Look Back at 2016

Good morning all, first things first I have a massive thank you to say to all of you for your continued support throughout this year whilst I got this blog up and running, I would also like to thank any of you who gave me feedback and helped shaped my writing style into something I hope you all enjoy! 2016 has been a great year for me, I have made some great friends, bettered myself in most aspects of my fishing, tried a whole lot of new things, which is something that will continue throughout next year and I joined what is in my opinion the best lure fishing group in the scene!

So moving on to a look back over the year, 2016 for me started the same way the previous year ended, plenty of Carp trips with my best mate Mark Tiller, in fact we were on the back this time last year seeing in the new year. We had plenty of fish between us even though it was absolutely freezing and the session seen both of us land a 15lb fish as our biggest for the trip, fitting to start the year on even terms where Carp were concerned!

I then turned my attentions to specimen fishing as I had decided as something new for the year I was going to set myself as many new personal bests as possible! This led to me spending a whole lot of time on the bank with my boy having some much needed father son fishing sessions, after all they children are the future of our sport! First target for us was chosen by my son and we set off in search of a Roach, not knowing anything about the species at the time we headed to a local lake where we know fish of 2lb to have been caught in the not so distant past.

This turned out to be somewhat of a success seeing as we caught a few, the biggest being this one at 15.5oz. (Yes the point 5 makes all the difference!) As you can see I was very proud of myself and also could not be happier at how good a picture my 6 year old managed to take!

Shortly after this session, in fact I there is a strong possibility it was the next day Kieran and I headed out to catch him his first Carp at his request which is obviously something I could not turn down.

The day went very well for us and I left the lake a very proud dad! other than me casting for him Kieran managed to do everything else himself, I was on hand to talk him through things and to net the fish but he set the hook and played the fish like a pro! This fish was 6lb or just over but he also managed one of 8lb on the nose. (This one though is the picture he chose for this post.)

By now Jenny, Kieran and I were looking forward to our newest team member to arrive.

For a little while for obvious reasons fishing was put on hold, I mean not completely of course, as soon as I got the opportunity I was gone and back on the bank!

Kieran's next choice of species was the Dace unfortunately thought the river season was now closed and for a short amount of time me and him didn't fish together as everything I did was on very short notice, this was up until I found a group on Twitter called the Lure Nuts and I became obsessed with something a whole lot different to anything I have ever tried before!

I was now 'hooked' on predator fishing and lure fishing in general, however due to the rivers being closed I headed to the local reservoir almost everyday for around 2 weeks, some times just walking around looking at the water, spotting fish (or trying to) or just simply talking to other anglers. It took nearly the entire fortnight to finally land a fish from here but when I did the excitement was something I just could not contain! I called Jen and asked her to bring Kieran down to me as I felt I had sussed it and was sure I could catch another for him to see once he was there.

Thankfully this turned out to be the case and not long after them arriving Jen was taking a picture of the 2 of us holding a awesome little jack.

For about 3 months after this I could not even imagine myself fishing anywhere else or for any other species, this also led to fishing for them in different ways. Another friend of mine Dan Locke and I headed down there together this time Carp rods in hand and a bag full of dead baits, of course I took my lure rod with me I mean why wouldn't you! The aim of this session for Dan was to catch his first Pike and for me was to see if there was anything bigger down in the depths that would take a dead bait instead of a lure.

So as you can see this turned out to be correct and I was soon hooked into the above crocodile! This fish gave me the best scrap I have ever had from a fish and really did earn my respect for the rest of its species. This was it, I was now officially a predator angler, in my mind lure fishing, with the odd bait session thrown in, was what I was doing for the rest of the year, possibly my life!

The obsession for lure fishing then moved to other species having seen a load of pictures of awesome looking Perch on all the Lure Nuts pages, I had no choice in my mind but turn my attention to them, this coincided well with the opening days of the river season and didn't take me long to get out fishing for them.

The first attempt seen me land this little fin perfect Perch, although I was super happy I could not help but hope this was not going to be the biggest one I would ever catch, A few more trips later and now a blogger for a great clothing company called 'Fin and Tide' I was amongst the fish again. By now though I have spent a lot more time fishing the reservoir and practicing different retrieves and things I was a lot more confident in what I was doing.

This led to me catching my best lure caught Perch to date not huge and I didn't weigh it but I don't think it was far off a lb, not a specimen but I'm very happy with how well I am progressing!

Another thing I started this year was some LRF or light rock fishing, this came about when I was out crabbing with the family one day and the water where we were was super shallow and you could see everything that was going on, not only did we see a lot of crabs roaming around our bacon but also a lot of small fish. LRF was something I came across online that day when I googled 'sea mini species and how to catch them', The next thing I did was type LRF into my twitter search bar and followed a lot of people, I then proceeded to stalk they're pictures until I found anything that remotely resembled what I thought I had seen in the water. Once I had done this I then asked questions on how the anglers had caught the fish and put together a plan to catch one myself.

About 3 weeks went by and I strategically asked the family if they would like to go for another crabbing session but also said I needed to stop in the local tackle shop on the way. I managed to get my light lure rod in the car without the other half seeing it. Once back to the same spot as before and having stopped in to pick up a packet of Isome worm I set up a drop shot rig about 6" off the bottom a 3g weight and a size 18 hook with a tiny 10mm piece of worm, this seen me hook one with in about 5 minutes.

This was the only fish I caught this trip as I then spent some time editing the pictures so the fish was as big and as clear as possible and sending it to a friend who has been a massive help with everything to do with this style of fishing over the last few months John Wheeler. He identified this fish as a common Blenny, I once again found myself becoming obsessed with another style of lure fishing.

After about 3 trips down to Poole Quay I found more and more little areas I wanted to fish and also seen a lot of other fish cruising around I set myself a target to catch 10 different species by the end of the year.

Unfortunately I only managed 9 but as I was only learning this year I still feel this is some what of a accomplishment, while we are on the subject of things I accomplished this year I am now a member of the Lure Nuts group and could not be happier!

So moving on, in between all this lure fishing I had been doing something I could not have foreseen this year! Mr Mark Tiller had given me a call and asked me if I fancied some match fishing, this as a lot of you may know from previous years is something I used to do a lot but have not done in quite some time! However this one trip out match fishing soon turned into a few practise sessions and has led to me joining a monthly league next year so I hope you enjoy reading match reviews as there will be one on here a month at least next year!

