Whitemoor vs Orchards Silver league

Hello everyone and welcome back, this is actually the second post in as many weeks for the first time in a long time, I hope it shows that I am serious about making this weekly again! What I am planning on doing is writing the posts every Saturday now, and fish on Sundays or in the week, the idea being that I will write a week behind my fishing that way I can never run out of content.

This week I'm writing about the 1st round of the silvers league I joined, there are 18 anglers in this league half of which call Whitemoor Lakes home and the other half Orchard Lakes, its a 6 round league with 3 matches at each venue, each match is split into 3 sections of 6 and points is what you are fishing for with 1 point for 1st, 2 points for 2nd and so on, you drop your worst match and then lowest points at the end takes the prize.

This is a steep learning curve for me and my results so far have shown this, I've had a 5th, I couldn't make the second round due to family commitments (luckily I can just drop this one) and last round I lost at the draw bag unfortunately and finished last in section and overall. To be honest though having not fished silvers matches before this I am happy to come away from each round gaining some knowledge no matter how little it may be.

So as I said I'm writing today about the 1st round, this was held at my home Whitemoor on the main lake, (not one I fish very often as most matches are held on the Top or Canal Lakes) I drew peg 11 typically one of the best Carp pegs on the lake but I was happy none the less.

I decided on having a short line where I was going to throw and fish maggots shallow at the beginning just to put some fish in the net, for this I used a Dino F1 4x10 float to 0.09 mainline, I also set up a rig for just past this (about another pole section) in about 4' of water and on this line I used a Dino Gino 0.2g, lastly I set up a slightly heavier 0.4g Gino at 13m in 6', I had 2 lines one at 10 O'clock and one a 2 both lined up with separate bush features on the far island.

All in shouted, I started off by potting 3 balls of groundbait one of which was full of casters and a small amount of chopped worm, I put the worm in as I know the lake holds some very big Perch, some have come out over 3lb in the past so these can't be ignored.

My groundbait mix for this match was a full bag of Special G Gold and a full bag of Pro Natural Bream, I mixed both bags together thoroughly whilst dry, I filled a bait tub with water but before adding it to the groundbait mix I added in some Liquid Brazem. I was very bream focused as I felt that getting one or two bigger skimmers would see me do well in section and after all that's what we are all fishing for.

I went in on the short shallow line for a hour to put some fish in the net while the groundbait did its job and hopefully a few fish settled on it. I hooked a single maggot, threw in 3 or 4 maggots and slapped the rig into them as they fell through the water, I let the float settle fully before throwing in more and slapping the rig again. It didn't take to long to start catching a few small Roach only problem being it was going to take a whole lot of them to build any kind of weight.

I decided after around a hour to try something different and went in on the bottom rig just past where I was fishing I put in a small ball of groundbait laced with caster and chopped worm and went straight over the top with a whole worm on the hook. While I was fishing this line I started throwing casters on the shallow one instead to see if I could bring in some better stamp fish for when I go back in on it later. After about 30 minutes I got my first proper bite on the worm and turns out I was right about the Perch and I hooked into one of the monstrous ones.

Ok so maybe not the one I was after but none the less I learned not to bother with that line for a while, I decided to have a look on the shallow line again and see if the casters made any difference at all. First few put ins I had a few small fish but then the stamp did get better gradually, maybe I wasn't feeding enough while focusing on fishing the bottom but after my focus changed so did the fishing.

Now I was getting a few fish double the size of the original ones mixed in with the odd smaller one still and was very happy with how this line was going, this fishing continued for around an hour until everything all of a sudden went completely dead. At that point I felt like maybe the Carp had arrived and thought it was time to leave this line alone and look elsewhere for a little while.

I decided to have a look on the 13m line at 2 O'clock this was the one I didn't feed anything at the start, I put a kinder pot on my top kit with half a dozen 4mm Carp and Course pellets in and an 4mm X-pand pellet on the hook, to start with and as expected I was getting a lot of funny little lifts and dips on the float but nothing turning into a bite I gave it 4, 5 minute put ins and after nothing I thought I would have a try at 10 O'clock, I went in on this line with half a worm and a red maggot on the hook, I don't think it had fully settled before the float buried and a skimmer was leaping out the water. 

