooly hats shaped as fished and decided that she would like one. To be fair she had been so good the last couple of days that I said ok. I also got her little sister one too as they are cool hats lol.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.....

Blog later....

Predator Fishing at Gingerbread 20131203

2013-12-03T13:40:00.002-08:00

Been a while since my last post I have been busy although I have fished to Matches over October and November. The match in October I came second with 26lb. I lost the match as the "officials" wouldn't allow the two ducks I hooked and subsequently had to unhook lol. The second match I came forth with one fish for 7lb.

Today I managed to get out to Gingerbread Lake which is part of the BigHitAA which is the club I joined once I moved back to the cambridgeshire area. The club boasts several waters plus stretches of river. Being a Tuesday I knew the lake would be quite and so off I went and I arrived just before 11am.

It wasn't too long before I had my first Jack pike of the day. Unfortunately I forgot to hit the record button on the camcorder so I dont have a picture.

It wasn't long though before I had a bite from my biggest Pike of the winter 1.43Kg or 3lb 2oz. This time I did remember to hit the record button so I have grabbed some stills from the video. The video can be viewed at http://youtu.be/FedLMYVufes

The third and last Jack was caught into darkness but was more than welcome :)

Tight Lines Blog soon....

NAA Night Fishing Session on Collins/Knotts 01-02072013

2013-07-02T05:59:00.002-07:00

So my lovely wife let me go for another night fishing session with the NAA. I decided on Collins as there seems to be plenty of 20's available and my PB is still a lowly 14 lb 6 oz. I got dropped off on Monday morning and made my way with all my kit to Collins Lake. I made a circuit of the lake but didn't see any fish and the corner I would have prefered due to the wind conditions already had two anglers in it so I opted for the peg with no number that I could see but it has a memorial bench for "Tonka".

I decided on this spot as I had seen plenty of fish here on my previous visit and with no other signs to go on why not. I had mixed up my spod mix the night before to let it soak in all its own oils etc ready for this session. I spodded to the left of the island with about twenty spods then cast my snowman rig to the edge of the spodded area. To my left I cast out a 6 foot zig rig to see if I could tempt anything midwater.

Nothing showed all day I made some hot water with my new camping stuff for a Mug Shot. I then used the same gear to heat up a Big Soup Steak and veg that was quite good actually.

I found a spot under a tree that I had been feeding all day with the hope this might give any fish some confidence the plan being to drop in a PVA bag at dusk and leave one rod in the margin. Alas in the morning when I reeled in the margin rod I think I had cast onto a broken of twig that was submerged so nothing there unfortunately :(.

Around 7pm I had re-spodded the spot off the island and I decided to leave it for a couple of hours to settle. Whilst I waited I wandered off to one of the corners off Collins and used some lures for a bit of predator fishing. After and hour or so and no fish I went back to my swim.

I spodded another five times then cast out my snowman set up again and got into bed about 10pm. Alas apart from the odd liner I had no action and neither did anyone else on the lake. 4:30am I was awake and seeing still nothing showing I decided to pack up my gear and go to Knotts lake next to Collins and predator fish for a few hours until my wife came to pick me up.

On the third peg I tried number 37 on Knotts I managed to catch a little "Jack" Pike of 850gms thus saving the blank lol.

Blog later :).

NAA - Dobsons 20130515 Peg 40

2013-05-28T11:28:00.002-07:00

My second night session of the year was on Dobsons Lake at the Newbury. Once again I had the lake to myself which is always nice. No fish were on show when I did my circuit of the lake. I decided to fish off of the point to the island which is a huge swim and so easy to get all my gear in.

I decided to use a Sticky baits Krill pop up with the matching glug which was cast out within a PVA solid bag with mixed size pellets. Within a couple of hours I was into a nice common :). 4.54 Kg or 10 lb.

At 01:00 am my rod screamed of with this gorgeous Mirror Carp which I thought may break my rather pathetic PB of 14 lb 6 oz unfortunately it wasn't to be this one weighed in at 6.26 Kg or 13 lb 8 oz.

At 01:45 I kept getting a beep then it would go quite then beep again a short while later I suspected this was a Bream given that I had changed from the Krill pop up to the new Korda flavoured pop up Maize. After the third beep I got out of the bivvy and stood ready to strike on the next beep. Strike i did and I was into another fish. I was right a Bream that I had managed to foul hook in a pectoral fin. 1.42Kg or 3 lb 12 oz.