Unfortunately I have not had much to report fishing wise lately as I have been in a bit of a slump where catching fish is concerned so along with Mark have decided this last month or so to get out and try as many new things as possible, one of those for me was bait fishing in the sea using extremely foreign feeling rods like beach casters and surf rods. However I did really enjoy it and will be doing a whole lot more of this fishing next year as well so once again I hope you enjoy sea fishing as there will be a lot of it on here!

Once again guys thanks for reading and for showing your support this year I hope I can continue to write about things you find interesting over next year and I really do hope you all manage to learn a thing or two from these posts as well! Have a great new year and see you in 2017!

Having Some Fun!!

Hey everyone, as you all may know from my Twitter feed, Facebook page or the lack of content on my Instagram I have recently been stuck in a bit of a slump where my fishing is concerned. This I think is down to two main factors, I have been so tiered lately due to night shifts so when I do get out fishing my concentration levels are not very high, and also I feel looking back at the last few months I have put a lot of pointless pressure on myself to catch!

As I said in the post previous to this one I have decided to remedy this by simply trying new things and try to put a bit more fun back into what I am doing. Continuing on from that posts theme I popped out for a hour or so last weekend trying to catch a fish on Ragworm, this as you will know from the last post if you read it is a style of fishing I have never done before except for these last few trips.

This time though to make it a bit more fun I took my son along with me, not only that to make it a much more enjoyable time we added a third generation of Carter man to the trip and we invited Grandad (my Dad) along with us as well.

(sorry for poor picture quality.)

My Dad set himself up a lure rod and had a few chucks with that, I set Kieran (my boy) up with my LRF rod, knowing there is always a few small checkers about somewhere near the edge I set him up a drop shot rig and put the tail of a live worm on it for him. I myself went with a 3 hook flapper rig all baited with a single whole worm. Luckily it did not take long at all for us to be into the first fish and I could not have been happier hearing my son shout to me Daddy I got one! Amazingly with all the years of fishing experience around him with my Dad being a very good sea angler himself and my knowledge of where the Bass should be it was my boy who had the first one, I could not have been more proud of him in this moment as he managed to feel the bite, hook the fish and have it waving around in front of him before I got to there to help!

We decided to turn it into a bit of a fun match with the thinking that if Kieran managed one with in 10 minutes there must be a few fish around, Dad decided to cut the lure off and pinch a hook and lead out my box and tie himself up a quick 1 hook flapper rig, I will add though I had to bait it for him due to my Mum (camera women) yelling to him "your not touching those smelly things and driving the car!"

Not long after we all got baits back in the water and I started getting a few strange pulls on my rod tip which I didn't need to be a expert to know what that was!

Ok so not quite the start I was looking for but at least it was alive and came to the bait! However I did get a bite almost instantly after my next baits hitting the water, this time it was undoubtedly a fish as my rod tip was going mad.

Unfortunately though as far as the mini match was concerned it didn't count as I had foul hooked this one, much to the delight of Kieran and Dad, by this point though it was time for my parents to make a move back home but the match was still between 3 people as my better half and her brother had came down to join us so Dad left Nigel his rod to use.

With there being a change to the competitions roster we decided a change in spot was also in order, this proved to be very good for me as after maybe my 3rd cast (due once again to a few more crabs) I had the fish of the session and managed to tie things up with a 6 year old! Oh the sweet feeling!!

Ok so it wasn't going to set the tabloids alight and certainly wasn't breaking any records but I had done it! I managed a fish from the sea on worm on only my second time of asking. Sadly though due to pay and display parking on every square inch of land Poole borough council can squeeze in this also marked the end of our day.

Thanks once again for reading and showing your support! I really do hope you enjoyed reading and I look forward to writing the next post.

Trying New Things.

The last few months for me have very much been about trying to fit in fishing as and when I can, I am still having the same problems with finding time around work hours and sleeping to get and catch some fish. The other problem I have been faced with lately is I have fallen into a bit of a slump where catching fish is concerned!

I went out Pike fishing last weekend and for the first time in my short time fishing for the species I blanked whist fishing with dead baits on the local reservoir, I also managed to blank at the waterworks lure fishing which is usually where we stop to save a blank.

With this being the case I have decided to spend the rest of this year trying as many new styles of fishing as possible, I set myself a new goal for the end of the year and that is to catch myself 3 new species of fish, weather that be salt or fresh water.

That brings me nicely onto last nights fishing trip with a good friend of mine Mark Tiller, when I mentioned to Mark I wanted to try these new styles of fishing and one of them being sea fishing he was kind enough to offer to teach me a few things.

We decided to go out Flounder fishing down at Shore Road, Sandbanks which is about a 10 minute drive from both of our homes, Mark was working in the day time so I headed down to the local tackle shop to pick up our ragworm, also bought myself what I thought were the correct rigs for the session and a few gripper leads. I also picked up a rig winder box the other day and that is now home to what small amount of tackle for sea fishing I own.

High tide was just after 11.30pm so we decided to fish it on the way up and for a hour or so after. I was very surprised how quick and easy it was to get my 2 rods set up and cast out, I was using some old gear that has been lying around at my place for years, to be honest I have no idea where any of it came from but with it being December I was unable to head out and buy new gear.

I had a 11ft Bass rod with a 4000 size reel and a 15lb braid mainline and a 12ft beach caster with a 7500 reel loaded with 30lb mono mainline and a 50lb shock leader. I also had a very old tripod my old boss gave me while clearing out the company truck when he left nearly 2 years ago now.

For someone like myself who is normally a complete tart it was a hard night looking at this set up, however as I said I'm only trying these styles of fishing so there is no point in spending loads when there is a chance I'm not going to enjoy it, also with Christmas only a few weeks away my other half would have blown a gasket if I did spend anything more than what I did!

As I said before I had bought some ready tied rigs for this trip, this was for a few reasons one was that time was not really on my side where learning to tie my own was concerned the other was again for not spending to much money on bits and pieces when the rigs were only £1.50 each.

I went for a 3 hook rig, 2 up and 1 down, this for me gave me the best chance of catching something if the Flounder weren't on the feed. Which is what proved to be the case, I had what I thought was a few bites but didn't manage to land anything, Mark though managed 2 of the smallest Bass I think I have ever seen but none the less it saved a blank for him.

1 thing that is for sure I will be heading out on a lot more sessions like this so I hope you have enjoyed reading about some sea fishing as there will be a lot more coming! I will also be out doing a lot of river fishing over the coming weeks, searching for a specimen Dace on the float and feeder fishing with the hope if landing my first ever Barbel.