As you can imagine at this point I was thinking I was in for a flurry of fish and the single point was mine for the day, turns out though I didn't get another bite on any line other than a Carp on the shallow one, but at least I was right about it going funny due to them turning up.

In the end I put 4lb and a few oz on the scales which seen me 5th in section, I did leave feeling pleased with my performance though as most of the things I tried had worked, I just felt I needed to work on timing and managing swims better in the future for maximum results, my section was very close though there was a 3lb weight, myself, 2 5lb weight, a 6lb and it was won with 7lb so very tight which is one good thing about Whitemoor its always very fairly pegged and the lake fishing the same all over. 

Going into the 4th round I feel I'm well out of the running, for me though I'm looking at it as an opportunity to spend more time learning for any further silver fishing in the future so no need to be down on it. Onwards and upwards!

Thanks very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed enough to come back next week.

2017 Recap

Hello Guys, I just want to start out by saying a massive sorry for not being active on here for a long time, the main reason for this is that I have moved home and as many of you know things like that don't happen over night. I have also been moving backwards and forwards with work, moving from day shifts, to twilight, then to nights and finally back to days, so as you can imagine fitting in everything with the move around work has been difficult and made it next to impossible to get out fishing!

I wanted to start out this year the way I mean to continue it though and get a post done, as the title says this is going to be a recap on my years fishing as well as at the end I'm going to set myself a few goals for next year.

To start out with I thought I'd go with something I write about quite a lot on here and go through my LRF fishing. I started out strong this year as far as species was concerned but unfortunately didn't reach my goal of 20 for the year though.

So in the end I managed 12 not bad and 4 better that 2016 so I'm happy enough with how I got on. The Species are as follows:

                                           Shanny (common Blenny)

                                           Common Goby

                                           Black Goby

                                           Sand Goby

                                           Corkwing Wrasse

                                           Scorpion Fish

                                           Sand Smelt

                                           Ballan Wrasse

                                           Tompot Blenny

                                           Bass

                                           Goldsinny Wrasse

                                           Rock Goby.

I had a whole lot of fun this year searching these little guys out down the Quay, next year though there is going to be changes to my sea fishing and how I'm going to be working it but I will explain more at the end.

Moving on then and onto another goal I set myself at the end of last year, this goal was for Carp fishing and was to catch 5 fish of 20lb and over, once again it was another one I started out strong after a early spring trip to Todber Manor with Mark my ever trusty fishing partner.

We went there for a 48 hour session we had booked about 3 weeks prior, so we had a lot a good preparation time before the trip and this was something I made sure I used to the fullest, rig tying, preparing baits with glugs, prepping spod mixes and doing a whole load of research on the lake itself. Day 1 seen me bank 2 fish of 20lb so an excellent start to my years goal, I managed another 4 fish that trip but the next best being 18lb and a few oz. 

One notable thing that did happen on the Todber trip was that Mark managed to join me as a proud member of the 20 club, I could not have been more happy for him and that also means this year we are both on level pegging trying to join the 30 club!

This goal though took a very unexpected turn for the worse when we went back to our campaign water from a few years ago to find out it had been Ottered, so unfortunately for a while we have had to say goodbye to the White Lake and 2018 will see us looking for a new water to call home for the year! 

  

We do have 1 or 2 in mind but its going to take a bit of research into the waters before a decision is made. One thing Mark and myself have been doing a lot again is match fishing, This is something I have really enjoyed in 2017 and I am super excited to see what this year brings.

Together we fished countless open matches at Whitemoor Lakes, Joined and fished the Orchards Lakes Club League and we are 3 matches into a 6 match silvers series held over the 2 venues. I have spent a lot of time looking into upgrading kit and things for next year I have made the move from the Maver 13m pole i was using to buying a 16m Daiwa Connoisseur G50, this was a bit of an investment and one that I had to think a lot about, (as well a begging the Mrs) No in all honesty my other half has always been nothing but supportive of me in everything I do and she is going to play a big part this year!

