Evening session using SonuBaits Krill Hooker Pellets
Testing the Preston innovations GXR 2600 pole
As the heavy rain finally started to stop, we decided to pop out for a couple of hours at a local club water to try out a few bits of new tackle and bait. As it was only a short session, I decided to keep it simple, I set up one line for fishing 14.5m out with my new Preston Innovations GXR 2600 16m pole. I used a 9 hollo elastic through pulla kit which is a great innovation with the elastic coming out the side of the pole which allows you to tighten the elastic to help you land the fish quicker. My rig was 0.13 to 0.10 powerline with a .2 float. The hook was a size 16 808 and bait was the new SonuBaits 6mm krill hooker pellets. I knew this bait would be perfect because it is big enough to get through the small Rudd and down to the bigger species. It wasn't long before I was all set-up and ready to cup in some 4mm pellet, I also fed 5 or 6 samples of the krill hooker pellets.

It was a slow start, I had caught about 5 roach in the first 15 minutes, this didn't look good so I decided to feed another pot of pellet, 2mm Fin Perfects. I lowered my hook bait over the top of the feed and the float immediately slammed under! At first it felt like a big Bream, but it soon screamed off.... my elastic was getting dragged through 2 patches of lily pads 4 pegs down.....I then knew it was a good Carp! I couldn't believe my 0.10 hook length hadn't broke! I kept a tight line to the fish hoping to ease the fish out of the pads, but was worried as my pole was bent double! It always takes a while to get confident in a new pole, this fish was certainly testing it. I managed to tempt the fish out of the first patch of lily's but unfortunately it went through some more and the hook pulled. I wasn't to concerned as I had a feeling it would come off when I hooked it.
Now I was much more confident in my new pole as it passed the strength test. I cad potted about twenty 4mm pellets and hoped to hook another good fish.....and maybe land it this time!

My float dipped under again, I gently lifted and was into what felt like another carp....It shot off to open water but luckily after dipping the pole under water and holding the pressure it came back. I slowly shipped back and played the fish using the pulla kit to carefully tighten the elastic. It wasn't long before a surprise 4lb Tench came up to the surface and was scooped up into my net. The Tench was in perfect condition and looked really healthy which is always good to see. I released the fish and re baited hoping for an even bigger one!

After a few pesky Rudd, I hooked into another pole tester.
 This felt much heavier than the others it was sluggish and keeping low, I wasn't sure what it was at first so was very excited as it got closer to my net. The fish was under control so I did not have to use the side pulla, but it is always there just in case the fish suddenly wakes up under the top kit. my 9h elastic was working perfectly, it was strong enough for when I first hooked the fish but also nice and soft to keep the small hook in under the net. The fish was still keeping low, but after a short battle its head popped up to reveal another Tench, a big one too! I was over the moon with that fish and it was a great way to end the 3 hour session. We took a quick picture of the fish and then carefully released him back into the lake.



I really enjoyed the short session and was surprised at the final result. The 6mm Krill pellets definitely helped avoid the small Rudd and the bigger species certainly took a liking to them. Especially those 2 lovely Tench! I really recommend you giving these a try at your local water.

Catching Roach and Skimmers on the Grand Union Canal
After joining The Tring Anglers, I decided to start fishing some new stretches of the Grand Union. The particular stretch I fished for this session is members only, so we weren't expecting to many dog walkers and cyclists coming past which can be a nuisance on some stretches of canals. We found a nice looking peg, about 17m wide with a nice bush to ship back on. It wasn't long before we were unloading the shuttle and setting our tackle up. It's important to set-up tidy on canals and make sure none of your tackle is on the foot path, as you have to respect that other people have as many rights as you to be there. This is why I like to have my box as close to the water as possible and my top kits to the side way out the way of any cyclists or walkers which may be coming past. I also like to have a pole roller to the right of my peg, so if someone's coming and I have a fish on, I can still ship back without having to wait for them to go past, it's what I call my back up shipping option.

