Post Script

As the sun sets on fishing opportunities in 2015 I decided to squeeze in a couple more short sessions...

I've got to admit, after publishing my review of the year, in spite of acknowledging 3 new PBs and plenty of good times on the bank, I still felt a little down about my angling this year. So I decided to get out and do a little bit more before the year is out...

Yesterday I headed down to Birch Lake, Littlebourne armed with a pint of maggots hoping for a tench or two. I figured this small pool would be the most likely candidate to have benefited from this warm spell and even if the carp were a little docile, a ball of wriggly red maggots are sure to wake up a tinca! Perhaps a stealthy approach on the float may have fared better but with a forecast of rain all day, I decided to present my offerings on a light ledger with a pva mesh stick of gentles.

It was a fairly slow day but a successful one as two beautiful tench graced my net. The first run of the day came an hour after setting up to the rod I had cast to a set of lilies near the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, as I picked up the rod there was no resistance. A moment later, the other rod, also positioned near lilies but in slightly shallower water, screamed off with a face-melting run!
This time I hit it no problem and retrieved the culprit - this feisty, dark 3lb 8oz tench!

A few blips at the end of the day were worth hitting!

The next run came soon after on the same rod but whilst a pound heavier, gave no where near as disproportionate an account of itself as its little buddy!

Although I accomplished my goal to catch some tench, I was a little disappointed that a carp didn't try to crash the party. So I began thinking about where I might fish tomorrow. There seemed little point going to Fordwich so decided to head over to Stonar for one last short day session for the year.



Stonar could not be more of a contrast from the tree lined pool of serenity I had fished the day before. A huge expanse of open water allowed the strong Westerly winds to kick up quite a choppy sea! I positioned myself in the wind nonetheless, in the hope it had brought some fish across with it, after I spoke to a friend tucked away out of the wind on the opposite bank who reported the fishing to be fairly slow.

Once again I missed my first run and the second brought me a bream. At this point I decided to switch all three rods over to a boilie approach and to quit trying to dutifully use up the remaining maggots from yesterday. Throughout the day I had several short takes, each soon after casting with a long pva stringer of VF boilies. Had I brought a spod rod with me I could perhaps have kept these bites coming but regrettably I had thought this unnecessary whilst taking my gear to the car.
However, one run was a good'n! A tackle tart would have hated my set up - I was fishing with three different rods in three different test curves, two with cork handles, two bait runners and one big pit. It was one of the lighter rods, a 1.75lb TC barbel rod which received this blistering take and I'm glad about it! What transpired to be a very angry common carp made many violent lunges which would have been somewhat lost on the 3lb TC carp rod which was adjacent on the pod.
Whilst this was to be the last fish of the session, I am very pleased with this little 15lb chunk and very glad to have again fulfilled my ambition for the day.

I have no further plans to fish in 2015 as I set off on Christmas Eve to visit family. That said, a lure rod will be packed as some great stretches of the Avon flow past relatives in both Gloucestershire and Somerset, so you never know...

Until next time my string is pulled, thanks for reading and have a very Merry Christmas!

A mixed bag!

Since writing last, I have ventured out onto the bank for a few sessions, some hoping to break my silence on Fordwich, a quick overnighter at Stonar Lake and a few quick trips at Minster and Trenley to practice for the Maggotdrowner's Southern Champions Match at Tricklebrook which I fished today.

In spite of being fortunate enough to have the summer off work, I only made it down to Fordwich for three sessions and as far as carp are concerned, they were all blanks. On the third trip I decided to take some maggots with me to instigate some entertainment. The result was a nice net of roach - I only started retaining these in the last hour of the trip so I am quite pleased with this net.

I will return to Fordwich in pursuit of carp again this autumn, work permitting, before my attention turns to the pike and perch.

At the beginning of September, after a bit of encouragement from a friend, I went to Stonar for a quick overnight session. I was fortunate to get on the swim known as 'Sheds' which is something of a hotspot partly due to it being the last peg before a large section of the lake which is closed to fishing.