Whilst match fishing I accomplished one of the goals set for myself, during one of the league matches at Orchards I landed a nice 2lb Barbel, this was a species I have not caught before but visually are one of my favorites and 2017 was the year I wanted to catch and admire one.

I thought I could not have been happier with the days fishing and even turned to the guy on the next peg over and told him 'If I finished dead last I would still be happy with the day' turns out though I finished 2nd in section and picked up a few quid as well so I did get better!

After this though I started to spend a lot of time looking into how to target Barbel and Chub on the river, my specimen fishing really got put aside due to everything else that was going on. By this time I was getting ready to move home and work was up and down where shift patterns were concerned so didnt have much time for fishing, I started heading to Throop and Longham which are both close to home and quite well known stretches of the Dorset Stour.

I decided to target Chub to start with so looked into baits and tactics, I decided to make my own cheese paste and fish that, I got out for 3 sessions until now as the weather has been awful, one thing that is changing though is my bait and tackle approach thanks to an announcement I will make I little further into this post.

I targeted Dace a little earlier in the year but only managed a couple and nothing of a great size, in fact the only one I caught that I was proud of I had forgotten my scales so will be out after these again at some point early next river season!

Lastly before I move on to a couple of announcements I am planning on doing a whole lot more Lure fishing again going into the Spring and Summer, time to make the other guys in the Lure Nuts family proud! My personal bests for Pike and Perch stand at 15lb and 1lb 13oz respectively and this IS something I will be bettering this year!

Ok so now onto the announcements firstly I'm very proud to say that 2017 seen me become a blogger and angler as part of Dino floats, this one I believe I may have mentioned to a few people before but wanted to make it official in a post!

The latest one however and one I have not mentioned to anyone as of yet is I am now a member of Team Pallatrax, this is a company with great forward thinking, some great innovative products as well as being extremely environmentally aware and their products reflect this!

 You can find links to both of the companies web pages on the right had side of this blog, simply click the images.

So moving onto goals for 2018:

SEA FISHING:

This is something I am changing as I want to expand my search for species, I will now be classing all sea fishing as just that, LRF, Boat trips (not done one before but hoping to do at least 3 this year) and beach fishing will all come under the same search for me now. This year the goal will be the same as last years failed target so once again I'm chasing 20 species.

SPECIMEN FISHING:

I am setting myself a few different targets this year where specimen fishing is concerned, I would love to catch my first river Barbel and also to beat my Chub PB of 2lb 8oz, I want to officially set a Dace PB, I also have personal bests for most species but non are especially great so I want to break 3 of them as a rounded goal! I wont list them as there is numerous different ones.

CARP FISHING:

This is one I have looked at trying to set myself but at the moment without having a target water in mind I am having trouble doing anything where this is concerned, I will set some once we have decided on a water to target.

LURE FISHING:

As mentioned before I want to beat my Pike and Perch lure caught personal bests, I also want my 1st lure caught Chub and Zander, these are something I'm hoping to do on group meets with the Lure Nuts guys, a group of people I like to call family.

FATHER SON FISHING:

This is something I thought I would add in this year as he is now wanting to come fishing with me more and more. These goals he set for himself. He wants 5 salt water species, also he wants to get himself in the angling times magazine 10 times (on the kingfisher pages) and finally his Carp personal best is 8lb and he wants to land a double this year.

Thank you all very much for reading, I know I have said before I am going to be writing more often, but this year I mean it, THESE POSTS WILL BE WEEKLY and that my friends is a promise!  

Perch Fishing with Kieran.

Hi guys and welcome back. This weeks post is going to be covering a couple of short Saturday afternoon sessions with my 7 year old son Kieran down at Longham water works. When ever I ask Kieran what fishing he would like to do on our next session I only ever get one of two answers, he either wants to go 'match' fishing with his 6m Browning pole and his seatbox or its dropshotting for Perch!