Thanks again for reading see you next time.

Fitting In Some Fishing.

Over the last few weeks I have found it difficult to get out to do much fishing, there is a few reasons for this the main one being tide times not fitting into a suitable timeslot so I can sleep during the day as I work nights at the moment.

I have managed a couple of short LRF sessions and a Pike fishing trip, unfortunately the tides near me have been massive lately and have put a lot of the fish off the feed if they are even there, I got down Poole Quay on Monday morning at just after 7am I managed a new species this trip, I caught my first Black Goby and had 3 of them in 3 chucks!

I was using a split shot rig comprising of a size 14 hook a 15mm piece of isome and a SSG shot about 4" from the hook. I fished this right up against the harbour wall on the bottom, let it sit for 30 seconds then lifted and dropped it and repeated this until the bite came.


I then switched to a 2g jig head with a size 8 hook and 1.5" of isome this lead to me hooking a awesome little Rock Goby just before having to pack up and head home.

I popped out for a very short dead baiting session for Pike on my local reservoir to get rid of a couple of joey and roach I had left over from a Pike pack, I fished normal running lead and a twin treble rig with size 6 hooks, unfortunately I blanked this time.


On Thursday I headed back down the Quay for another LRF session and the last one of the week for me, I decided this time to fish a bigger jig head and a much bigger section of isome worm, I used a 3g size 6 with a 2 to 2.5" piece of worm. This I fished on bottom and lifting up about 4" and letting drop again every 2 or 3 seconds, the first bite I got was a small knock to which I struck and started winding, I got the fish about 2 foot from the surface before it bolted downwards with some serious power my reel was practically smoking, the fish snagged me up solid and I lost it.


I then hooked a small 10 to 15cm Bass which shot to the top leaped out of the water and spat my hook back at me, after that I finally managed to land a fish and it was a good size Black Goby.

The weather turned for the worse after this and I headed to the closest tackle shop for some retail therapy to make myself feel better.


Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed reading.


Dan Carter.

A Days Pike Fishing.

Hi guys, its been a little while since my last post and to be honest this one is form a trip last weekend so its not completely fresh in my mind but I remember most of it. I received a message from a friend of mine telling me that he and another friend were heading out to fish the reservoir for it's Carp, this was not something I was particularly interested in at the time, however I have not seen these guys in quite some time and it was good to catch up with them! I decided to head down and fish for the Pike, hopefully you will remember Dan and Bironn from previous posts on here, once we had arrived the guys set up on what they called the causeway swims, I don't think they are actually called that but I would need to consult my map of the site to find out. I decided to help them get set up and started having a lead around for to find a few clear spots while they sorted rigs and stuff, once done I clipped up the rod for them and proceeded to set up my rod  and pick a lure. For the first few hours I sat with the guys socialising having a few odd casts in between from the swims either side of theirs, until I decided to go for my first walk around the water, I went off for just over 45 minutes and cast in nearly every swim I could until I finally snagged up and lost my trace, I decided to head back over to the guys to sit and chat while I set myself back up again,  a few hours past by before I knew it and I had not done any fishing so I headed off again, this time I walked the entirety of the reservoir without as much as a follow, to be honest I feel its still to warm for the pike and with the water being crazy deep in some places I was kind of on a fools hope thinking I might get one out!

          By this point it was getting dark so we packed up and decided to stop off and fish the waterworks just up the road from the res to try save the blank for the day, this turned out to be a great idea as both Bironn and myself managed to do so, unfortunately Dan didn't get any bites but he said himself he wasn't feeling it and as we all know if your minds not in it then your not enjoying it and probably going to fail!

               We started off casting around until I noticed a fish show mid river and decided to cast a Berkley yellow shad from the Pike pack upstream and straight retrieved it, I felt a small bump followed by a huge crash to which I struck into a great looking little Pike.

The guys were great and both of them sprung to help as soon as I gave the shout I was in, Bironn grabbed the net and scoped up the fish, meanwhile Dan had sorted all unhooking equipment, lighting and even grabbed a camera ready to snap a few shots!

       Now it was Bironn's turn to get a fish, to be honest I'm not sure of the tactics he used I just heard him shout "I got one hooked up" and rushed to return the favour with the net, once again Dan was on top of things where everything else was concerned.

After returning his fish we all decided to have 'just one last cast' as all anglers do, this however was on account of some big blue flashes behind us and with a thunderstorm forecast that day we weren't taking any chances holding carbon rods in the air!

           This turned out to be a great shout for me as I managed to hook into another really good looking Pike this time on the light green shad from the same Berkley pack I believe its called the mullet version, I was absolutely over the moon with how this part of the session had gone!

This one was a little bit bigger than the first and with only being there a maximum of 30 minutes it just goes to prove half an hour in the right spot is better than a whole day in the wrong one!

 

         Thanks for reading guys and until next time stay safe and good luck with any fishing you may be doing!

Early Morning LRF Session.

So this morning I have been on another post night shift LRF session to see in the weekend properly, its been a while since the last time I did this straight from work so I was very much looking forward to it. As I said in my last post I am now going to be taking all my lure fishing a lot more seriously in all aspects since joining the Lure Nuts group! I also asked on Twitter after my last post for some feedback from a couple of people who's opinion I value very highly on all matters regarding my fishing and anything to do with it, after a short chat with one of the guys I have taken on board what he said and have decided to do this post a bit differently and cut down on the word count.

The mornings action started very quickly as it was still pitch black skies when this little Rock Goby took my bait, I had literally been at the Quay for maybe ten minute, this was the first drop in after quickly setting up my rod, attaching a fresh leader and tying on my 2g jig head and hooking on a 1" segment of Isome worm. This was a new species for me and also the fish to christen my new Savage Gear Light Range Fishing rod.
        

After another twenty minutes or so and quite a few bites that I either missed or I got taken into weed where the hook was discharged I was finally into another fish, Once again to my absolute delight it was another species of fish I have not caught before! This time I had gotten my hands on a Scorpion Fish and what a awesome looking little guy he was to! After this fish though the water started moving a lot faster, or it seemed to be anyway so I changed over the jig head to a 3g one and put on a slightly bigger piece of Isome.

After returning the last fish and changing over jig head I took a walk about twenty or thirty yards down the Quay, on the first put it I had a take on the drop from this cool little Corkwing Wrasse, as you know by now if you read this blog much you will see I get a fair few of these and they have very much become a expected species for me and one I can bank on getting. After a further three more of the same though it was once again time to move position.