No fish came my way through the night but I had three in the space of an hour in the morning of which these two were the best.

A good stamp of fish at Minster

I went to Trenley with my wife a couple of weeks back, hoping to get into some good bream. She struggled for bites for a long time whilst I struggled to hit any that I got for most of the afternoon. I realised that I was a little rusty on the quiver tip so took myself off to Minster the following week as I knew bites would be plentiful there giving me the opportunity to hone my skills. I had 10 small carp and several roach in just 2 hours fishing. They were a good stamp of fish too...

Todays match at Tricklebrook will be, I'm sure, my final trip in September but it was a great day! As chance would have it, I drew the same peg I fished last year. That was my first ever match and I came 4th, so drawing a familiar swim gave me a bit of confidence.

This photo really was the best of a very bad bunch...

I got off to an excellent start, landing 8 fish in the first hour on the pellet feeder. There was then a bit of a lull which I overcame by changing my hook bait to a trio of red maggots. However, as the clock turned 12, the bites turned off. 

For the next two hours I hardly had a twitch. The bites that were strike-able resulted in short-lived battles ending in hook-pulls. I decided to change my hook every time I caught a fish because I feared the losses had been due to the fine wire hooks blunting easily. This paid off! Thereafter, every bite resulted in carp in the sack.

At the weigh-in my net turned the scales to 35lb 12oz meaning I won the carp section! The person who came second for carp had also produced a decent enough bag of roach to bring his total weight to 36lb meaning he won overall - a pleasure I missed out on by just 4oz!!!

I am overjoyed with this result and had a great day with some top guys. My only disappointment is the photos really didn't turn out well at all.

So all in all, the end of the summer has provided a variety of experiences, all of which have been enjoyable, some educational and Fordwich, for now is just baffling!

If you snooze you loo's!

The last couple of months have easily been the busiest and most stressful I have ever had to contend with at work and needless to say that has had a massive impact on the amount of time I have been able to spend fishing. However, the perk of the teaching profession is a generous amount of holiday in the summer and as always I intend to make the most of every moment.

My wife, Doz, is giving fishing a go for a one year trial period. She came with me a few times in May and early June before things got hectic with work and experienced some success targeting both carp and silvers. I was delighted when she agreed to spending a couple of spare hours under a brolly carping with me at Stonar lake today on this rainy Sunday afternoon!

We positioned ourselves with the drizzle-laden northeasterly blowing straight at us and as the swim we chose was only really big enough for one angler, decided only to fish 3 rods between us.

I put two rods in the left margin and put Doz's rod out for her under an overhanging tree on the right. As we scattered a few boilies around the general area the sky erupted with sea birds looking for a free meal! We sat back and waited for about an hour before Doz walked round to the loo near the carpark, leaving me with the rods.

Moments later, her 1.75lb TC barbel rod wrapped right round, the bait runner screaming and I lifted into a hard fighting carp. Just as I had guided the lovely looking mirror into the net Doz returned and realised this fish could have been hers! After weighing and photographing the fish she was determined to do everything for herself and recast bang on the money. Unfortunately, with another engagement planned for the evening, time was not on our side forcing us to leave before her efforts could come to fruition. 

This Stonar mirror turned the scales to 13lb 13oz

I have plans to put in some serious time on Fordwich again this summer but am glad that today we made the most of only a couple of hours and still caught. It would have been all too easy to be apathetic and make excuses due to the rain or limited time available. Thankfully, Doz wants to go back soon to settle the score!