The last few times its been all about the Perch for him though as he has told me he wants to catch one over a lb, this is something I am more than happy to help him with and I'm also ecstatic at the fact he wants to fish with me more and more now!

He has taken two different approaches to targeting the Perch one being lure fishing, dropshotting with small shads and other small bug imitations, the other being to try live baiting for them with minnows he catches himself using maggots on a scaled down dropshot rig.

He has also been helping me test out and use some of the Realistic Shad lures reviewed in last weeks post, He has now also claimed my favorite Fin and Tide cap as it is 'his lucky Perch hat' as he likes to call it.

I prefer him to lure fish when targeting the species as I'm not over keen on live baiting my self, it was something that came about by accident one day and he has taken a liking to. He was fishing for Minnows and Bleak with me whilst I was fishing for Dace when a Perch took a minnow he was winding in. He found this totally amazing and was all he would talk about on the way home, telling me how that's just how nature works and he got to see it.

I do though however want to encourage him as much as possible to fish and feel as long as I can teach him that doing some of the things we see down there is wrong, like the other day when a guy used a 10oz Dace (roughly) as a live bait, I also know of a guy that thinks its okay to use 2lb Roach as live Pike bait. These are the types of things he WILL grow up not doing!

Back to the lures though, one of his favorite lures hes been using lately is the Crazy Fish Cruel Leach in a bright green color, he has been doing very well on it where small Perch or 'wasps' are concerned.

Something he has also been asking me about is competition fishing bless him, so I bought him a little lure bag and he sat down with me and marked out 15cm on the top, he insists next time we go he is going to beat me in a match! Again something I will also be encouraging as a little competition never hurt anyone and if it makes it more fun for him then all the better!

I have been fitting in a bit of fishing with him from time to time, in between unhooking countless fish for him that is, he is a little hook shy at the moment and doesn't really like touching anywhere near the hook which I guess at his age is something that can be a scary thing.

Another thing he has been enjoying is taking pictures for me of any fish I catch, I had my old camera from when I started fishing just sat in my room next to the computer gathering dust so I have let him have it, he spends a lot of time out in the garden now taking pictures of all sorts of things, potential photographer in the making maybe?

This year for me has been all about getting my boy to put his iPad, xbox controller and anything else along the lines down and trying to get him outside, to be honest I think its working as he loves fishing more and more every time we go, hes loving taking pictures of all the different insects and bird life we get in the garden. One thing he wants to do in the house that I do like the sound of though is he wants to start his own blog, this is definitely something he can do as we all know those bloggers are some cool people!

He did his own little write up the other day, with a little help from me, to print out and take to school, which is something I'm going to let him post on here in the near future possibly even make it next weeks.

Once again guys thanks for reading, I really sincerely hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I enjoy writing them! For now though until next week I'm going to leave you with some extra pictures.

Realistic Shad Review.

Good evening all, so now you all know the name of the company mentioned in last weeks post we can get on with the review. At the beginning when I first decided to review the companies products I ordered a very small selection in comparison to what is on offer, now though I will be stocking lure boxes full of the rest of the range!

I can honestly say I have never been so happy that everything I had planned in my head when buying a lure worked out almost exactly as I had hoped, I bought these shapes and these colors to mimic certain fish when targeting predators. Allow me to elaborate.

Starting from the top, (of the above picture) these I bought for two different situations, firstly as you all know I have been doing a lot of LRF over the last few months, I bought this pattern and color to try to mimic some of the Sand Smelt and other prey fish to target Bass, unfortunately I haven't managed a Bass on this one yet but I'm putting that down to the fact the small checkers aren't around in big numbers yet. Secondly I felt they looked very much like small bleak and the plan was to use them for ultra light Perch fishing, however the first fish I did manage on this one was a awesome little Pike! 

 

Second pattern down and one I bought specifically for targeting Perch as I felt the color and size was a dead ringer for the thousands of minnows the Perch swallow through out the year. My boy has also been helping me put these lures through their paces and this one has become one of his favorites! Both him and me have been having a lot of success using this one on the dropshot.