I was getting ready to move when I heard a beep from a motorbike horn and looked up to see my brother sat staring at me, he had decided to come down and fish with me for a hour or so which was good as I had now gained a photographer. I sat in the same place messing around with different retrieves while he set up, I managed to hook a further two Corkwings and another Rock Goby this one was bigger though so I asked him to take a picture for me, once he had done this we headed of down the Quay a bit more.

It seemed though no matter where we went small Corkwings and Goby were prevalent in every nook and cranny we dropped into, this was not a problem of coarse as they put up a good scrap on a 0.5-5g rod and were a whole lot of fun! After walking the entirety of the Quay now though and having had a few phone calls from the boss at home we decided to call it a day at that and made this pristine little Goby the last fish of the morning.

       

Thanks for reading guys I hope you enjoyed this format as it is something a lot different to what I normally do, please feel free to comment bellow and let me know what you think but until next time stay safe, be happy and enjoy your fishing!

Jig Fishing For Perch.

So today I headed out in search of some Perch, I went back to the water works at Longham, as you will have seen by now if you are someone who has read my blog before this is somewhere I quite like to spend my time when targeting Perch, there is a few reasons for this but the main ones being its ten minutes from my house and the average stamp of fish is around the lb mark, with 2lb fish coming out more and more now and with the odd 3lb beast being reported to. The aim of todays session was to put some new techniques into practise, recently as you may know I have joined a group called Lure Nuts, since being accepted into the family I have decided to focus most if not all of my fishing time into lure fishing, another thing you will have noticed on reading my past posts is that lure fishing is something I was very much getting into anyway but this has sparked a whole new level of interest for me! As I was saying I decided to go jig fishing but this time try to do it properly, what I mean by this is putting 'proper' jig fishing retrieves and things into practise, I have used shads and jig heads before but mainly casting and counting down before straight retrieving, I also used the sink and draw retrieve quite often to, as I said since joining the group I have wanted to do more and more lure fishing but also spend more time getting it right instead of all day chucking and winding as if I was using a spinner! I have spent a whole lot of time on youtube lately watching different lure fishing techniques and in particular researching jig fishing, after many a conversation with myself over the last week or so I decided that jig fishing was going to be my starting point and have got a lot of different trips planned over the next few weeks to learn different things, something I have not done on here before is to ask for you guys advice on stuff but please if you know of any good youtube videos, articles or anything else you feel might help me comment below so I can check it out!

Onto the fishing then, when I arrived today I was in luck as a few of the guys that work for Bournemouth water were here, one guy in particular was Ian who is the head bailiff on the reservoir up the road, I have fished the reservoir a fair bit now and have gotten to know Ian quite well, I explained to him todays plan as I signed in and he waited for me, once I had done he told me to follow him and he took me and gave me a guided tour, even though I have fished here numerous times the information he shared with me could prove invaluable on the correct days in the future, he told me things about deep areas and also about some hidden underwater structure which as we all know is the type of area you are going to find Perch. Once my tour was over and Ian went back to work I headed over to what I call the fish stairs and began to rig up, as I was going to be starting inline with the weir so I decided to go with a 10g jig head to stop it being washed all over the place when retrieving, I hooked on a small white Berkley shad from the Berkley Perch pack I picked up in my local Go Outdoors store a few weeks back, to start with I dropped the lure over the edge onto a patch of gravel I could see plain as day, I began to move the lure backwards and forwards with different lifts and things on the rod tip to see what it did in the water, about five minutes past by and once I had finished playing I was more than happy I could use the lure the way I wanted to and made my first cast. Another thing I have decided I want to work on is my discipline when it comes to searching the water as up until now I have very much been one of those people who looks and says ok I'm going to cast here now and end up fishing random spots never remembering where I cast to or when, that though as of today is going to change! I made a series of casts in a fan from right to left so as to cover all the water in front of me, on my third cast I missed a bite so decided to go back over the spot again, this was a idea that paid off for me as once I had retrieved back to roughly the same place I missed the bite I had another this time though I struck into the fish and it felt a good one, after a few minutes I was reaching for my net and unfortunately almost as soon as the fish hit the surface my hook pulled. Gutted but determined not to let it stop me from my days learning I cast to the next spot in the sequence I had laid out in my head, no bite on that one but on the next I was back into another fish, once again it didn't feel a bad size and after a minute or two I finally managed to get one in the net.

As I said in my previous post my Perch pb is 1lb 13oz and this fish wasn't near that so I didn't weigh it, I simply enjoyed looking at it for a little while took a few pictures of and with it and then returned it back to the water. I have now officially christened my new net and unhooking mat that my other half had bought me a few days ago and I could not be happier with the session so far, I guess I would have been a bit happier if I landed the first fish to but I did not expect to be getting any bites for a while as I tried to get used to the new style of fishing. I continued casting in my fan and on what was to be the last cast with this lure I had a bite from something much bigger, I knew at this moment I was either playing a British record Perch or I had hooked a Pike, I mean to be honest I just knew I had hooked into a Pike not a massive one but again I was happy to have hooked another fish, after a short while of playing the fish as I was using my ultra light set up I got it to a point where it was wallowing on the surface ready to be netted, you can imagine my utter heartbreak as my shad fell in slow motion from the fishes mouth and I desperately tried to reach it with the net, unfortunately I couldn't reach and to add to insult to injury the fish stayed in the same spot for what felt like a age before sinking back to the depths, I'm even sure it winked at me before doing so! With this cast being the last in the sequence I changed up the lure, I stuck with the same packet of shads just changed the colour, I went with a green coloured one I would describe it as a Perch pattern but I'm probably wrong. I began to cast in the same fan as before starting back from the beginning again, things started off slow with this lure as after the first four casts I didn't even have a knock, however on the fifth cast I hooked another fish but this time I could tell it was smaller, when it surfaced though I was happy to see it was the target species again.

Although this one was a lot smaller it was in near mint condition only for a split in the peck fin shown in the picture above, this fish was a little bit smaller than the average stamp that are normally caught from this water but to be honest for me its not all about the size, I know I mention my pb and things but that really is only part of why I fish, personally I believe that if you worry to much about personal bests and things then you end up loosing a lot of the appreciation for the smaller details and as this fish shows they don't have to be big to be beautiful!

         Thanks for reading once again guys I hope you enjoyed, I have a whole lot more fishing planned in the very near future so I'm hoping to bring you more regular posts again for a little while at least. Until next time stay safe everyone and good luck with whatever your out to achieve.

A Quick Perch Session.

