Controversial Chest clearing and a new dawn

Ok so now I am on the mend , its sort all the crap out . First work have been brilliant with me , given me all the support and time I needed and now on a phased return plus away from my old job , yeah I took a pay cut but also a massive cut in stress .

Over the last few months as I have fought this condition , I have taken stock of a lot of things and come to some decisions .

After fishing for 48 years through all disciplines and after a divorce 13 years ago  I relocated to sunny Sleaford and married Lou and its the best thing I have ever done . 9 years ago I decided to so down the route of targeting different species based on time of year and conditions . The only species I refused to target was carp but more of that later .

Now for the chest clearing , firstly lazy and lying anglers , as most who know me will know I despise the weeklies for posting and giving awards to over inflated weights , The lazy anglers are a different breed that come in various forms but these are the ones that I have encountered over the last couple of years , Guys moaning that they have turned up to fish a river and the swims have over grown and they expect them to be cut daily in case they decide they want to fish them , even to the point of wanting most of the vegetation that provides cover on the near margin removing so they can get their rods through and lines not catching , this week I encountered something that melted in to both categories , one lake that I havent actually fished yet on my club ticket gets weeded up bad for 6 weeks or so at this time of year with only 3 fishable swims , now I always carry a weed rake and sometimes use it just to colour the water but yet again the guys who fish it want swims raking , this week 2 of them turned up on the lake I am on , seems they saw a pic of a fish I had caught and even asked the bailiff where I had caught it , when I spoke to them they moaned about the weeded up lake and when I asked if they could rake a swim they said " we aint got time to do that " yet they spent an hour and a half walking round the lake , pure laziness and then we comes on to the lies ,This lake has seen off some good carp anglers yet this guy claimed to have caught 3 during the day when no one else was even seeing them, sounds like jealousy right ? no not from me anybody who catches a carp of this lake earns it , here comes a couple of slam dunks , one of the bailiffs went to see him and he claimed to have just had another fish not 5 minutes previous yet his landing net and unhooking mat was bone dry , add to this he hadnt bothered with pictures of any of the fish , later in the evening another bailiff approached him and again he claimed to have just put a 14lb plus carp back , no pictures and dry landing gear , now this bailiff is always in the case and asked him why his landing net was still dry , the reply was priceless his mate in the next swim had brought his round to net it for him , yeah ok mate and then the slam dunk then why is your unhooking mat dry did you carry the fish to your mates swim to unhook it ? , no answer , nailed you lying cunt !!!!!

The next chest clearer is sponsorship , bait testers and so called bait companies . Over the last 2 or 3 years or maybe more bait companies have been springing up all over and most have seen infighting and splits which created even more companies and of course they needed testers or in most cases customers , now how do you get testers , well to my mind a company does its homework on anglers and invites the ones who can bring something to help the company but no these companies just stick a post on Facebook and ask folk if they wanna be a tester , now comes the sting most of the bait makers charge ridiculous prices for what amount to unproven baits with no track record and give the testers a bit of a discount one little bunny bait guru was charging £11 a kilo for his so called super bait and gave testers a 10% discount , now if they are happy to pay that just so they can wear a little hoodie with theirs and the companies name on it then you are really sad add to this that said test bait is been sold to any fool who wants to buy it again before its even been tested . Some bait companies still run themsleves right and while I have always refused to be involved with anything along these lines I did relent a few months ago but for me it wasnt working out so I left , I recently considered selling my soul to be involved with a terminal tackle company but had a change of heart earlier this week due to something that I read .

Right now for the guides , Now dont get me wrong I can probably name half dozen quality guides off the top of my head who not only offer value for money and will guarantee you will learn loads . Sadly we now have some who think that knowing one swim and have caught in some cases very average fish taking people out and in lot of cases charging well over the odds and doubt passing much info on , now I would never use a guide and its not through any superiority its just that if I want to catch pb or any big fish I want to do it with my own work so it really is my fish , Like I said not for me but there you go if again if people wanna pay these guys then good luck to them ..
If I was to guide I would pick a largest stretch of river and fish as many swims as I could in all conditions and levels and then come the day I would have the knowledge to not only help my client catch a few or the big fish they want in any given situation and explain to them exactly whats we were doing and why .