 

Needless to say he has been keeping on at me to buy him a new lure box and fill it with these lures! Something I have agreed to and have also managed to talk his mum round by telling her its a great thing to encourage, this means I can sneak a few in the order for me each time as well!

Okay so moving on to the middle lure in the picture, this is one I have not been using as much as the others, I bought it in this color so as to mimic Sand Goby in a hope to tempt a few Wrasse species to take. Until Thursday evening just gone I have been unsuccessful with this one.

This was one of those moments where bites on the Isome had stopped and the sandworm wasn't working so I thought I'd slow jig for a little while, I hadn't planned on using this one to be honest but it was the first one out the packet when I reached in so thought might as well give it a go, results speak for them selves I believe!

This little guy certainly like it anyway! Was also my last fish of the session as nothing else seemed to be hungry for anything I had to offer after that.

Moving on to the fourth one down and this one unfortunately I no longer own, I didn't loose it though, I binned it as it was well and truly torn to bits, I don't think I have ever used a single lure to so much success the whole time I have been fishing! I bought this purely for LRF as it just screamed 'I'm a Goby' the minute I laid eyes on it!

I have been catching so many small Ballan Wrasse with this little lure I don't think I could count them, I have also managed some very good ones including the biggest I have ever caught!

 

Finally the bottom one, I picked this one for the same reasons I bought the first one, simply I just felt it would be nice to have a paddle tail version as well, this one is responsible for the strangest species of fish I have caught on a shad, frankly one I never thought would have been possible. After a conversation with a good friend it turns out the Tompot Blenny may have attacked this lure out of a more defensive stands rather than taking it for food, it is highly possible that I managed to drop it in near to a nest and that was the reason for the strike.

More evidence of this showed itself Thursday evening when I pulled up another Tompot that was wrapped in a piece of weed than had small orange eggs all over it.

I decided to do a review on these products in the beginning because they were something I had not seen before, I had been looking for something to review on here for a long time as it was something I wanted to start doing, however I had been struggling to find anything that took my fancy until I stumbled across these on social media one afternoon!

I was firstly taken in because in most of my fishing I like to 'match he hatch' or use something that closely imitates something my target species would see as natural to them, obviously where this is possible to apply, I have also been known to chuck out bright pink fruity pop ups on six foot zigs as well though.

All in all I could not have been happier with the results and I honestly can't see myself buying lures form other companies for a long time to come!

Once again thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed as much as I did writing!

Few Short Salt Water Sessions.

So I realize its been a long while since my last post and yes I also realize I said that the gaps in posting wasn't going to happen anymore but this time that is 100% fact and that's a promise! There is going to be a new schedule on here and I'm going to be posting weekly and with a set time each week to get these uploaded. I will now as of today be uploading a post every Saturday at 7pm.

Over the last few weeks I have been out doing a lot of salt water fishing, be it LRF, bait or lure fishing I've been doing it all and had some great results as well!

To kick things off lets talk about the fact I'm now up to 12 species of LRF caught fish, over the last few weeks I've managed Bass, Rock Goby, Tompot Blenny, Goldsinny and Ballan Wrasse! Its been a great time to be fishing the Quay and I have enjoyed every minute of it!

I have also been doing a bit of bait fishing, this however has not been so productive I've been having plenty of Shore Crabs, a couple of Velvet Swimming Crabs and even a Brown Crab not so many fish but have had a few small Wrasse in close on bait and managed a Bass the other night as well.

Lastly I have been doing some lure fishing trying out some shads and things from a new company I came across not to long ago these have been working out really well for me and next weeks post will be a review on them.

They mainly make lures for fresh water fishing but after looking into the companies products I noticed a few of them was very similar in shape to Goby and thought I would give them a go for a few Ballan Wrasse, I succeeded!

 
I managed this one on the very first time of asking and they have done nothing but get bigger since!

The main thing that has surprised me though is the consistency in which I'm catching using these lures! I had Tompot Blenny on shad lures which I didn't know was possible, however after a chat with a very knowledgeable friend it turns out the chances are I may have dropped into a nest which would have triggered a defensive attack rather than one out of predatory instinct.