Hi guys, I have finally found some time to get out fresh water fishing, I did however want to write this blog post on the same day I went so that the trip was fresh in mind but unfortunately that didn't happen, there was a few other miss haps on the day one big one being that after around twenty minutes of turning my camera glasses on, as I was planning on making my first youtube video in a while, the battery died. I also set out to try the Ned Rig this again went wrong as somehow I managed to forget to pack my jig head box. On a more positive note I did manage to get some more drop shotting practise as I managed to pull together enough stuff from what I had packed to do so, I mean to be fair to myself I had actually packed all my drop shot gear and as well as managing to remember everything else needed for the trip just not any jig heads so it wasn't to much of a disaster on the fishing gear front, the video front on the other hand.... not so great.

            Right so onto some fishing, this time out I was heading back to the water works at Longham, which I believe is the lower end of the Stour. As many of you know this is a little spot I really enjoy fishing as you really never know how the fishing is going to be or what is going to take your lure on any given day! This trips target though as the title suggests was the Perch, I have been seeing a whole load of reports of people having 3lb fish out quite regularly lately, of course some of these look like there was half a gallon of water in the weigh sling with them at the time of being weighed as is normally the case with some people, but some of the fish looked massive as well and as someone who personal best still sits 3oz shy of 2lb this looked like the perfect opportunity to better it! This brings me nicely onto the reason for choosing the Ned Rig, I have been watching a lot of videos and also reading a tonne of catch reports lately where big Perch have been caught using the method, this made the decision to try the rig a easy one. As I said before I was also planning on doing a youtube video which is something I have not done in a long time also so thought it would be good to do something totally new for me at the same time again. Obviously though after the days miss haps neither of these actually tool place so on to what did, once I had arrived at the venue I had a quick peak around before heading of to sign in and to my delight I was the only angler there, so once I got myself sorted and round to the river I started off on the drop shot with a small red worm imitation in a spot quite close to the first wall you come to, there is some really fast flowing water coming through there but this little section has a small branch in the water and the water behind it is pretty much slack. I have sat here on other days when I have just been for a walk and when the water is clear I have seen Perch in the spot and some big ones as well. After maybe thirty minutes of cycling through different depths and going from worms to shads and bug shaped lures nothing had worked so it was of to the next spot for me. I headed over to the area I have spoken about on this blog before, there is big outlet pipe that is constantly pumping huge quantities of water into the river, I absolutely love fishing this area as it is so full of life from millions of minnows and fry right up to Pike. I decided this time to go straight in with a shad lure a slightly larger one of around two and a half inches and a grey colouring with gold glittery flecks down the flanks, this proved to be the correct decision as with in two or three minutes I was into my first fish, it was a good starting size but not going to beat my pb so I took a few pictures and put it back without weighing it.

At this point I was excited with how the session had started as I have not had many fish from this water before and this was for me a pretty good size fish to have started on, because of the quick success I decided to stay with the same lure, I mean why wouldn't you, this though changed after another ten minutes or so with out even a knock, at this point I had wondered weather this was a lone fish and not the shoal I was looking for but at the same time o wondered if I had maybe spooked any other fish that were there? I decided this time not to move but just to change up lures, I stuck to exactly the same shape and size just went for a bright yellow and orange coloured one, this to my amazement got me a bite almost the second the weight hit the bottom, although I was happy to have gotten another bite this fish was tiny and I was over excited about the fact I may have found the lure that was going to get me the numbers I knew I was going to need to wade through to just maybe, hopefully snare the big one that I put it back with out taking a picture and got the lure straight back into the water, after maybe five minutes of working the lure back and forth around the area that was being churned up by the water from the pipe I was in to another fish, this one however go me excited as it felt a much better fish, once again though it was not the personal best I was after but I was very happy all the same.

As you can see in this picture I had a little play around with the arrangement of stuff, this is something I have started to do more often in my pictures now and I have been having a lot of fun trying to come up with new ways of showing size of fish compared to different things as well as show what gear I was using, in a way I wish I had not unhooked the fish until after the picture to show the lure I used, but at the same time I very glad I didn't because as you may be able to see here the fish jumped around a bit and wrapped itself in the line, one of the main things I'm glad about is that the fish did not come to any unnecessary harm for the sake of a photo! Fish safety is always paramount for me and I hope it is for you guys too, another thing you might be able to see in the picture is when I am lure fishing I always use a net with rubberised mesh as this reduces the chance of the hook or hooks depending on what your using being tangled and again maybe harming the fish.

          Ok so back to the fishing, I gave this lure another try to no avail, once again I played about with style of lures and the depths I was working them at and again no bites, it was now also getting a bit later on in the day and I had to go get ready for my night shift so I decided to start to pack my gear up and make my way back round to sign myself out, I was walking past the spot I tried first when something in the back of my mind said to me I hadn't tried the yellow shad in the spot so maybe I should give it a go, this turned out to be a great idea as no more than a minute of working the lure by the wall next to some reeds produced a bite, this fish was not only going to be my last fish of the day but it was also the biggest of the trip to. Once again the fish was not going to be beating my pb so I grabbed a few pictures and released it before heading off to sign out and go home.

         Thank you all once again for reading the blog and once again I hope you enjoyed it! I'm going to leave you with some more great news and something I have been hoping would happen for quite sometime now, I am very happy to say I am now officially a member of the Lure Nuts Family, these are a great group of guys that are all mad about lure fishing, they are very happy to help anyone with any questions and can be found on various social media sites the Twitter is @LureNuts and the Instagram is the same, don't forget to also search them on Facebook! Once again thank for reading hopefully see you next time.

Time For A Update!

Hello everyone just writing a quick post today to let you guys know what has been going on lately in my fishing and also fill you in on some great news I received lately. So I am going to contain my excitement about my news and work in order of what happened when. Firstly then I have some news of a very short fishing trip I went on with my brother, Dad and Ryan a friend from work, this trip was very much like the previous few, we headed off lure fishing down the Quay, not much of a surprise there then as that seems to be all I have time for lately, which also though to be fair is not a problem seeing as for me as it is for most of you I'm sure fishing is fishing, it doesn't matter where or when I just enjoy being out fishing and once again at the moment lure fishing in particular. Ok so on to the fishing, we had set out to get a few more Bass on lures after the success of the previous trip, nothing really changed from what we were doing before I went straight in with the Savage Gear Sardine but this time in the blue colour, after a few casts of just straight retrieving I decided to try the sort of sink and draw that worked last time and on the second cast I was in, once again only a small fish but it was the target species so I was off to a good start. I made a few more casts with the same lure but to no avail so decided a change was the right move, this time I opted for the Savage Gear Sand Eel six inch (or so) and began casting and straight retrieving again, I managed another two fish on this method before we decided on moving spots, we only had a hour left of the trip as three of us were all working on the same night shift and it was getting later in the day. We set off to the other end of the Quay in search of a last fish or two, as we were in a new spot I decided to change back to the Sardine but back to the brown colour that worked so well last time, two cast in and I hooked something that felt completely different in its fight but only for a few moments as it gave up very quickly, enough so that I simply reeled it in on its side and it looked like a big Flounder in the water, it was however my biggest Ballon Wrasse to date and I could not have been happier! We decided at this point to pack up and head off to try get some sleep ready for the shift ahead. 