The glass is half full! (24hrs at Stonar)

It was early evening on a grey bank holiday Monday when I arrived at Stonar Lake, Sandwich for 24hrs in pursuit of carp. The wind was blowing with some conviction towards the east bank and so I headed straight over there to locate a suitable, or least vacant, swim.
The margins are almost always productive here. This is probably because the lake bed reaches extreme depths as it slopes towards the centre leaving the margins and a few isolated bars and plateaus as the only fishable water. With this in mind, my left and right rod were positioned accordingly in the shallows near the perimeter reeds. I put my middle rod on standby until I had located a gravel bar I had been told was about 90 yards directly ahead of the swim with my marker rod.
Long casts [I still consider 90 yards to be a long cast!] are not my forte however and whilst I am frequently putting yards on to my cast each time I have the opportunity to practice, hurling the marker float against the oncoming wind was never going to work out well. What's more, above the surface of the water Stonar is pretty featureless and appears as an ongoing, sea-like expanse of water making it very hard to judge distance. I had the great idea of setting up marker sticks, wrapping and clipping up at 90 yards so I could tell if I was making that distance or not. This could well have been a good tactic had I not managed to get into a goofy tangle. At 8:30pm this tangle appeared salvageable. At 2:30am it was time to cut the braid and try to get some sleep.
Sleep evaded me for some time and no sooner it seemed had I drifted off I was woken, as is the cliche, by the screaming tone of my left alarm at 4:30am. The result was one of Stonar's many small, yet hard fighting common carp weighing in at 10lb 8oz. Once returned to the water, I began to settle back down only to be torn from sleep once more, again by an aggressive little common of 11lb 4oz. By now it was almost 6am, so I resolved to have breakfast, say good morning to my wife and then kip back down. Whilst I was glad to have caught a couple of fish, I was seriously failing to cope with the lack of sleep!
Breakfast was lovely, as was the phone call home but just as my head hit the pillow that blasted alarm went off again!

This time however, the fight went on and on. The first two fish had been taken on popups in the margins but this fish took a snowman rig on the middle rod positioned another rods length away from the main baited area with a little pva stringer of chops - a decision I made after abandoning the idea of finding that gravel bar! Eventually, I caught sight of what appeared to be a good sized mirror before it careered down into the depths once more at a rate of knots.  When, after many attempts to net this valiant warrior it was finally my captive, it turned the scales to a satisfying 21lb 6oz.

This same rig also produced a 14lb common and 13lb mirror (both below), albeit with a long quiet afternoon watching the clouds go by before the latter was in the sling.

All the pictures above were taken on my phone as, in spite of getting a lovely new Nikon DSLR, I could not get satisfying results on the self takes as I could with my old Sony bridge camera which I used to use for blogging purposes. The phone got the job done quickly and reliably which, when you have a fish on the mat, is exactly what is necessary. I hope, with a bit of practice, I can raise the standard of the photography I offer in these posts.

You might have to put up with me posting a few of these cliched studies will I'm getting to grips with the new DSLR!

As the evening drew in and home time approached, a bream kindly attached itself to my middle rod to let me know that there's no point staying, I'd had my lot. This trip could be viewed as a glass half empty or a glass half full. The best part of the night was spent untangling newly purchased braid only to bin it after much stress and sleep deprivation. The following day however, gave me a steady run of fish, all doubles and my first Stonar twenty! I know which memory I would prefer to hold on to.

Looking back at 2013

Looking back and reflecting has become such a valuable part of my fishing since I have been writing these blog posts. What is interesting when I look back at this last year and also the year before is the value I place on enjoyment of the experience and the impact my attitude and mental state makes on my catch rate.

Barbel

The best example of the impact of attitude is in my barbel fishing. Last year barbel became an absolute obsession and yet I caught none. Whatever it was I was getting wrong was impossible for me to see as I gave myself no time to reflect or space to calm down from each blank session.

This year I managed to winkle one out on March 14th before the enforced break of the closed season. Straight after the 3 month wait I was back on the bank in pursuit of 'the river prince' and lost a good one due to a faulty swivel from a supposedly reputable manufacturer. Fortunately a friend of mine who has no trouble catching a barbel caught a fish baring what appeared to be my lost rig and relieved the fish of its burden. The next time I went out I had another fish, smaller this time but a barb nonetheless. Since then I have been out 3 times fishing for barbel and blanked (or caught eels!). However, I am very happy with this result. Whilst I don't think I did much differently to last year in terms of tactics I can only attribute this years relative success to a more laissez faire attitude and as a result I have had a better experience on the bank even when not catching.

