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......

Aoibheann's First Pike Session All Be It Very Short

So I decided to take Aoibheann on a short Pike session at Gingerbread Lake part of the BigHitAA waters in Eaton Socon.  It had to be a short session as we had my nephews 9th Birthday party to go to at 3pm.  After getting us both dressed up warm I loaded the car and off we went.  

First we had to pop over to my Dads to pick up our tripod for the video camera as we'd left it there during christmas day.

So finally we were off proper to Gingerbread.  When we pulled up at the first gate there we two chaps walking down from the pit.  We had a brief chat and they said the pit was flooded with only a few swims free.  Aoibheann and I decided to go and have a look.

We parked the car near to the second gate and unloaded the car put on our salopettes and wellies and went for a walk around.  After walking around part of the lake and carrying Aoibheann through some of the bigger puddles we decided to head back to the car and try the lakes at Sandy.  On the way back to the car Aoibheann whilst hopping and skipping fell over into the mud.  As you can see from the photo to the right that I took once we arrived at MacGregor Lake on the Sandy complex.

Aoibheann had taken her Disney Princess Rod which I attached a small Goldfish lure and she cast out with the Rod.  Unfortunately I don't think these rods are very good the trigger to cast can be tricky for a 5 year old and the line kept getting caught.  So we binned using that rod and she used my 6ft lure rod. 

We had a few casts around but Aoibheann after 30 mins or so was cold so she wanted to go home.  As we were only a 2 minute drive from Manor Farm Fisheries we went to have a look in the tackle shop.  As we'd forgotten our lunch I bought Aoibheann some Hob Knobs which she tucked into in the car.  Whilst we were in the tackle shop Aoibheann noticed the wooly hats shaped as fished and decided that she would like one.  To be fair she had been so good the last couple of days that I said ok.  I also got her little sister one too as they are cool hats lol.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.....

Blog later....

Predator Fishing at Gingerbread 20131203

Been a while since my last post I have been busy although I have fished to Matches over October and November.  The match in October I came second with 26lb.  I lost the match as the "officials" wouldn't allow the two ducks I hooked and subsequently had to unhook lol.  The second match I came forth with one fish for 7lb.

Today I managed to get out to Gingerbread Lake which is part of the BigHitAA which is the club I joined once I moved back to the cambridgeshire area.  The club boasts several waters plus stretches of river. Being a Tuesday I knew the lake would be quite and so off I went and I arrived just before 11am.

It wasn't too long before I had my first Jack pike of the day.  Unfortunately I forgot to hit the record button on the camcorder so I dont have a picture.

It wasn't long though before I had a bite from my biggest Pike of the winter 1.43Kg or 3lb 2oz.  This time I did remember to hit the record button so I have grabbed some stills from the video.  The video can be viewed at http://youtu.be/FedLMYVufes

The third and last Jack was caught into darkness but was more than welcome :)



Tight Lines Blog soon....

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 :).