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......