The fish pictured above is my biggest Ballan to date unfortunately it happened to come on the night I had forgotten my scales and my measure, something I also believe is known as 'sod's law' but I will be back out soon and hope to better this again!

Some of the other shads in their range have been responsible for my biggest Bass capture of the year so far! (Not very big I know but I haven't started fishing for them properly yet).

Once again thank you for reading, sorry to leave you hanging on a name for the mysterious lure company but I will reveal all 7pm next Saturday when I do a full post just on my captures using them!

LRF Update

Hey guys, once again I've found some time and managed to get out on 4 LRF sessions in as many days. I went out with the brother in law on the 10th, 11th and 12th for a few late evening sessions down the Quay and also headed out for my 1st trip to Swanage pier this morning.

         Having not fished much before the brother in law was keen to get out on a session with me and see if he could bag himself a couple of species on the LRF gear. He has managed a pair of nice sized Shanny before whilst crabbing with my boy, unfortunately though they got released by my son before he could snap a picture of them.

         I have now given him a rod, reel and a selection of lures so he can head out anytime and give it a go as I'm now going to be quite busy with work and possibly not able to fish again until next weekend.

          So lets get onto some fishing shall we, the first evening went by completely uneventful and ended on a blank for both of us much to our surprise as the conditions were absolutely perfect, Nigel had been down the Quay the night before for the weekly bike night and seen a lot of people fishing and catching all sorts, so as you can imagine getting there to find the same conditions as described from the night before I was super excited to get fishing, sadly though things didn't go to plan but hey that's fishing!

           Moving onto the second night, we decided to start in the same spot at the end of the Quay and work our way to the other end as we did previously. This time though I got a bite immediately but unfortunately lost the fish on the way up, this did though lift the spirits and fill us full of belief that it was going to be a good night. 3 and a bit hours then went by without another bite until we made it to the other end and on the 1st put in I got a few small knocks, this was followed 30 seconds later by a massive pull down to which I struck into my 6th species of the year so far and my favorite of them all!

Say hello Mr Scorpion! Could not have been happier to get this little guy up and in my hands, if I had to choose a single species of fish to only catch again this would be it!

           We decided to call it a night after this as I got the shakes from excitement, literally was like a child at Christmas! Our decision was also helped along by the fact it was raining and looked like getting a lot worse as well.

            Okay so onto the final evening session, this one started off on a much better note once again we started in the same spot with the same aim as before simply work our way along. With in the 1st 10 seconds of wetting a line I had my 1st fish in my hands so as you can imagine once again we were excited for a much better night again!

This time the fish came in the form of this awesome little Shanny (common Blenny) this is a species I had already caught this year, for me though that is not the be all and end all of my fishing, sure I like to catch new species and have a goal to catch 20 different ones this year but it really is more about seeing what is out there and I really do enjoy looking at every fish I catch!

         After maybe a hour I had managed to catch a further 8 Shanny and was really having a lot of fun doing so, Nigel however was having one of those sessions we have all had, one where everything that grabbed his lure only grabbed the lure and was never hooked, other than a really nice looking shore crab that dropped off on the bank and scurried back to the water, once again before a picture could be taken.

         One fish that really did catch my eye out of the 9 was this little fin perfect specimen (bellow), the coloration was captivating and I probably spent way to long looking and admiring it than was good for it but he went back swimming fit so no harm done.

We stayed in the area a further half hour or so but there was no more bites to be had, this signaled time to move spot for the first time of the evening, this time though we didn't move far at all before I noticed some swirling and ripples on the surface not far from a moored Sunseeker, as you can imagine I was pretty cautious casting to what was very likely a £5million yacht. I was already using a drop shot rig as I had been fishing close to the edge and that is my preferred method of doing so, however this is not something I have ever done at range so was a little unsure about how to work it. I decided to let it sink to the bottom count to 5 and give a single turn of the real handle, my plan was to repeat this all the way back to me but around 40 seconds later and I was playing s fish!