Ok so moving on, finally I am at the part where I can now fill you in on my awesome news! This is something I have personally been working towards for quite some time now and for me it feels like a dream come true, I could not be happier to tell you guys the news that I am now a blogger for Fin and Tide, in my eyes these guys make the best clothing in the lure fishing world and I cannot stress enough to you the quality of the items! I had some new stuff come from them the other day and every aspect was great, the quality of the products, the style and design of the clothes and not to mention how fast they get stuff delivered is great to. For any of you that have read my blog in the past you will see that I have been advertising them and the products for quite some time so this is not just something I am saying because of my new role. I am that excited about this that I could probably sit and waffle on about it for hours but I did say this was a quick post and I'm trying to stick to that!

Ok so lastly on to todays session and one I have been looking forward to for a very long time even more so after I finally decided on my first LRF rod and reel thanks to John Wheeler and Hastings Angling, I decided on a HTO Rockfish UL rod and a Shimano Exage reel and on testing them out together for the first time today I could not be happier with the set up. The plan for today was simple, head straight to the Quay from work, so we would arrive there around 6.45am high tide was just after 8.30am, taking that into consideration I decided that jigging a small Savage Gear Eel to imitate the white baits that are normally being forced up off the bottom by the small Bass at this time in the morning, this though turned out to not be a very good decision as the water was racing through and was very hard to fish, however before calling the day a complete loss as I did not have long before the rain was due to come in I had one more thing to try, I upped sticks and headed back to the same place I had gotten the Ballon from a few days previous. The idea was to head there and try drop shotting for some of the other species that reside in the harbour, there is a whole load of obstructions and things in the water here that help to break up and slow the tide, by this point I felt like this was very much my final chance to get some action and christen the new rod so hooked on a small piece of Marukyu Isome worm in the white colour and large size hoping that the forever faithful bait would do the job and produce a quick bite for me again. Once in the water true to form it didn't take to long before I started to feel a few little knocks on the end of my rod, to start with they were only little taps and it didn't feel to me like the fish was on yet until I got this one big pull down and I lifted into a species of fish I have not caught before which was another bonus! I had landed myself a Tompot Blenny which although a new species for me I couldn't help but think it was fitting that the first fish I ever caught in the sea was a common Blenny on a practise session that I now christen my first proper set up with a Blenny also!

Once again guys thank you very much for taking your time out to read this post I hope you enjoyed it, I have a few new things in the pipe line so I'm looking forward to sharing them with you soon!

Early Morning Bass Fishing.

Good morning and welcome back, I realise it has ben quite some time since my last post this is due to a few reasons, the main reason though is I have recently started working night shifts again and as anyone who works nights will know it takes a good few weeks to adjust to sleeping in the day time. As most of you know I have two children one aged six and one aged just six months, this has also attributed to the struggle to sleep in the day. With that being said I have been thinking and come up with the idea of heading out on a fishing trip straight from work on Friday morning, again there is a few reasons for this, not only have I then finished work for the week but I also try to stay awake as long as possible on a Friday with the plan of reverting back to normality for the rest of the weekend. I nearly started this post with a apology for not posting in a while again but realise I have done that quite often and continuously say I promise to write more, I don't set out to make these empty promises but sometimes I just don't have the time to write them so this time I thought I would just start off by explaining instead.
    
         Anyway lets get onto some fishing shall we, right so since the last post I have been out a couple of times unfortunately though I didn't get many pictures of fish, one trip I was out down the Quay teaching my brother how to fish and the other my Dad came down with my brother and I, this was a very rare thing as other than the odd lunch break messing around catching Minnows and tiny Dace about ten years ago, he hasn't fished since I was a small boy, when he used to fish Flounder comps and quite successfully to I might add. Needless to say even though they were short trips they were both special as time with the family is rare these days. One picture I did get from the first trip whilst teaching my brother was a extremely happy one for me, as you all would know by now I am still very new to sea fishing and have been really enjoying the LRF style of this, most of you will probably laugh at me now but this was my first ever Pollack and I was ecstatic!

I guess you are reading this next paragraph quite some time later now you have dried your eyes, for me though it is always about the fish not the size, don't get me wrong I do go out specimen fishing and will be out targeting a much bigger one at some point soon, I did also have what I classed as a result on the second trip with my Dad and brother, as you will have seen in my past LRF practise trips I have only ever managed one type of Wrasse that being the Corkwing, on this trip I managed three different Wrasse species one being Corkwing again but this time I also managed a Goldsinny and a Ballon. Unfortunately the only picture I got of a Goldsinny was of the fish my brother caught on a worm as when I had mine I was not paying enough attention to realise it was different to Corkwing other than having some super funky teeth. Again the picture of the Ballon I have is not the best as I caught it a few minutes after my Dad arrived and he and my brother went off to the tackle shop down the road to get him a new rod.

So other than yesterdays trip that's you guys up to date with the only fishing I have managed in the last few weeks it makes sense to get straight on with the Bass hunt my brother and I went on. Ok so the plan was simple to head down and catch a few Bass and hope for a good one or two as well, we knew from past trips that the Quay is absolutely bursting with them but most are of a small size with the odd one or two bigger ones and in the past they have been caught up to 14lb on the other side of the harbour so fingers were crossed for a few fish as I said. As you may know by now I'm not really one for live bait fishing and lately have much preferred to lure fish, this trip was no different, as soon as we had arrived at the Quay I tied on a Savage Gear 3D Sardine in the Brown/Green colour, I cast about fifteen yards along the Quay wall and began to retrieve, this time I decided to almost sink and draw the lure giving it a three foot twitch up and letting it sink but making sure to wind down as I lowered the rod to keep in contact with the lure at all times, it was on only around the forth twitch up on the first cast of the morning and I felt a small knock followed by a big banging sensation to which I struck into Bass number one of the day. I was using my seven foot Korum Snapper 10-30g rod along with a Snapper KDS2000 reel loaded with 13lb Daiwa 8 braid with a 6lb Snapper fluorocarbon leader tied to a snap link swivel to which I clipped the 3D Sardine lure, as you can imagine using a light rod like this I had a lot of fun playing the fish and it put a great bend in the tip to!