The bream was to be the last fish of the session but I love to see the morning views of the lake which I am going to share with you guys below. :)

Blog Later......

NAA - Dixons 20130429-30 Peg 25

2013-05-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

First Night session of the year this one. For it I opted for the Dixon lake at the Newbury Angling Association lakes. The lake is the furthest from the car park but as I was going to be there overnight I didn't mind lugging my gear all that way. I arrived at the swim around 17:00 and again much like the last session I could see plenty of fish on the surface. Again I set up a Zig Rig 12" under the surface however on this lake i had never fished it before so I did use a marker rod to find the centre depth. I only did this the once as I did not want to spook the fish too much.

Within the first hour I had a good fight with my biggest fish of the year so far.. 4.89 Kg or 10 lb 12.4 oz. Lovely looking common carp.

Unfortunately that was the only take of the entire session/night. I discovered in the morning that my PVA bags had not been done correctly and fouled the rig so my own fault. Some stunning views though in the morning. These are shown below.

Blog Later....

NAA - Dobsons 20130425 Peg 25

2013-05-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone bit late posting this and the next couple of blogs...(2 months late lol). I was made redundant from my job at the end of March so I have taken the opportunity to do some fishing. :)

This session was late April and quite a warm day. I arrived at Dobsons and as usual walked around the lake. Not that there was much need mind the carp were all on the surface only 100 yards or so up from the car park. Having quickly got around to the swim close to the fish I proceeded to set up a zig rig. I already knew the depth of the area and set up 12" below the surface. The hook bait was a piece of pink foam. I couldn't of had the rig in place 5 minutes when it tore off. The first carp shown above was 1.91Kg (4 lb 3.4oz in old money).

I kept the same setup and bait and was rewarded with the carp left. 2.54 Kg or 5 lb 9.6 oz

The next fish, another common, was caught on a red Amber berry popup. 2.63 Kg or 5 lb 12.4 oz

The last fish of the session was the biggest at 3.64 Kg or 8 lb.

Great session first proper session were lots of fish were fairly easily caught. Rather funny that each fish was bigger than the last. Is summer finally here?

Blog later....

The Big One Show

2013-02-23T11:18:00.001-08:00

Hi Sorry been a while since the last post but what with the incredibly cold weather and various illnesses that I have had I haven't had the opportunity to go. Today Aoibheann and I had the chance to pop down to Farnborough to The Big One Show.

The Big One Show was only a 40 minute drive from our home so we arrived at around 9:40am. The price on the door was £10 for me and Aoibheann being only 4 didn't need a ticket.

The first angling celebs we came across was Dean Macey (Twitter @DeanMacey) and Tom Dove (Twitter @TomDove11).

Then we came across arguably two of the best match anglers in England Steve Ringer (Twitter @SteveRinger) and Adam Rooney (Twitter @AdamRooneyGuru).

A massive thank you must go to Ian Russell from Avid Carp who not only was happy to pose with Aoibheann but he also pulled out a cardboard cut out of the Carp in the picture below which looks excellent.

We then came across Keith Arthur (Twitter @SkyTightLines) from Sky Sports Tight Lines.

We had to wait a few minutes to get a snap with Mick Brown but a huge thank you to the chap in the background who gave Aoibheann a free hat (I also got a free hat and t-shirt :) )

I didn't realise from the telly how huge Iain Macmillan is but what a friendly bloke gave Aoibheann a pen and he really laughed at me getting her to say "Sausages" so she doesn't smile like she has a screw loose.

I think though the few minutes we spent with MBE and 4 time world coarse angling champion Bob Nudd made our day. Not only did he sign Aoibheann's DVD but he commented how confident she was. Absolute magic.

I also bought Aoibheann a couple of raffle tickets and she one some Sonubait new plum baits as shown below with the winning ticket :). To be fair though she really really likes her carp pillow too :).

On Warwicks today

2013-01-06T10:26:00.002-08:00

Warwicks

So came down again to the Newbury angling association hoping that the flood stopping me getting into the windmead complex ceased. Unfortunately still not happy to drive through it in the family car. So I came back up to Rawlings retreat and had a look around. At first i thought i may be able to get down to Dobson's by using the path between alders and Warwick's. so i loaded up the barrow and off i went. After walking for about 10 minutes I was still walking parallel to the lakes and to be honest it was hard work through all the mud. So I headed back to Warwick's as most of my fellow anglers seemed to be on willows so I settled in Warwicks as I had it to myself again.

