NAA Night Fishing Session on Collins/Knotts 01-02072013

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

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

 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

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

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

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

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 :)