As you can imagine I was more than happy with how the trip had started and could not wait to get back in the water, after around five or six more casts each and two more fish between us we decided to pop into the small tackle shop which is located down an alley way not far from the building you can see over my shoulder in the above picture. As we went in we heard the usual "hello, I'll be there in a sec" come from the small room behind the counter, The guy in the shop never forgets a face and he said the same as usual when he see's me "oh hey its the lure guy" to which I always chuckle a bit. I told him what we were doing today and that we were after some Bass on lures, he then came round and showed us his range of Tsunami Sand Eel lures and some Tsunami Shads with weedless hooks, I'm pretty sure between us we bought every colour he had in stock in both styles and off we went to the next section that was clear of boats docked. To start with I clipped on a white coloured sand eel and made a few casts this time I started off just straight retrieving the lure but varying the wind speed each time just to see if I could get a easy bite with them, it didn't take long as on my forth cast if I remember right I was into another fish, this one was a bit smaller but I always take a picture of any fish I catch first on a new lure.

After returning this fish though I had to make another change but not in tackle this time I found myself routing around in my bag trying to find some gloves, however for some strange reason I only had a single glove with me, this was because after handling the last few fish I found my hands being cut to shreds on all the different spikes all over the Bass. To save on looking like a total mad man I decided only to put the glove on to unhook the fish and if I got another good one then I would use them for pictures also. We spent the next hour or so casting around and we ended up having around twenty fish between us with my brother landing the biggest one with that being about 45cm which also went back in the water unharmed other than where it was hooked, unfortunately though by now the tide was well and truly on its way out and the fish were on they way out with it so it was time to head off home. I can safely say though that both Matt and myself will be both back down on the hunt for a big Bass again very soon, for myself personally I will be restarting my youtube channel again soon so will be out at some point in the very near future making my first video in a long while, I'm not 100% sure what I am going to be doing or fishing for, I do know for sure though there will be a lot of different content to watch on there this time! One video I will be doing soon is one where I will take everyone through my set up and various different things I use when I'm out and about lure fishing. I hope you have enjoyed reading this post and I will try to do a few more as I'm starting to get more and more used to working at night and sleeping in the day so my time management should get better again soon.

Don't forget to use the link tabs at the top of the page to get to my social media pages and subscribe to my youtube also check out StickySharp Tackle for all your fresh water Carp and Specimen fishing needs, Be sure also to head to Fin and Tide to check out the awesome clothing they do for the modern lure fisherman! Thanks for reading and see you next time.

Meat match practise.

So as the title suggests I went out this weekend on another practise match session, once again I was with my long time match fishing partner Mark Tiller. For Mark last weeks session couldn't have gone much worse, but to be fair to him it was both of our first times on the venue, neither of us knew what to expect and when the water is full of bionic 1lb fish that pull like doubles and our rigs weren't up to the job we were both in trouble from the off! On a plus note though at least it was a practise and not a match, what are practise sessions for if not to make mistakes and learn from them. One thing that is for sure is that once home from last trip we both set about sorting rigs and things for this weekend, you guys that follow me on twitter might have seen some pictures of what to me seemed ridiculous rigs using 0.22 Guru N-Gauge mainline and 0.8g Dino Merus floats for three foot of water!

What I had planned to achieve by going in what anyone who hasn't fished this water before would call over gunned, was purely to make sure this was strong enough 0.22 mainline and 0.19 hook lengths and it was. Mark and I have decided to keep up the practise until the end of the year and then when January comes around join the R&DAA club league, the main reason for doing all this practise is because the club generally runs matches on six lakes and rotates between them over the year, we as a pair being relatively new to the club having only joined at the end of last year have only fished one of the six, even that was before joining the club! Mark and I plan to fish all of these lakes in six week rotations ourselves until the end of the year this should give us plenty of time to not only learn a bit about these lakes but also to get back in the swing of things after spending quite a while out of match fishing. After deciding this on Saturday we have planned to make Whitherington Farm our next port of call for the practise and what a awesome looking venue it is as well, The complex consists of three lakes I believe but the one for us is a enormous snake lake, I am getting very excited about what these sessions will have me writing about when I'm home as after doing some research they all fish very different to each other! Whitemoor is a Place that any of you who have read my old Carp fishing blog will know I have fished before however this time not the main lake but the canal lake will be my office, this one I have fished before and you guys may have seen it before from one episode of the popular challenge Andy May videos by MAP! `The Wash Pit is another lake you will have seen or read about me fishing before this one though is something I have only specimen fished and am very much looking forward to seeing how it match fishes, Hightown again somewhere I have not fished before I have had the pleasure of a nice walk around the venue but this one however is known more for it big Carp and is normally packed with Carp anglers because of this, again Hightown is a lake I am excited about fishing as for what I have read it is pretty much a Roach match, this excites me for two reasons, one because it is something I have never done before and two because I cant wait to write about it! Franks Lake this lake is somewhere I have not been able to find much information on other than it fishes very hard most of the year so again looking forward to giving it a go. Last but not least Cranbourne which is where I have spent my last two sessions and where I'm about to talk about now.

