Perch Frenzy at Chew

I had an amazing days fishing at Chew last month. Spent 4 hours thrashing the water with big jerkbaits to no avail (turns out we were on the wrong side of the lake that day) then had a go with some 4" Kopyto's as we saw some perch activity...turned out to be very good decision...5 casts later I had landed 5 perch over 3lb!! We lost contact with the feeding shoal at that point but later on I had another couple of 3lb+ fish and landed a few "smaller fish" all between 1-2.5lb. Amazing!

THIS ONE WENT 3LB 15oz

Every now and again the perch would force a ball of bait fish on to the surface "blue planet Tuna V Pilchard style" and a lure cast into the mass of fins breaking the surface resulted in an instant hit...magic, magic fishing!


"JUST" ANOTHER 3lb FISH

High Winds at Pitsford

I fished in the Zoota Lures LAS Competition at Pitsford recently with Steve "Trebles" Bates. The last time I fished with Steve was in the Pairs competiton up at Esthwaite, where we came second and had some lovely doubles in the boat, so I was very much looking forward to the event.

Unfortunately the day in question coincided with some pretty high winds and fishing was restricted to the top area of the lake above the dam. Even then some of the drifts were very difficult and quite uncomfortable to fish, so Steve and I headed for the shelter of the Dam and found a lovely little bay between two weedbeds. there were sparodic signs of fish as trout swirled on the surface and the occasional bigger swoosh as pike struck at the baitfish. Steve soon picked up a couple of smallish pike, but I struggled until I had a lovely hit on a RiverRun Manta. The rod doubled over and the reel screamed as a big solid fish turned away, then a few seconds later the hookhold slipped and everything went slack...AAArrgghh.

We fished on through the cold wind and despite a few moves and hundreds of casts all we got were a few follows. The high winds had forced a few of the competitors off the water and as the 4.00pm deadline approached we thought about heading in early ourselves. One last go up at the dam we decided, and what a good decision it was. First cast with Manta and I finally had a fish, only a little one of about 5lb, but a fish none the less. Then a couple of casts later, wallop! a nice hit and a good solid fish. As she came to the boat we realized she was lightly hooked and Steve did a great job of netting her at the very first opportunity. there was a quick high five of celebration and then a bit of a pantomime during unhooking, as the rear treble got hooked into my glove whilst the front treble was still attached to the fish. I slipped off the glove and finished the unhooking job bare handed, which left me with a nasty little "bleeder" of a cut from her gill rakers. still she went back unharmed and that's the main thing. As it turned out it was the best fish of the day and I picked up some lovely lures handmade by Alex from Zoota.

What really made the day special was that unknown to us at the time, there was a semi-professional wildlife photographer taking shots of the birdlife, and when she saw me landing the big pike she took a fantastic shot with her long lens of me holding it up for Steve to photograph. Brilliant job!!

Perch too

We caught a lot of perch from the new stretch too. There seem to be a lot of perch around at the moment. A friend was telling me that he and his boat partner had over 100 out of the Warks Avon in a day recently. Most of the fish we had were pretty small, but Gary did manage to get a better fish on a jig.


-- Post From My iPhone

New stretch produces a grand slam

Gary and I fished a new stretch of the Severn yesterday and although it didn't produce anything massive, Gary did get a grand slam of perch, pike, chub & zander. I couldn't quite equal him as the zander proved illusive.


-- Post From My iPhone

Heading for the Coast

I'm getting quite excited about the coming weekend. I'm off to Cornwall on a family holiday, and although I will be spending most of the time on the beach with the kids, there will be a chance or two to throw some lures for Bass, pollock, garfish and anything else that fancies having a go!

I'm busy going through my lures and trying to decide what to take with me. When it comes to lure fishing in saltwater I'm a complete novice, but I've had some good advice in the last few weeks, so I have an idea of what I should be using. Still I never turn down a chance to buy some new lures and I will no doubt be ordering a few this week here's the first of what's been catching my eye...

JACKALL LURES SMASH MINNOW

Jackall Lures have a fantastic pedigree, designed and made in Japan, they are designed by Seiji Kato who worked for both Daiwa and Lucky Craft before setting up Jackall in 1999. He is probably best known as the creator of the Legendary Lucky Craft Sammy. Monster Tackle

stock a nice selection of their lures including a good number of topwater baits, but it's the Smash Minnow I really fancy. It has a shape and style not unlike the Lucky Craft Pointer, and has what is described as an "Exaggerated Action". What makes it even more attractive for saltwater use is the internal weighting system that should help to produce some very long casts.