I decided to fish 2 lines, a bread line in front at 11.5m and a back up worm line to the left at 13m. It was a cold overcast day so I wasn't expecting the worm line to work, but there was a chance that if I did get a bite it could be a big fish. I used a Preston Original Slip 3 elastic on both rigs, but it was set fairly tight on the worm line just to make sure that could land those better fish. The bread rig was 0.10 to 0.08 with a size 20 gamma green hook, I used a delicate float shotted with a bulk and 2 no.13 droppers so that the fish could not feel any resistance when they took the bait. The worm line was 0.12-0.10 with a 16 hook matched with a 0.2 float with a strung out bulk, this was a nice positive rig for presenting a large piece of worm.
 Now that the rigs were set up, all I had to do was feed the swim. I started of by feeding the bread line, I cupped in a tiny ball of liquidised bread and some loose on top to quickly draw fish in. On the worm line I chopped up 5 dendrobaena and a couple of lobs. The smell of the worms leaking amino acid shouldn't take long to draw a couple of fish in.
I started off on the bread line and instantly caught a 10oz skimmer, this does often happen when fishing bread on the canal, the first fish can usually be the best. But the next few drops resulted in a few more skimmers along with some nice roach. The fish just kept on coming! As soon as the last 13 dropper settled the float would disappear and my elastic would zip out the end of the pole.

 After 2 hours the swim started to slow down, possibly because of the fish were spooked as I had caught a lot from that one spot. So I decided to put a tiny marble sized ball of liccy in and have a drop in on the 13m line with a big piece of worm. I caught 2 or 3 small perch and Ruffe straight away..... after 15 minutes I managed to hook into a good fish. I immediately knew it was a nice skimmer when I hooked it as it was moving very slow. I carefully shipped back and put a 1lb skimmer in my keep net. Unfortunately after 2 more skimmers the worm line died, it was clear to see bread was best option. so I changed rigs and punched out a 4mm piece of bread.
The small ball of liquidised bread definitely bought the fish back into swim as the float wouldn't stop going under. Smaller fish than before, mainly Roach and Gudgeon but we still managed to sneak out the odd Skimmer. We continued to catch steadily throughout the rest of the session.
Overall it was a great 4 hours down the canal, we managed to catch 70 fish for about 15lb, mostly roach and skimmers but also some Gudgeon and Ruffe. I really enjoyed my day, just a shame about the freezing cold weather!

Click below to see a video of the session

Catching skimmers on the Grand Union Canal

Winter Method Feeder fishing....new PB Carp
After getting battered by Barry the week before, I decided to visit the same lake and try and do a little better.
 I only set-up the method feeder  for this session but was going to try and be very accurate by casting in the same spot every time, so there will be a small patch of bait that the fish will be confident feeding over. Unfortunately, the 3 pegs I wanted to fish were taken, so I had no option but to fish a different area. The peg I fished used to be very good, but now the fish have become wiser and have got used to being caught from this swim, I had to cast a long way where I hoped the fish would be more confident.
My was a Preston Carbonactive 10ft Mini, this rod is great because it can handle small to medium sized fish, the soft through action means it is perfect for small skimmers and fish with soft mouths, but it soon powers up once a bigger fish is hooked to help you gain more control. The end tackle was simple, I had a 6lb mainline running through a small Preston 30g Method Feeder. I then had a small bead with a swivel inside, this had a 0.15 Powerline hook length attached....the hook was a size 18 PR36 with a small hair rigged bait band. The hook bait was 6mm banded pellet and feed was 2mm Sonubaits Fin Perfect pellets and Supercrush Dark groundbait mixed 50/50. I used the Preston Method mould for perfect presentation.
 It wasn't long before I made my first cast, I chucked the method out 50 turns on the reel, which is as far as I can accurately cast with a 10ft rod.
 I put the rod on the feeder arm and but rest and expected a long wait for a bite. It only took 5 minutes to get my first sign, the rod slowly pulled round and then sprung back. At first I thought it was a line bite, but the line would not tighten after that, so I lifted the rod to see if a fish was on. I felt nothing as the fish had swam towards me, but when I was in contact with the fish, it felt very big.
For the first minute or so, it wasn't really doing anything, but suddenly it woke up and started screaming line off the clutch....so much line at one point I was actually playing the fish on the reel clip, the rod was bent double and I wasn't sure if it was capable of landing the monster on the end of my line. I tried taking line back very carefully begging for the fish to stay on and be landed, but every time it got close to me it went on another long run. 10 minutes into the battle, my arm was killing me, but it looked like the fish was starting to give up. It suddenly surfaced, and before I could go on another arm breaking run, I scooped it up in the net. I couldn't believe the size of it, it could hardly fit in my landing net!
 When I took my first look at the fish, I saw a load of tackle in the carps mouth. It had a pole rig, braid, a dacron connector, and some lead core as well as about 5 hooks. Which showed me this fish has been hooked by a few anglers and never landed...however with my tiny hook, light hook length and soft action rod.....I managed to tempt it into the net.
The picture below shows only some of the line and tackle around the fish.