Disappointingly, I have had very few chub this year and even fewer of any size. It seems to me that there are less of them in the river these days and can only guess as to why that may be but I suppose it is quite likely many may have sadly been taken for the pot. 

Carp 

This year I have been fortunate enough to have been field testing for 'Big Carp Baits'. This has enabled me to get out much more frequently to fish for carp than in previous seasons. Whilst I have had a reasonable level of success on their boilies I have to say now that  I would not head out without a method feeder and a bucket of their flavoured pellets or ground bait. Fishing the method on my third rod this season has landed me the majority of my fish and prevented numerous sessions where the going was slow from ending up as blanks. Speaking to other anglers it seems many have found the going tough this year, perhaps due to carp spawning well in to the summer as a result of the late spring but I am aware that many big carp have been caught and that my biggest this year have only been mid-doubles. It has been suggested I should try smaller baits - advice I shall surely take. 

 Infuriatingly, after making progress with Fordwich Lake last year I seem to be back on square one again though now the problem is not locating fish but hooking them! I have had 5 good runs on this lake this year which resulted in nothing when I picked up the rod. Many possible explanations have been buzzing around my head but I am still baffled. I am going to experiment with a longer hair when using bigger baits but aside from this I am open to suggestions!

I think it is possible to over-think things. Sometimes you have to take the rough with the smooth. I have a few aspects of my approach I am going to attempt to refine next year but otherwise it will be business as usual and hope for the best.

Making things!

A real highlight of this season for me has been making things to use in my fishing. It started in the closed season when I started making balsa and porcupine quill floats with a kids club I run. I had some left over materials so made a few for myself. I know that many people do this and probably do it a darn sight better but my floats do what they are meant to do and have a certain naive charm about them if I do say so myself.

The smell of my boilie mix was almost as evil
as its facial expression!

Big Carp Baits very kindly sent me the raw ingredients to make my own fishmeal boilies. I have been testing my prototype baits at Fordwich and Stonar and so far have caught a lot of big bream on them at Stonar and had a few runs which I should think could only be attributed to carp at Fordwich but as I mentioned earlier I suspect my rig mechanics let me down in these cases. So I cannot yet post any conclusions or boast about my winning recipe but I am quietly confident that I am on to something that is getting the fish sniffing around. More on this to follow...

I also made a bobbin for my third rod as having only fished with two rods until this season, I only had two bobbins and needed a third. I had some Fimo in the house and by chance some of it was glow-in-the-dark which lent itself really well to a 'Jack Skeleton' design. The line clip is simply made from a hair slide - the way we used to make them as kids with just a hair slide, cork and a piece of string if a fairy liquid cap was not available! I bent the ends of the slide into a shape so that the line could either be made to run freely through it or clipped within the grip of the two prongs. I have been using it throughout the summer and it works perfectly!

 2014?

When I look ahead to fishing in 2014 there are many uncertainties but one thing I am definitely going to be carrying forward from 2013 is to continue to be easy going and relish my time on the bank. I have learnt the hard way that setting targets and putting pressure on yourself only results in stress which is not only counterproductive but defeats the whole point in going fishing. Ultimately, if we are not 'pleasure anglers' then what are we doing it for?

Stonar, storms, snags and scales.

I arrived at Stonar Lake, Sandwich a few hours after what was meant to be the worst storm since '87. It may have been a bit of an anticlimax but nevertheless there had been winds of over 60mph in the area and a few gardens were looking a bit on the messy side as I drove to my watery abode for the next 24 hours.

Whilst the winds had subsided considerably by the time I reached my spot, putting up a shelter in 30mph gusts was not easy, nor was accurate casting, so I opted to fish close-in.

