First Fishing Match of 2016 - Pidley Raven Lake

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

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

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

   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

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

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

  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....