To be honest I think I knackered myself trying the path earlier so I was not in the mood to fish. As I was thinking of packing up I heard the chaps on willows in the car park about to leave. So I packed up and moved onto the same peg 34 as my previous trip.

Willows Peg 34

Again though I felt pants so I only gave it an hour and headed home total of 2 hours fishing and another winter blank but I'll be back soon.

As an aside I had purchased new two new rods from Fishtec the TFG 12' Lite-Speed Marker and Spod rods. I also bought the Korda Drop Zone Marker Kit but for some reason although I followed the instructions the float seems to get caught by twisting on the line. I will need to investigate :).

Blog later......

First 2013 Session

2013-01-02T05:23:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everybody!

My wife and I over the last 6 or so years refuse to go out for New Years Eve as frankly it annoys us. Pubs charge prices to get in which the other times are free. Everywhere is packed and it takes an hour to get to the bar and be served! So we have our own little tradition going where we have a bottle of wine, watch a film and try to get to sleep before the fireworks start.

What this does allow for is getting down to the lakes for a spot of fishing. So up I got on New Years Day and I was down at the lakes by 8 am. I had planned to go to Dobson's Choice Lake but I couldn't even reach the gate to get into the complex due to the flood 100 yards plus. See picture to the right!

So I reversed up the track and decided to go to Willows instead. Once again I had arrived early and I was the first person on the lake. Now I had not fished Willows for about 7 years having only recently rejoined the NAA in July.

The swim my wife and I had always caught on was Peg 34 which I settled into straight away. The picture to the left shows the view I had. This swim has the island to the left and a "corner of snags" to the right.

All wrapped up.

I started off by mixing up a mix for the PVA bags. I used dead maggot, sweetcorn, brown crumb, boilies (chopped and whole), micro pellets and another expander ground bait. To this I added some Pineapple Goo. Hook bait I started off on a boilie. Through out the day I tried pop-up boilies (different colours and flavours), Zig Rigs of varying length, PVA bags, PVA Mesh, Method feeders. Once again no joy at all. The only consolation was that at least I wasn't the only one to blank. Of the 10 or so other anglers on the lake I didn't see anyone catch anything.

So once again the below are a few snaps I took whilst I was just sitting in the cold. :)

To be fair I did catch one thing OUCH!!

Mmmm warm goodness of black coffee :)

Second December Session

2012-12-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

So it had been a week since my last session and this time I was able to stay out for a bit longer (6 hours) so I decided to go back to Dobsons Lake as I normally have it to myself and it has carp up to low 30's.

I settled into the session on peg 6 which is just opposite the end of the island. There was a bit of a breeze and I was targeting the quite water at the back of the island. You can see the peg from the picture above and the shots below.

After being in this swim for a few hours I was having no joy even though I changed rigs and hook baits. I did however keep hearing what sounded like a fish jumping to my left. So I decided to move. I packed up the barrow and moved four swim down to Peg 2. Whilst doing this I went through a puddle that was significantly deeper than I thought lol and get my feet soaked.

Once set up in Peg 2 I spotted the carp that was jumping and tried to cast to the area. This was very tricky as I had to cast to my left under a tree as the swims closer to the fish were all flooded. You can see shots of the swim below.

Unfortunately everything I tried I just could not tempt the fish. I am not convinced my presentation was correct as there seemed to be lots of loose twigs and branches that I kept pulling out when I retrieved the rig.

I did try a bit of piking with a Savage Real Eel lure which has a great action in the water but alas not joy again.

Off to Cambridge for Xmas break and the plan is to go fishing with my Dad one day and my Daughter, Dad and Nephew on another. Fingers crossed.

Blog later.....

First December Session 2012

2012-12-17T10:39:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning rolled around and I had planned to go fishing so up I got had my breakfast loaded the car and I was off. This time around Aoibheann couldn't come along as she has been poorly all week. Also with the cold weather we weren't sure it would have been a good idea anyway.

As you can see from the picture above I had a stunning day of a bit of fishing.

The picture to the right shows my very simple rig that I used. As you can see I have used a lead eject system as fish safety is paramount.

This was fished with a PVA bag and a pop up boilie with a plastic sweetcorn.