 It took some time to remove all the tackle, the fish was getting stressed so we took a few pictures rather than video footage weighed the beast and released it as soon as we could
.....15lb 7oz. A new PB Carp! , hopefully it will be swimming a lot happier now that it's not carrying all of that tackle around anymore.

After that awesome surprise, we had to wait a long time for each bite, we did manage to sneak out a few more fish including a 2lb bream, 2lb Crucian and 5 other hard fighting carp around 6lb. Overall it was a great session, I really didn't expect to get a bite 1st cast let alone a 15lb 7oz Mirror Carp. As we had that fish so quick, I was expecting to bag up, but the fishing got worse as the session progressed. Perhaps because more anglers turned up putting to much pressure on the lake. But that one fish made it worth coming, and it certainly gave me greater confidence in the tackle I use...that was a session that I will remember for a long time.
 

Here you can see a video of the day
Catching Big Carp on the Method Feeder

Hard days fishing at a club lake
During the week we had arranged a session with our good mate Barry Parker and his dad Terry, we were going to fish one of our club waters near Heathrow airport. It's always good fun fishing with them and I always come home with more knowledge. We arrived at the lake at about 8 in the morning where we saw Barry unloading his tackle from the van. After a quick debate on what pegs we were going to fish, we decided to go to the swims which were the longest walk.....great! I had never fished these pegs before and never seen many fish caught out of them, but it was worth a crack.
 We were the only people on the lake today and decided to fish in a line, Terry on the left, Barry in the middle and I was on the right. We thought by keeping the bait in a tight area we could encourage a couple of fish to feed. I personally didn't expect to catch in the morning, but knew these two would manage a few fish as usual. Our attacks were the same, we all set-up a method feeder rod and 1 13m pole line with both heavy and light rigs. Although our main approach would be the method feeder as far as we can accurately cast which was about 40 yards.....it was very hard to get much further because of the awful cross wind. We fished it like this because the fish here always feel more confident feeding in the middle of the lake, hence why we didn't expect our long pole lines to produce, although in the summer you can catch some good fish on it. I fed it very sparsely on the pole only putting a small nugget of micros in, however Barry fed it heavily, constantly putting balls of ground bait in through out the session, so it would be interesting to see what the fish responded to more. The rigs were simple, 0.12 mainline, .3 and .4 HillBilly Chump and size 18 silverfish maggot hook. If any fish decided to feed over my pole line, I'm certain these rigs would be spot on. On the method I used my favourite Preston Carbonactive Mini 10ft feeder, 8lb TD line through a small 30g Preston Innovations method feeder. The hook length was 0.15 powerline to a 18 PR36 with a hair rigged bait band. The hook bait was a banded 6mm pellet and mix was 50% micros and 50% swim stim. This mix was recommended to me by Barry and is his no.1 choice for clear lakes. It wasn't long before we all cast our method feeders to the clip!

We left our feeders out there for a while, and had no indications, finally after 30 minutes Barry was in. He carefully winded with his rod low until it was in netting range, and then with a sharp scoop of net, he had landed his first fish.....a cracking 4lb bream. Unfortunately me and Terry were still waiting for our first sign, and soon decided to recast. Whilst doing so, Barry was sinking the line hoping for another bite.....Which came 20 minutes later and was another good Bream!, in fact this happened a couple more times within the first 2 hours, whereas me and Terry had made 4 casts each and were getting a little tired of staring at a motionless tip.
 After a while we both had a look on the pole, but this was no better. After watching Barry catching slowly but surely, we had no choice but to stick it out on the tip, hoping to possibly pick an odd fish just off the shoal. And it worked....unfortunately not for me, it was Terry this time with a lovely looking 5lb Tench. I was still enjoying myself as we had a laugh and kept saying it was the same Bream taking Barry's bait, although we know he is a quality angler and never expect to catch more than him. After another 2 hours of nothing, I left a cast out for nearly 60 minutes, and the rod slowly pulled round... I was into a fish. Baz had 8 Bream in his net by this time and 1 nice Tench, so I was hoping the shoal had moved into my peg. I slowly played the fish and scooped it into the net. A smaller Bream than Barry's, probably knocking on 3lb, but enough to keep me happy.

