Category: fishing

The thorney weir social

Well this was meant to be the post on the social however as no one else turned up this is the limit of the post. If you are going to say you will be somewhere – be there. Will put together a longer post when I am back in front of a pc.

OK now back in front of a PC, well the weekend was a nice relaxing weekend not interrupted by any carp action. One of the bailiffs wander around to check tickets and indicated that some people around the lake were having a few out. To the best of my knowledge there were at least 2 twenties out and 10+ doubles. My only fish was a 9-8lb tench which come to think of it was probably a PB so should have been weighed and photographed.
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Anglers Paradise Summer 2010

Anglers Paradise, what more can be said that has not been already ? the only venue that has starred in match fishing programs, specimen carp programs and in a plethora of publications. The place is legendary, and as my wife wanted to go down to Cornwall to see The Eden Project, I thought I would combine a few days down there. The lake complex is located near Halwill Junction in Devon and your TomTom will direct you to the entrance gate.
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Archer Lake Social

As you know I am linked to Carp-Forums and as part of that link I was invited to a a social in the frozen wasts that are the area of the UK above Watford… other wise known as “oooop North” . With all inoculations in place and with a suitable supply of currency with which to impress the natives ( coloured beads, BIC biro’s and disposable lighters) I set off. After going through passport control on the outskirts of London…. enough with this frivolity 🙂

Anyway The lake was easy to fnd and a mere 2 hrs after leaving my house I was in the wilds of up north which was as kind of like the south but the people were friendlier.I was soon ensconced in a swim and set up ready for the 3 days of hard fishing that lay before me. I was told to look for gravel patches and so stick and a few boillies were dispatched on to a patch in the middle and 2kg’s of slimy pigeon conditioner was dispatched on to a margin spot. To cut a long story short apart from a tench and several screaming takes that came to nothing ( which as put down to the massive eels that the lake contains) as well as some pike attacking the fry with such force I managed to get splashed… the weekend was quite from an angling perspective.
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The future of spodding is here and it is Spomb shaped !

Spodding is a chore that few of us enjoy, it can be back breaking messy work and one messed up cast can send every carp in the vicinity scurrying for the hills as your spod sends up a great gout of water as it slams into the surface. Imagine if I told you that there was another way… a way in which spodding can suddenly become easier, mess messy and a hell of a lot less back breaking ?

Well there is such a way.. enter the SPOMB

What is it ? well unlike a traditional spod, the design of which has not changed for several years it is not just a rocket shaped design with an open back but a fully enclosed bait delivery capsule. This has several massive advantages,

  • You don’t need to have groundbait / mud handy to pack the back of the spod
  • You can bait up with pure hemp / small particle with out having to clean it off your back / head
  • it flies like an arrow
  • It retrieves over the surface skipping like a coot

The last point is what steals it for me, my biggest bug bear with spodding is the retrieve. No matter which spod you use it is like you are trying to pull ( in effect) a small parachute back through the water towards you. This is what really wears me down and is one of the reasons I was considering buying a bait boat. However with the spomb this is now a thing of the past.
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In Praise of Delkim – Again

Some of you may have remembered my post on the Delkim Standard Plus alarms that I posted a while ago and from this you probably gathered that I liked my delks.. well nothing has changed but I now have another reason to like them. Their customer service. A while ago I managed to break one of my delkim hangers, massive run, line got tangled and the hanger took the brunt of the strike. It wasn’t a happy delkim hanger..

So I contacted Delkim expecting to be given the 3rd degree, expecting to be asked for a reciept to prove it was in warranty. Well I wasn’t which was lucky as the best I can remember was that I bought the hanger from a shop at the Zwolle carp show in Holland sometime earlier this year. Anyway after mailing them I was told to complete the RMA form here and post it back to them. This I did and got a mail telling me that it would take 10 working days to resolve the issue and that payment may be due. Well after 6 working days I am not the proud owner of a fixed ( well it looks brand new) delkim hanger.

Well done Delkim, often you hear horror stories about bad customer service, well this is not one of them. Superb product and backed up by a good solid service department and they even have online integration of the repairs process.

Why cant other manufacturers be like this ? don’t tell me to go back to the shop ( I am talking about <redacted>, yes you..) as I may not even remember which one it was and after a week I pretty much never have the receipt any way ( hey I am a man) I want to go back to the manufacturer and cut out the middle man.

Education not condemnation

Education not condemnation – the motto of ECHO, the English Carp Heritage Organization. Recently I have found myself fishing several semi public waters and have had a plethora of anglers of differing abilities and nationalities, from English to Polish and even Chinese. It would be easy to ignore them or to just mutter darkly under my breath when you see them fishing without an unhooking mat, or for pike when it is banned will the 1st of October ( not that I personally agree with this but rules are rules). However the approach that I have taken is one of friendly advice. Confrontation will get you nowhere however a friendly chat and then a discussions about the merits of unhooking mats and rod licenses in my cases at least seemed to have worked. In many cases some of these anglers do not know what they are doing is wrong and when it is pointed out to them ( well the 3 I have spoken to this week) it seems that they do take it on board.
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how many 20s on the surface

Why is it that the best places to fish are out of bounds ? I present to you this video evidence of a lake near me that is verboten to fish…. that is packed with doubles and 20’s. If you look carefully you will see an easy low 30 also make an appearance and you could virtually catch them by hand.. oh well the lake will just have to serve as a source of amusement as I am not going to risk fishing it and I am 100% confident that no one else fishes it either. Until  hell freezes over I have to leave you with a video – Enjoy !

Now doesnt that make you want to break out the surface gear ?

Multi rig with a Solar Spiker

As I described here, and here, I dislike tying popup’s on to rig rigs for d-rigs. It is fiddly and really wastes valuable time. Anyway since I discovered Solar Spikers I have not looked back. In a recent post I showed the Multi rig and for some reason I tied it with a rig ring… well here is a brief update showing a finished rig tied with a solar spiker. Quick easy and effective

Here is the rig with no bait to show how it all goes together


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Flyfishing Ruislip Lido

You know when there are lakes right on your door step that you never fish ? you know those ones that you look back at years later and think “damn” wish I had fished that one – could have done as well…. Conningbrook was like that for me in my youth, I had the ticket, I lived right round the corner and yet it never appealed despite the last 3 british record carp coming out of there ( albeit the same fish – Twotone) . Well I live around the corner from Ruislip Lido and as it was so close I decided to give it a go. My wife wanted to go for a walk as the summer evening was glorious with all of the birds, squirrels and insects in full bloom so I suggested that I should bring a rod…. just in case 🙂

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Now you have no excuse not to be able to charge your mobile whilst fishing

Hot from PopSci.com comes the ‘Bat Hook“

Basically you sling the device above over a handy power line and voila, electricity flows. The hook slips over the line and the razor blade makes contact with the copper line underneath ( then again power lines are not shielded so it is probably to scrape through crud), one imagines that there is a step down converter in the package somewhere else you will feel a slight “buzz” the 1st time you use it…. though only for a tenth of a second before you become a human light bulb.

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