My approach in recent years has been to attempt to keep rigs simple but having seen a neat rig of Lee Crampton's on the aforementioned 'Carp Unplugged' page for presenting pop-ups perfectly I had decided to give it a crack. Have a look at his explanation on how to tie it and why you might use it by clicking here. I tied mine twice as short as his as I don't like them popped up too high unless I'm fishing over a choddy bottom. My other 2 rods fished standard hair rigs bang on the deck.

The pace unfortunately was quite slow with no action until mid-afternoon when a fish, which fell to said pop-up rig, was lost at the net.

When retrieving my lines to recast I lost 2 rigs on underwater snags. When this happens I never of course put them back out in the same place. When it happened again on 2 rods the next morning in new locations I was more than a bit grumpy about it! 

Not normally considered a beauty spot, Stonar has its moments - especially when you crop out the Pfizer buildings!

Dark came before 5pm and with strong cold winds and occasional rain I found myself bivvy-bound and reading James Joyce. If you think my stream-of-consciousness waffle is bad then steer clear of Ulysses!

I had good reason to leap out of my hobbit-hole at about 11pm however when this lovely common ripped off with my pop-up again!

How big? You decide! 

Unfortunately, when I came to weigh this fish my digital scales failed to work. I changed the batteries and yet still no reading showed. I stopped myself abruptly from having a paddy. I wondered why we as anglers are so obsessed with weight? When I was just starting to carp fish as a teen I would weigh fish occasionally out of interest but back then I was there for the right reasons. I had nothing to prove, no awareness of 'pasties' or 'tonks' just the simple joy of catching. So even though I have resolved to purchase some decent spring loaded scales, I am looking on the bright side of this mishap and remembering to appreciate each moment for how it really is, how it really feels and not to make statistic comparisons with other anglers.

After loosing those rigs in the morning and my concentrated baiting not paying dividends as I expected, I decided to change my third rod to a method feeder with a 12mm Belgian chocolate boilie / 10 mm spicy dumbbell popup snowman rig and to cast it about until I found some fish. This move resulted in my second fish in the net, a smaller common but size doesn't matter, remember?! 

Having only fished with one or two rods at a time for 20 years, I view the third rod I have started using this year as my 'wild card'. It is a barbel rod, the same one I use in the rivers and therefore, whilst still robust, has a much lighter action than my carp rods. Very often people who fish 3 rods will put them all to the horizon. When fishing certain waters with 2 rods I might have done the same but now having the extra rod means that that 'what if' playing in my mind can be satisfied: What if they are swimming under the rod tips right now? What if they are high in the water?! What if I targeted bream and didn't tell anyone?! 

Speaking of the devil, the bream were also drawn in by my method feeder! Very often I have found it has been by taking risks with rod number 3 I have caught more than I would if I had stuck to a regimented approach.

A limp handshake.

Near the end of the session I lost another carp on this method while it was still some way off. It had taken me past an underwater snag, invisible from the surface, and sliced clean through my main line. It is at times like these we are reminded just why it us so important that the lead or feeder can slide straight off the line / lead clip so the fish won't become tethered.

I've still not got amongst the big carp so far this year but this was an enjoyable trip with a few fish banked and some valuable lessons to learn.

None for ages then 3 come at once!

 Over the 'closed season' with only a limited number of waters open for fishing I have not been able to do a great deal of time on the bank and whilst I have done a bit of beachcasting, float making and some work parties on Fordwich Lake; none of it has really been blog-worthy, until today...

I don't intend to use this blog to continuously promote brands but I must share that I have become a field tester for Big Carp Baits, who are a Hungarian bait company, very successful on the continent and are intending to launch in the uk after their products have been sufficiently tested. I feel privileged to have been selected to help them with this process and know that it will make a big impact on my angling.

Pump Lake, Littlebourne 
I arrived at Littlebourne Lakes just after 7pm on Friday and Birch Lake, where I had hoped to fish, was chocca-bloc so I made my way over to Pump Lake. This water has a boilie ban so I decided to test BCB's Frankfurter Sausage 'wickend' pellets and method mix which comes with an amino syrup and CSL liquer to add to the groundbait.