Firstly I put some sweetcorn in a bait container and added some brown crumb to dry out the moisture of the sweetcorn so it wouldn't melt the PVA bag. To this I added some micro pellets. I also crushed up some home made boilies.

So I added the "mix" to the bottom of the PVA bag then put the weight into the bag on top.

I then top up the bag with mix and then its up to your own preference. I put the hook and hook bait inside the bag. Some people prefer to leave the hook bait and hook on the outside of the bag. As I say up to you.

The Glug pot to the right shows the bait soaking in Pineapple flavour. To match this I used the Pineapple Goo.

Unfortunately most of the lake was frozen and I only saw some fish in another area 30 minutes before I had to leave so I stuck to the spot I was in. If I had longer I would have moved and hopefully caught.

On the bright side I got some really good photos of the swim and scenery.

Blog Later....

First Winter Session

2012-11-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

So last weekend Aoibheann and I went fishing. The picture above shows the swim we settled on after doing a complete circuit of the Dobsons Lake which again is part of the Newbury Angling Association.

It took us about an hour to circuit the lake and get set up with all of our stuff. At this point I thought I had left the maggots at home which would have been a disaster so after checking the bags AND the car I phoned my wife to check the fridge and by the front door. Hmmm still no maggots so after re-checking my bags I finally found them in the barrow bag section. Phew. Once we had the maggots I then plumbed the depth just by the overhanging tree to the left of the swim.

Once I had gotten Aoibheann up and running I setup a basic ledger system and cast out. Somehow I managed to hit the top of the tree on the island infront of Aoibheanns chair in the picture to the right. After unsuccessfully trying to free it I had to break the line. So I re-set up and cast out using the boilies Aoibheann and I made in an earlier blog.

I was very surprised that after a couple of hours the boilie still smelt the same as when I cast out :). Unfortunately neither of us caught anything but it was a stunning day for it if not a tad windy.

Blog Later.....

Aoibheann and I making Boilies

2012-11-04T11:10:00.002-08:00

So Friday afternoon rolled around and I had finished work so I thought I would pop over to Swindon to have a look around Hinders. My local tackle shop doesn't really have a lot of choice when it comes to making your own boilies. Aoibheann and I jumped in the car set the nav man and off we went.

Hinders you may recall was often seen on the Matt Hayes fishing program "Total Fishing". Whenever they did a particle section it was normally at Hinders which is where I had heard of it and swindon being quite near I thought a pop over was in order.

When we arrived I was pleasantly surprised with the about of choice for the home made boilie enthusiast. I purchased a few different flavours etc and left. Friday night after the two younger children had gone to bed Aoibheann and I started to make our first "Batch". The recipe we used which is completely made up is listed below:

Dry mix:

5oz Gluten & Wheat Free Flour - Mainly due to not finding any Soya Flour at Tescos,
4oz Semolina,
4oz Maize Meal,
2oz Super Krill,
1 teaspoon salt

Liquid mix:

4 x medium hens eggs
5 ml Mega Tutti Fruiti Nash,
5 ml Scopex No.1,
2.5 ml Intense Sweetner,
15 ml New Grange from Mainline.

Firstly add all the dry mix contents to a container. Then mix these gently to ensure consistent mix. Some people use a bag to shake the contents but as I did this with my 4 year old we used a bowl and spoon.

After you have mixed thoroughly add the liquid mix together in a separate container. Ensure you do not whisk the egg as you do not want lots of air bubbles.

Once mixed you can slowly add the liquid mix to the dry mix in small increments.

When you have added the mixes you should have a ball which is malleable but does not stick to your hands if it does leave it to stand for a few minutes of add tiny amounts of the dry mix again. We had to leave ours for about 15 minutes then it was fine.

Then as described roll out into roughly the desired diameter so in our case we rolled it to about 10 mm thick.

Then cut into lengths. We only used the width of the knife I was using.

You can then start to roll them by pulling off the ends of the sausages and rolling them in the palms of your hands. Once complete simply boils them for about 2 minutes and thats it done.

For some reason though ours seem to be pop-ups!

Not sure why any advice welcome I am going to try the recipe again but with Soya next time see if that makes a difference :)

The main thing is that Aoibheann enjoyed it.

Blog Later....

