A mission with my Dad

One aim for this year was to fish with my father much more, so arranging a day off with him was set.  Talking to my mates we all agreed that a small day ticket water near Tonbridge was the perfect place to catch multiple carp to over 10lb. My dad’s P.B was 9lb 8oz and for years has never been able to break that 10lb barrier!
 

Arriving at the lake we were delighted to see we were going to be the only ones on the water and have a choice of swims. The weather could not have been more perfect and the high temperature during the day was going to get the fish moving around much more than they have been in this cold weather.

The rods and bait went out with the clock still only reading 7.10am so we had plenty time to catch us some carp. With the kettle on the go, my left rod screamed off and a small, but scale perfect common, rolled into the net. This was a great start and increased our expectations of a good day.

That was the only fish of the morning and as the temperature increased, the fish were milling around the shallows and just under the surface. Nothing could tempt these fish and as much as we tried, we could not get a bite. 

Taking a walk around the lake armed with a pocketful of boilies and my glasses, I could see a large number of carp just sitting in the shallow water and some of them were actually sending up small bubbles indicating some feeding. I baited up two sides of a patch of lilies and went back to get all my gear and persuaded my dad to follow me up there as well.
 

Now sitting in our new swims – we were certain that there were many more carp in front of us and that there would be much more chance of getting a bite. By 3pm, I was starting to think that this may be one of those days that the fish were there but just going to play ball when my rod lurched forward and nearly went into the lake. The fish gave a very scrappy account of itself and still only pulled the scales round to 8lb – not the size we are after.
 

As soon as I put this fish back, my dad’s alarms gave a few bleeps and he had his first fish of the day on. While he was playing this my left rod went off again and it was certain that this was the carp feeding time.
His carp came in very easily but at 9lb 9oz – it was a new PB – even if it was only 1oz bigger. So even with a smile on his face it wasn’t the 10lber that we came for!
 

Even as we were laughing that he was not going to get that much closer to the 10lb mark – his rod ripped off and we were rewarded with a much bigger bulge in the bottom on the net. This was defiantly going to be his biggest and one that was going to be treasured. Pushing the scales round to 14lb 4oz his smile said it all!

Still reeling from that capture he was in again and this time a quality mirror came in at a slip just under 14lb. Not a bad brace really from someone who had just broken his PB 3 times in the same day hour after all these years of fishing.

I managed to wangle out two fish at 16lb 10oz and 17lb 10oz all caught on the same pop up within a few minutes of each other.

With the sun going down we called it a day but with each of us having 10 fish a piece and a new PB for him – I think that it was a mission accomplished!

Tight Lines and be Lucky!

Home at last

I have been travelling for the last 8 months all over South-East Asia and it’s been fantastic. I have seen some amazing sights including the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat, sat on some beautiful sandy beaches, dived with sharks and seen some truly stunning sunsets. I have even been able to get some fishing in as well, including my biggest fish of 54lb Mekong catfish plus some other weird and wonderful fish..... But I have to say... How I have missed the English fishing scene.

54lb Mekong catfish - caught in north Thailand on bread

 

Taking an ipod touch, I have been able to keep up to date with all the new products, baits, who’s been catching what (my mate  Smith in particular has had two pb’s since I have been away) and thanks to Facebook, Twitter and regular news reports emailed by companies, I’m always aware of what’s what. Even sitting on a beach in Thailand I entered a Facebook competition and only guessed the right weight and won a reel.

I have had time, maybe too much time to think about rigs, bait, places to fish, what the best approach is and even drawn potential rigs that I would like to try. I use a lot of imitation baits and will still continue to use them as I still haven’t seen that many anglers using them and will be trying the Baitcraft baits, as a new possible angle. As with places to fish, I am going to continue to fish my two local syndicates and make a point to venture out to odd day ticket waters.

Gave great fights between 25-40 minutes each fish

I’m planning to land on Tuesday night and fish Wednesday through Friday and do the family thing at the weekend. I don’t actually plan to fish that many if any weekends as i’m lucky enough to do overnighters during the week and there is generally less pressure on the water. But if the conditions are right then i will be there with the rods out at the weekends!

Another odd looking catfish

I’m heading off to Lake Beauregard in France at the end of July with 5 friends so need to get as much practice in between now and then. This will be my first time to France and am really looking forward to the experience. There are big cats and carp pp over 50lb and would be an amazing achievement to land one or two, but even see one will be equally astounding. We are grouped in 3 teams of 2 and already have some trophies for the “Biggest Fish” and “Biggest One Lost” – How we will measure this will be the angler who is crying the most after the hook pull!

Here are my many/few aims and objectives for this coming year;

• ·         Fish with my dad more

• ·         Keep a better diary/record of the location, swim, weather, pressure and movement

• ·         Continue to analyse the impact is any of a full moon

• ·         25lb+ Carp, 9lb+ Bream and 7lb+ Tench

• ·         Try some zig fishing – as haven’t done any yet

• ·         Continue to use the plastic/imitation baits 

Be lucky and tight lines