The business end - tipped off with a single grain of maize.

I was fishing by 8pm and had my first fish by 9pm - a mirror of 7lb 4oz. While light was good I cast to the overhanging trees on the far bank but after sunset I fished right beneath the rod tips. Looking at the decorations on said trees, it is a shame other anglers aren't so mindful.
The margins produced well for me with 3 other carp - the biggest being an 8lb 10oz mirror.
At first light I had a tench of just over 3lb and then 2 more soon after - the best was 3lb 12oz...

It seemed a little slow for this lake but I was overjoyed to be catching. However, by 8am having had virtually no sleep I decided to call it a day...

Stonar Lake, Sandwich

 After a few errands and a couple of hours kip on the sofa it was time to head back out. It is rare I get a whole weekend to fish so I had to make the most of it. I wanted to test boilies this time and hopefully get into some bigger fish so I headed over to Stonar Lake in Sandwich. Conditions here could not have been much different to Littlebourne! A very strong North-Easterly wind was racing across the lake turning it into a very choppy sea! I positioned myself on the south bank with the wind coming straight at me. I baited up a little bay to my left and the margin to my right, just over where it drops off deeper.
I cannot pretend to have been comfortable in this swim and I really don't like to be stuck under the shelter, I prefer to watch the water but the wind was so cold I decided to cut my losses and get some more shuteye after some grub!

I used mixed crushed boilies, maize and salt in solid PVA bags

Spicy 20mm with Frankfurter Popup 

As well as the spicy/ frankfurter snowman rig above, I also fished with Red plum and GLM boilies but it was the former combination that came up with the goods on this occasion. At midnight a small bream foul hooked itself, inconveniencing the pair of us. Undeterred, I cast back out, this time with a long PVA stringer of 20mm baits to avoid bream who were clearly mopping up my crushed offerings.
Just before 4am my alarm screamed off and ripped the rod off the pod (I think it's time to invest in some snag ears!). After a cracking fight I thought my luck was in but as it came to the net I was surprised to see a small common - built like a torpedo with a massive paddle!

7lb bang on

Again it went quiet. After lunch I reeled in and went to speak to some other anglers who had been down for a few days. A few fish had been had but spread out throughout the week so I packed up and went to my final stop of the weekend:

Fordwich Lake!

Fordwich, being an SSSI and RAMSAR site has to observe the traditional closed season. During this time I have taken part in a number of work parties which have earned me the privilege of a guaranteed swim on the first day of the season. As I now know where I am going to be fishing, I am able to bait the spot in anticipation of some unsuspecting carp on June 16th.
I can reach an island and 2 sets of lily pads positioned over a gravel bar within an underarm cast here - this, with carp topping every where, even today, is my idea of heaven! Roll on june 16th....

Looking back at 2012

This has been an interesting year on the bank for me. I have attempted to rationalise my approach, particularly to carp fishing, and have reaped the rewards. This blog has undoubtedly been a significant part of that process of reflection. However, whilst I have enjoyed some success on still-waters, my luck has not always been so good on the river. Here I shall look back on some of my best catches and worst failures and contemplate their respective causes...

Company on a quiet session...

Carp

I have made a concerted effort to simplify my approach as far as rigs are concerned as I felt that when trying out the latest rig to be featured in the magazines all the time there are far too many variables to keep track of and far too much to potentially go wrong.

However, I have paid much more attention to feeding. Although I can't claim yet to have all the answers I can vouch for the benefits of casting and baiting accurately and constantly to the same spots rather than my previous random whim approach which was very hit or miss. 

My carp from Fordwich came as a result of spreading 20mm baits over a slightly wider area with a throwing stick - the logic here being that I felt the carp at Fordwich are a little more cautious than the other lakes I fish and may well think mountains of bait dumped by the spod load are slightly suspicious. This seems to be working so far...

18lb Common - Best from Stonar in 2012
Fatfish boilie and pink fake corn, June.