I had now managed 2 new species in as many nights, this time it was this really cool Sand Smelt that graced my hand! I have been told today that these are sometimes very hard to catch so am even more happy than I was last night which to be honest I didn't think was going to be possible, I was ecstatic when I got my hands on this fish! Believe it or not I actually spent most of the day before the session reading how and where to fish for these in my local area not once was the Quay mentioned though which only added to me excitement!!

Moving onto today, this is a trip I have been trying to find time to do for a very, very long time so when the other half said to me lets go and do it I fell in love with her all over again. The excitement and anticipation kept me up most of last night at which point Jen was probably regretting planning the day bless her. Unfortunately this session ended the same way as the 1st one a few nights ago but when you get the views I seen today along with some proper quality family time it doesn't even matter!!

Thank you very much for reading this post everyone, I have had the best few days fishing and have once again enjoyed writing about it to share with you so I hope you enjoyed it also!

Sorry its been so long!

Hi guys sorry its been so long since I last posted anything, up until the last few weeks I've been having a bit of trouble finding time to get out and do any fishing. Thankfully though that has now changed and things are looking up with the amount of time I'm going to have to myself now!

       Since my last post I spent the end part of the river season trying to bank my first ever Barbel and/or my first Chub (from a river).

Unfortunately I didn't catch, I do feel though that I learned a lot to help towards finally managing it this season! I did also get to spend some much needed time to myself with some great surroundings.

      It was due to the overwhelming desire to catch the elusive Barbel that all other aspects of my fishing got put on hold, that and the lack of good weather and the Quay seemingly being void of fish for the first few months of the year, this is something I now know is quite normal as the water gets colder but as a LRF noob I had no idea at the time!

       The LRF duck was broken finally though when a proper piece of opportunistic fishing seen me land a Corkwing Wrasse, The better half (called so in case she is reading this) and I decided to take the kids for a walk down the Quay as the sun was finally out for a change, I managed to hide my rod and small lure pouch in the car whilst putting some of the kids things in!

As it was the first fish in what felt like forever I decided to pose with it as if it were a 7lb version of one of its cousins, something I am also planning on targeting this year.

This is also something I have been doing whenever I have been out with the family on walks and things, every time I've managed to get near the beaches or anything of the such I have been looking for likely looking spots to target the Ballan Wrasse I'm after this year, something again I'm very new at having never targeted a specimen fish from salt water.

        I'm off out in the next week putting some rigs to the test targeting some Bream in a local lake, the particular water doesn't hold anything big although my personal best Bream is only 5lb so there is always a chance of bettering that!

        I spent a few days down the Quay over the last couple of weeks (only for a hour or so at a time) and have already managed 5 species, to most people this may not sound like much but after around 4-5 months of LRF last year I finished the year on 9 in total so its a good start on beating that. I have set myself a target for the year of 20 species so I will be putting a lot of time and effort in to reach that for the rest of the year!

         The second species I managed this year was the first one I ever caught so was very please to see plenty of them back around again.

This in case you don't know is a Shanny or common Blenny, feisty little guys and super aggressive for they're size I love nothing more than sight fishing for these little guys down by the boat yard at the old end, the water is only about 3ft deep against the edge at high tide so its very fun fishing.

      The next species I caught was a awesome little Black Goby, although they don't seem to be around in huge numbers yet I have manged about 3 of them now in comparison to the 50 odd Shanny.

Next trip out I managed another few Shanny, a single Black Goby and my 3rd species for the year in the form of this really cool common Goby!

The last species I managed this year so far came in the form of the smallest fish I think I have ever caught, made even better by the fact it was one I didn't get last year, it was so small I found it very hard to pin point what it was however after trawling through countless books and google searches, as well as getting some help from other LRF anglers I am now confident enough to call this a sand Goby!

So its been a very good start for me this year on the salt water front and it has also been a good year for my fishing partner after he managed to bag himself a Kingfisher award in the Angling Times magazine with this cool 5lb common Carp!

Thank you very much for reading and I really do hope you enjoyed the post! I am planning on getting back to doing at least 1 a week however it may take a bit of time for this to be possible so please bear with me!