Finally where am I and where am I going . Well as I said earlier I have never really targeted carp , my reasons were that I didnt like the way the carp scene was going , I am not a runs or easy venue angler , never have been and never will be but the club lake I am on is far from any of those . The carp while not massive are very elusive and seem to break all the rules that normal carp follow but when you catch one they are immaculate and thats all thanks to the bailiffs who police the venue and ensure all fishing have the correct landing , unhooking and weighing equipment and that they use it . I fished it a few times last season as you will have read about in my other blogs , I didnt intend to do it again this year but with my health issues and antics of other river anglers I decided to chill on the lake but now have decided to go all out for these carp and keep updating my targets as I achieve one , I will of course come winter or floods enjoy the odd barbel and chub session but you will read about that in the blogs that will follow .

The final piece of this is only been added with the news that has come out this week and thats the British Record Carp , now if any of you have followed this story will know the captor has received death threats , now that is well out of order , The owner of the fishery has reportedly admitted to a national newspaper that the fish was farmed to its present weight abroad and shipped to the fishery only 2 weeks ago , this morning its been reported that it may now not be accepted as the record and in my mind rightly so , its a shame that angling has come to this where the size of the fish is most important and that alleged well known carp fishery owners now think its acceptable to go to these lengths to get anglers in to fish the lakes , this is by no means limited to carp , as the same has happened to trout and catfish and I suspect it wont be long til the barbel record goes to a stillwater fish . Sad but true . I will from now on refrain from getting involved in posts that in the past I have waded into . One particular angler has taken exception to 2 of my posts this year which were not that bad while posting and liking things far more wrong but I will get away from that .

Finally ( thank god I hear you all sign ) is what was accepted by most for what it was but for 2 anglers , cant call them friends , who took a almost vicious attitude to my posts regarding my new angling mate Trevor , now am sure that some found it wrong but said nothing but its one thing to think its wrong its something else to give me abuse , call me a liar and generally give me grief . Trevor has been out with me on nearly every session since I got him , yes if you call him by what people were then it seems wrong but also we since found a website run by a black lady from the Congo who is now trying to bring them back as she and other people from the Congo and other black nations see them as nothing more that toys , which they and she also commented that the people who were causing the problem were white people who were been over sensitive and finding offence where there shouldnt be any .

Well thats it other than this pic of me and Trevor trying to decide what to try next to fool a carp . In a couple of days when everyone has had time to read this and scream at me I will put a proper fishing blog up

Another long overdue update

Well my plans to update more regular has come unstuck . Its been a busy few weeks , not just fishing sadly but as I type this things are finally looking up and stablising .

As some will know I have been off work due to mental illness for 7 months and have been given counseling and in the last 2 weeks returned part time to work on phased return . Its going ok so far and have been told that my hours are in my hands and not to try and do more than I am comfortable with.

Prior to returning to work and on my return from my annual holiday in Newquay my mother was taken ill in the nursing home and sadly passed away with me and Lou at her side . It should have knocked me back but at the moment I am still waiting to grieve despite having to make all the arrangements with Lou's help with the funeral been held in my home town of Sheffield .

Now to the fishing I had a planned float session but it didnt happen due to the monsoon that came but did manage a few hours into dark with a lead rod and a new bait with a good result , I had 5 chub between 3lb and 4lb 4oz which is pictured below and 3 barbel which went 8lb 3oz , 8lb 15oz and first double of season at 10lb 9oz

The next session was a mix of good and bad , I was fishing the middle trent while Lou fished the lake behind me . Unfortunately Lou blanked despite having several bites but no contact with fish , not sure what happened but decided to look at the rigs before her next session . Me well first night was quiet as was building the swim but luckily with what followed I managed this 8lb 12oz barbel .

The second night that I thought would be better fell apart just around tea time when the circus on the opposite bank started to appear . In the end there was 5 bivvies , a shower tent, gazebo and of course the bbq all in a double swim , just on dark I knew my chances were ruined as they started a generator up and a flood light lit up the entire far bank and also most of the river , this stayed on til 6am and needless to say I and no one else had a sign of a fish . This was the start of what will come later .