13lb 7oz Common - best from Birch Lake, Littlebourne in 2012
'Zigged' crust 1ft from the surface, March.

10lb Common - first carp from Fordwich ever!
'Matrix' snowman rig, August.

Chub and Barbel 

I do enjoy catching chub and a good thing too as they have really made pests of themselves when I have been targeting barbel!

I have found a few spots where small shoals congregate and some are pretty much common knowledge. I have seen them swimming over my bait, the rod arches round and somehow as I pick it up I find that the culprit is a pesky chub. Of course, each time a chub is caught the barbel are spooked for a while at least. A friend who catches a good many barbel has advised me to 'sit on my hands' when the rod is twitching, let chub and eels suss out the trap and clear off and wait for the unmistakable run of a barbel. I really have tried to heed this advice but even with shorter hook-links I find fish often hook themselves.

Although I must confess to getting a little depressed with this situation it has led me to think very carefully about stealth, line-lay, bait, presentation, colour of the water, water level, temperature, air pressure, time of day etc much more carefully. Until the fish start coming in I cannot draw conclusions but the process has started at least and in the mean time I have enjoyed some good chub. Early in the season I took a friend from work out a few times in the hope of helping him catch his first chub. He had a fair few out while I waited for barbel. It was a real pleasure to help him achieve this ambition.

One of my better chub this season just under the 4lb mark.

My friend Marc with a chub just over 4lb!

A nostalgic compilation of tales from a bygone era.
Some poetic words from Chris Yates and Bernard Venables
but an otherwise dull read and not much use to the
modern day barbel hunter.

In other news...

As you may have read in Bream: a little dream, I have somewhat changed my attitude to Bream as a target species though I must admit still find it frustrating when they shoal in on bait intended for something else. I have also had some fun catching carp on the centrepin. I went out for tench a couple of times and caught fish up to about 4lb which was fun. 

This colourful combination of maize and pink fake corn,
combined with hemp and breadcrumb squeezed round a method feeder
has never failed to produce tench for me!

A tench from Pump Lake, Littlebourne which fell to the rig pictured above.

A couple of days float fishing at Grove Lake produced some nice roach, small carp, tench and gudgeon. 

The highlight of a day float fishing at Grove:
a small gudgeon which reminded me of my childhood
fishing experiences.

Feeder fishing on the Worcestershire Avon in October resulted in several eels, bream and dace. A couple of short sessions feathering off Whitby pier rewarded me with over 20 mackerel and a few Coley. The mackerel have been divided between the dinner table and pike fishing. I've not fished the Stour for pike since last December when I caught my PB of 13lb but have had several jacks in Fordwich Lake to 6lb on the bait I caught in Whitby.

I have had several jacks like this 6lber on ledgered mackerel

I also started preparing my own hemp and maize. This is considerably cheaper than buying it ready to use from a known bait manufacturer (I paid £15 for 25kg!) and has many advantages besides. It is important to prepare baits correctly though to ensure they are safe to feed to the fish. Would a blog post on how to do this be useful to anyone?

A great discovery this year was bulk buying unprepared maize. 

Whilst all fishing is enjoyable, I think it is important to do a variety of styles of fishing throughout the year to break the monotony of long campaigns for one specific species. Also, sometimes it is possible to care too much about achieving goals and just turning up and having a laugh can be very therapeutic indeed!

Next steps...

I am very pleased to have improved my carp fishing on two waters I had previously found difficult. However, now I must ask if there is a way of specifically targeting larger carp as all the fish I have had from these lakes have been below 20lb. Perhaps that is just down to chance? I don't mind catching fish of any size but I am intrigued to find out if a small tweak to my tactics might produce something bigger.

I intend to continue my quest for barbel into 2013. Perhaps then I shall be able to work out where I am currently going wrong and start getting some fish on the bank again?!

Please feel free to comment on this or any of my posts. I'd equally love to hear if any of this has been helpful or if you have any advice to offer me.