I reloaded the Preston 30 gram feeder and cast it out to the same spot, and 20 minutes later I was in again! This was a slightly bigger fish , definitely over 3lb, maybe pushing 4. I had to wait a bit longer for the next bite, probably about 40 minutes, it was a real confidence booster to know that a few fish had moved in. The next fish fought harder than the last 2, I thought it was a Tench or small carp when I hooked it, but it soon surfaced and I saw it was another Bream.
They all were lovely fish, most around 3-4lb but Barry had a couple nearer 6lb which is a fish anyone would be happy catching. Unfortunately the rain moved in, and it killed the mood a little, as we knew we would have to dry all our fishing gear when we got home, it looked like the fish were still biting as I had a whack round on the rod and was into a good fish. I knew this was a Carp as it was fighting a lot harder, although the water is still freezing and the fish tend to slow down a lot. I got it right to the net but unfortunately it got into the snags to the right of me and the fish was off. It was a nice Common Carp of about 5-6lb, but I wasn't too concerned as I wasn't even expect a bite at all today!
 After the fish came off, Barry told me the swim would be dead, as the Bream can get spooked by Carp feeding too aggressively, he was right, and despite my efforts I couldn't catch another fish. Although Terry managed to sneak out a 3lb carp, this killed his swim to.
 We all gave it another hour but the heavy rain got the better of us so we packed up.
 It was an awesome winter session and as usual I learnt lots on fishing with Barry. I will definitely remember the tips and tricks he has taught me and hopefully in future it will help me get the most out of these cold winter sessions. Barry battered me and Terry of the next peg by catching 15 Bream and a Tench. Barry's angling and set-up was perfect.... the Bream simply couldn't resist...... Hopefully I will do better next time.


Another winter session at Wood Lane Fishery's
After a short spell of mild weather, the lakes finally started to defrost....so me and my mate Connor decided to spend a day at Wood Lane Fisheries in Iver Buckinghamshire to target big skimmers.
 When we arrived, we noticed that some of the pegs were still frozen, which indicated the lake had thawed very recently and had seen a lot of icy water. These were possibly the worst conditions to fish, but we were almost certain of a couple of fish.
 I set-up two rigs, they were both the same line, hook, and elastic the only difference was the size of the float. One was a 0.6g HillBilly Chump for when the wind died down or if the fish were feeding negative and the second was a 0.8g for when conditions turned bad or if I needed to get the bait down quicker through the roach. Baits were micro's, dead red maggot and 4mm expanders. I cupped in a small nugget of micro's to start the session and soon after dropped a small pot dead red at 12m.

After 40 bite-less minutes, I decided to feed another tiny ball of micro's and let Connor have a go. It wasn't long before he was unhooking a miniscule Perch no bigger than 1/2oz.
 This was a bit of a wind up but at least we knew there were fish in the swim.
 Soon after he hooked into a better fish, it was a lovely Roach of about 10oz, which really helped with the mood and bought our confidence up. Unfortunately he couldn't manage any more, so I tried to catch my 1st fish. I got a few bites, which resulted in 2 lost skimmers and 1 landed. This was a fish of nearly 1lb, it was really good fun on a no.6 elastic!
 After this we continued to pick out a fish every 20 or so minutes, but did get the odd good/bad spell during the session. The fish were all different sizes, we had skimmers from 1oz-1lb and a half, some small perch, 2 massive Gudgeon of 3oz, some Hybrids to 6oz and some cracking roach to 1lb 3oz which was most certainly the fish of the day caught by Connor.
 In total we had 29 fish, most of them were caught on the lighter rig, which would probably go 10lb on the scales. We both really enjoyed the session and learned lots. We hope to return again when conditions are more settled.