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....

British Carp & Angling Show

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

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......