Well my next session was when Lou told me to go fishing for a few hours and relax from all the funeral stuff so rather than drag all the gear I decided to just take heavy stick rod and half gallon of maggots , found the Tidal very low and had to drive a fair way to find a swim that didnt involve wading through loads of mud to reach river . Well after 3 hours of running stick through I finished with around 90 fish mostly roach to the 1lb one pictured all arty below and dace , also had 2 nice perch and couple of bleak , now the set up I was using has landed carp to 16lb and barbel to 8lb 6oz but yesterday I hooked something that went on an initial 20 yard run and then stopped , started bringing it back upstream and it just stopped dead and then shot another 30 yards down stream , this went on for a around 15 minutes where I would gain 10 yards then lose 20 in the end the fish just hit the bottom and wouldnt shift until the hooklink wore through and it was gone , a while later what looked like a cat fish swirled in the margin so whether thats what I had hooked god knows but it was 3 maggots on a 14

Again my next session was a relax on river so nipped off to tidal and stuck a couple of rods out , river was running off all afternoon and was bit low , had one rod with boilie on that never had a sign and other started with fake corn over a bit of hemp and pigeon conditioner through feeder plugged with damp pellet , after 2 hours of nothing decided to switch corn to a krill dumb bell and just use pellet in feeder within half hour had single bleep then a screamer on it and landed this feisty 7lber , stayed til midnight when the tide really rushed in and had 3 quick bream , interesting thing was that about an hour in to dark there was alot of fish crashing so may need to do a full night and see what happens

Well next was 48 hours on the lake and had this 11lb 8oz common and a bream around 5lb but star of the weekend was my wife Louise Beal who did the business with this 8lb 8oz common carp unfortunately she wasnt confident enough to hold it just yet but it was a bit lively after a couple of hours in the sack , she also added bream of 4lb 14oz and 4lb 8oz

On this session while setting the camera up Dizzy decided to get in on the act and wanted to know if I had a ghost carp 

Just had 2 nights on the Trent but not the 2 I envisaged , Had a look at tidal and swims we fancied for some float fishing were a little to dangerous to get down to so after a drive around we settled on a club water on the middle , starting on the float I had 2 nice roach first 2 run downs then couldnt get through perch , after about an hour a pike about 10lb went airborne after a perch I had on and that killed the swim ,  Out went the lead rods and just on dark the maggot rod produced and eel of about 2 and a half pound that at one point grabbed my finger . Went boilies on both rods for the night one produced a roach of about 12oz and all was quiet til 2am when the other rod took on a life of its own and resulted in a fin perfect barbel of 6lb 11oz , I have decided anything other than a double is just piced on the mat . 

After a conflab the following morning a move was on and we finished up back on the tidal is some new swims with the theory that we wont learn owt by fishing the known areas , well the maggot was getting nailed by dace after dace which would have been nice but not on 7lb mainline and size 12 hook with 6 maggots on . On dark and eel showed up on maggot only about 1lb , so boilie on both rods . Nothing happened til just after 2am again when the downstream rod gave a single bleep then the upstream rod over the space of 10 minutes gave either 1 or 2 bleeps every couple of minutes , out to investigate expecting a bream but found the line right downstream and quite heavy , it soon became apparent that it was a barbel as it plodded and thumped , after 5 minutes the fish came up in front of me and went nuts , into the net it went and on lifting it I discovered it had gone round the other rod and so had get that line clear before taking up to the mat , a superb fish of 10lb 15oz , now putting them back is always a challenge but this one took it to a new level , after it seemed to have fully recovered it went on its side , holding its tail again it tried to kick to let it go and again on its side but this time as I went to grab it , it broke free and splashed me and came up on its side just below me , now normally I have the net with me but couldnt manage net and sling so there was only thing for it I shot down the margin and just got hold of it and this time off it went the fact that I was now stood knee deep in the trent in a pair of shorts with only wellies on was immaterial , fish was safely returned and so what if I had 2 wellies full of water . I got back in bed and that was the last action of a very eventful 48 hours 

Thats the last session I will report on for now as my last session was something very special and also a sign of things to come .