Lets get into it then, this week for me was all about bettering last weeks weight, one thing I had trouble with last week was rotating my lines as most of the time I found my rigs were not strong enough. This week that was not even in my mind as I knew I had done the best I could in my preparation time at home to rid myself of that problem, one other thing I had planned was to go straight in with a feeder this time as it took a long time to feed of the tiny Roach on the previous trip, my plan was to fish two plus two line, I could not go much further out than that as the wind was dreadful, also I was going to drop in on a line at just a top kit out as last time I caught a lot of fish right under my feet. So with the plan laid out it was time to get set up this time we set up on a bank pretty much opposite where we fished before mainly because it was a bit more out the wind than other swims but also because going on the same peg again would be pointless when it comes to the practise side of things. After getting all the gear round to the pegs we drew straws and I won so chose to fish the peg you can see above, so off I went to get my box and other gear set up, after doing so and snapping a quick picture and posting compulsory 'my office for the day' tweet I started to get my bait sorted this time with  a few differences. As you can probably tell from the title of this post I planned on using meat this week but not just any meat. First things first I grabbed a bag of Bait-Tech sticky method pellets in 2mm and soaked them in a bait tub, I then grabbed some 4mm Carp and Coarse pellets and poured out two pints of those, I then opened up my last tin of Bait-Tech scopex corn and grabbed out a hand full of 6mm Carp and Course pellets to, after doing this the two minutes it takes for the sticky method pellets to be perfect was up so I drained them off and shook them into a different tub ready for them to go round my feeder. With that done all I had to do now was to grab out some tins of meat and put them through the cutter and open some super seed hemp, the meat I chose today was to feed some Bait-Tech boosted mighty meat and then use the N-Tice poloni on the hook, with knowing there was a lot of small fish around I decided to use a 8mm blade in my cutter today to try bring in bigger fish. I then poured two tins of super seed hemp into bait tubs and went off to get some groundbait from my bag which to my horror I discovered I had left it on the side at home!! After realising my school boy error I had nothing left to do but plumb up my two lines for the day and tie on my Guru Hybrid feeder. My plan was to feed hemp and meat together on my two plus two line and leaving it while I went in with the feeder so once Mark had called the all in I went in with two pots full of hemp and one with hemp and a dozen cubes of meat, I them banded a 6mm Carp and course pellet put in on the hybrid feeder and filled in around it with the micro sticky method pellets and made my first cast, I had clipped up at about sixteen meters as I was only looking to pick off some early fish before going in on the pole. After about four cast and having only handed a single fish I had spotted a lot of vortex patterns and fizzing on my pole line so decided to go on that, with in seconds of putting in I was into a fish once again though it was a Roach but this time going by last weeks standards this one was huge, after five or six more put in I had four more Roach of the same stamp all fish pushing a lb.

After these fish though the bites dried up so I decided to feed again this time a half pot of hemp and twenty or so cubes of meat, I also fed half a pot of hard pellets on my top kit line getting ready to start rotating between them. I decided to go in on this line and see if anything had followed the pellets down so got my 'margin' rig out and banded a 6mm pellet, because I was fishing a lot closer to the bank and in slightly shallower water I used a Dino Trux float both mainline and hook length were same breaking strain as before and a 18 Drennen match hook. First put in I had a small Roach on the drop and the same again on the second that was enough information for me and decided to have a quick look on the two plus two again, the plan was if I didn't get a carp this put in to go back out on the feeder and wait for them to arrive. This was not the case though as I don't believe my hook bait could have settled on the bottom before my elastic got ripped out the end of my top kit and was heading towards Mark at a serious speed, this though after what I seen before could have just as easily been a 1lb fish as it could be a big one, it wasn't until I started trying to pull it back I started to realise it was a bit bigger than the average stamp. After a few minutes of getting tension on the elastic through my puller bung and having to let go again I caught the first glimpse of a massive tail trying hard to get down low in front of me, at this point my heart was in my mouth as this is the kind of fish you dream about getting in the first half an hour of your match, all focus was now on landing it, another few minutes had past before I managed to pull it head up over my net a lovely orangey Carp showing some characteristics of a ghosty that was a comfortable 8lb. whilst all this was going on and one thing a lot of people over look was that I was constantly throwing in a few cubes of meat to try settle some fish down again for the next put in. I decided to try again on the top kit line first as the fish had torn through the longer line a few times so thought I would have more chance on the short one. I went in on this line three times and had three Carp all around 12oz before feeding the line again and heading out on the longer one, the next two fish from this line were of a better stamp one being 5lb and another around 3lb, once again though the line slowed down so time to feed and try the other, this time though I fed the same as the first feed only a dozen or so pieces of meat. Dropping in on the top kit line again only produced some small Roach and a single Carp again under a lb, I decided to feed both lines and go in with the feeder again. Once again though for me this was not overly productive as I think I had landed four fish in around twenty minutes so now having rested both lines I went back in two plus two this time feeding a kinder pot of hemp and three cubes of meat and dropping my N-Tice hook bait in the middle. I had a good spell for a round  hour catching a small Carp a chuck on both lines with the odd one being just over a lb, one thing I could not help but notice though was that every single one was simply stunning!

Half way through the session once again Mark and I got off our boxes had a bite to eat and a chat about how things were going, from what Mark had told me he had gotten off to the same start as last time and was not having many bites, the match man in me however wouldn't allow me to take his word for it so I told him I had only caught about 10lb myself. With lunch out the way and the correct amount of banter shared it was time to get back on the box and proceed to empty the lake of its stock, or that was the plan anyway. The only problem with that was that If Mark was telling me the truth before our fortunes had switched during the break as he was getting a 2 to 3lb fish a chuck out on his feeder line and I was struggling to pick off fish on anything I was doing. I decided to basically start again how I did at the beginning a few pots of hemp and one with some meat on my longer line and half a pot of pellet on my top kit line and then went back out on the feeder after about ten minute of no bites on the feeder I went in two plus two and started picking up fish of around 12oz again and continued doing so on both lines once again for about a hour, this helped settle my nerves slightly but I could hear from the way Marks fish were fighting he was into much bigger fish than I was and I was having to catch five fish to his one to stay in front. I fed both lines again and though to myself to give the feeder one last go before fully ruling it out, I am very glad I did so as four casts seen me land three fish of around 4lb another two casts though and no more fish it was time to go back on the pole until the end. Now with only a hour to go and with Mark bagging up I was certain he had beaten me by a huge weight so was just content with catching the small fish and trying to beat my weight from the previous trip. So the five hours were up and happy that I had somewhere close to last sessions weight I got myself ready to help Mark weigh his nets in, in all the time I had been fishing with him I have never seen him looking so happy with a session and could not help but feel very happy for him as I read of the scales and totalled up his weight. 83lb 8oz was his total and at that point I knew he had completely dominated me and thought it was going to be 30lb difference at least. I could not be more wrong though as he totalled up mine to being only 3lb 8oz less than his and it just goes to show that no matter how big the fish if you keep them landing in the keepnets you wont be far away at the end! Needless to say I was over the moon with my weight I was not happy to lost to Mr Tiller but suffice to say it wont being happening again! 

My 80lb net after the five hours

Marks winning net of 83lb 8oz

Once again guys thanks very much for reading and support on this blog, I realise I said in the last post I was going to be putting one up outline where the blog is going next and I will do so tomorrow!