Franglais Stocking Specimen Gear Lures

Steve at Franglais fishing has got some nice stuff available at the moment. I features his Dingo swimbaits in the last issue of Lure Angler and I've been looking at his range of Woody lures online. Steve was telling me the Wounded Woody topwater lures are selling very well at the moment and they do look interesting.

Here's the blurb

"The Wounded Woody 180 is an innovative top water jerk bait. Instead of facing belly down like an ordinary lure, it lays on it's side to expose the full profile downwards in the water. When pulled it flips its head down while gliding sideways across the surface at the same time so imitating the swim pattern of an injuired baitfish. The Wounded Woody lure is designed for long casting and is perfect for fishing in shallow waters where predators will rise to the surface to attack it. Proven to be very effective in clear lakes and rivers and in snaggy areas, the Wounded Woody 180 will provide plenty of surface action. Hand crafted from hard and light willow wood, fitted with stainless steel rings and Kenzaki high carbon steel treble hooks, the lure is sealed with strong epoxy layers for supreme toughness."

They look good too! and at £16.99 they aren't cheap, but then again if you want a quality hand made lure, sometimes you have to pay!

You can take a look yourself at www.franglaisfishing.com

Blogging from an iPhone

Ok so is it possible to blog whilst your actually fishing? Well it would seem the answer could well be yes! Now that I am the proud owner of an iPhone a whole new wat to blog is available. I can take pictures and even movies with this thing so in theory I should be able to catch a fish and blog about it straight away. The real question is.....do I want to!?

well if it ever stops raining and I actually get the boat on the river, I'll give it a go.




-- Post From My iPhone

New Lures

Artur from www.lure-world.com has got some lovely new Gloog lures
available. I've found the Gloogs to be very well built and great
little fish catchers..I will have to get a couple more, some of those
colour schemes look great!

catching up

I seem to have let the blog slip rather in the last couple of months. A combination of work-pressure (it seems to be increasingly difficult to run your own business these days!) and getting the "Lure Angler" ready for Press. So I've got a bit of catching up to do. We had a great day at Esthwaite at the end of June, but I will blog about that when I get the piccies from Gary. In the meantime, here are a few pics to show you what I've been up to in the last few weeks. The first batch are all from Llangorse lake.


A Nice 14lb fish from Llangorse on a topwater


Another Llangorse Pike on a surface bait


Ewan gets in on the act with a fish on his first cast!


Gary boated a good number of fish too including this low double

Location, location, location

I spent last night going through the articles I have lined up for the next issue of Lure Angler. There are some great articles, I really think it's going to be a "vintage" issue. One that stood out for me when I was reading them last night was a piece on Pike Location by Dave Pugh. It's the second article he's written for the magazine since I took over as editor and it's just as thought provoking as the first one. I won't spoil it by telling you too much here, but one of the themes he picks up from the first article is that of getting to know your home waters intimately. It's something I've been think about quite a bit lately too.

A beautiful Cotswold Lake...it's the clear water that keeps me going back for more.

I fish a large lake in the Cotswolds fairly often. It's a tough water that produces few fish. Nine or ten of us fished it hard for a full eight hours just a couple of months ago, and the only fish caught was a tiny jack of about 3lb. There are some quality fish in there though. I've seen Perch to well over 3lb and Both Gary and Myself have managed to lose them. There are some big Pike too, but they're tough to track down. What keeps me going back is that the water is virtually always crystal clear. I just love being able to watch the lure as you work it back to the bank, and there's few more exciting moments in fishing than when you suddenly spot a gang of cruising perch heading across your swim...will you get the lure in front of them in time? will they take it or be spooked by it? I love it. The trouble is I often spend too much time moving from swim to swim desperately trying to spot fish. Trying to track them down. Yet there are only 4 or 5 swims I have ever actually seen or caught perch from. It seems to me that I would be better served sticking with these swims and really getting to know them. There are almost certainly other swims that do hold fish, but until I can really say that I am intimate with the 4 or 5 that I can be sure hold perch at least some of the time, then maybe I should stop wasting my time wandering around. We'll see if it ups my catch rate...only time, concentration and a bit of hard work will tell.