Knott's Lake in the Rain

2012-09-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be only overcast so we were looking to try to catch some Tench or Bream to see if we can get more of the Korum Mission Badges for Aoibheann. However come the day in question and the forecast was showers or light rain most of the morning. I was hesitant to take Aoibheann given that she doesn't normally cope with being cold and wet but again she really wanted to go. As I said we were looking for Tench or Bream so I decided on Knott's Lake part of the NAA that we are members of.

Aoibheann and I did a complete walk around the lake first to see where we wanted to go. We finally settled on Peg 4 as shown above. Reasoning was as follows: 1) Island to cast a Method to with sweetcorn on the hair, 2) Overhanging tree to the left of the swim, and 3) reeds to the right of the swim. Luckily we managed to get the tent and umbrella up before the first shower hit.

Whilst I set-up the Method rod I put some "Freebies" of Red Maggot and a mixture of halibut and course micro pellets. Aoibheann helped mix up the ground bait which was a combo of what we had left over in terms of other ground baits and the micro pellets plus sweetcorn. I then showed Aoibheann how to load the Method and cast to within a few metres of the island. The Method was more of a cast and forget about rod really as I wanted to concentrate on Aoibheann and the pole fishing :).

Within 30 seconds of the float settling near the over hanging tree we caught a big perch (Well for us anyway lol).

Over the next three hours we hand a nice catch of Roach and Perch. The Roach to the right is also the biggest Roach we have caught together.

We had Perch of 0.12, 0.11, 0.1 Kg and Roach of 0.2, 0.06, 0.06 Kg

Btw this is my view to and from the swim. Daddy carrying the lot lol.

Blog later......

Aoibheann's First Rudd!!

2012-08-28T10:26:00.004-07:00

So this last week I bought a Total Fishing Gear (TFG) Force 8 Speed Lite Bivvy. My thoughts were that as I was going to be on holiday this week having a staycation I wanted to get out fishing a few times with Aoibheann but the weather was supposed to be very bad. The other considerations were that I can't spend half an hour putting the thing up with a 3 nearly four year old. This tent is excellent I can have it erect in under a minute then peg the back and sides if needed. As it happened we had a lovely days weather hardly any clouds and no real threat of rain and yet Aoibheann still wanted the tent up lol.

So after I plumbed the depth and Aoibheann mixed up some ground bait we were off fishing in Alders Lake at the Newbury Angling Association. This time we had settled into Peg 5 mainly due to the fact that the tent, that we didn't need, wouldn't extend and block the path.

As well as the ground bait we were using mixed micro pellets 50/50 course and halibut. To the ground bait we added some sweetcorn and the left over bits out of the previous sessions from various ground baits. On the hook we had the trusty Red Maggot.

Full capture pic.

Roach, Perch and Rudd

First Rudd

We had a fantastic 4.5 hour session. We caught Roach, Perch and for the first time Aoibheann had a Rudd and it was a nice one I think was maybe 1/2 a lb. Silly daddy forgot to weigh it but at least I remembered to take a picture :)

NAA./EA Teachin Session

2012-08-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

So Last Saturday Aoibheann and I went to Alders Lake part of the NAA to have the joint NAA and Environment Agency Teachin session.

So we got there at about 10:30 and it looked well organised with a sign in gazebo. So even though we had sent in the form we filled in another form and were then told we had to wait until a tutor became available so we had a little mooch about.

They had a 2 ft fish tank on a table with the red signal crayfish that had been caught out of alders which Aoibheann was fascinated by. They also had a couple of plastic storage containers with some weed and water in where we could see the various small animals including freshwater shrimp, sticklebacks and boatmen.

After about 15 minutes we were guided round to Steve who to be honest was brilliant with Aoibheann. He asked her to sit on his seat box. He then proceeded to show her how to attach a maggot etc.

During the 15-20 minutes she was with him she caught 2 little roach and a little perch. She really enjoyed herself.

What I learned was to use micro pellet to bring the fish into the swim and then maggot as hook bait which i have promptly been and bought so our next session should be better.

I was disappointed though over all as the day was advertised as from 10:30 - 16:30 with a match from 14:00 till 16:00. However as I say above after the 20 minutes we had with Steve we were then told that was it? Aoibheann was given a bag with a mini tackle box and a magazine etc but the older kids were given some sort of pole either a fishing pole or landing net pole not sure to be honest which my daughter didn't get which didn't seem fair.

Aoibheann though didn't notice and had a good time which after all was key :).

Blog later....