Resurrection

Well hello all , before I explain why this has not been updated for a while I will give a final tally for the period mid october til seasons end , it consisted of 48 chub to 5lb 15oz and 27 barbel including 21 doubles to 11lb 11oz , the vast majority came to my own cheese paste recipe , which a few people have messaged me asking for but it's only been given to one person and that was a birthday present .

Right here we go , its been 7 months since the last update and to be honest up to a couple of weeks ago when 2 or 3 people enquired asking why there had been no update . I was going to scrap it .

WHY ? Well I did something that I never normally do and let someone get to me to the point that I just didnt wanna know .

I make no apologies for naming the person responsible , he is a guy named RAY OLDFIELD , who is a member of the same club . Now as most folk know I have had some mental health problems last year and this guy who had I given loads of advice on fishing a certain section of the Trent , decided to make 3 or 4 insulting comments about my intelligence on the clubs facebook page , which the admin let go but when I told him that if he approached me on the bank then he would be sorry , I received a pm from one of the admin telling I was in danger of been banned .

A couple of months later when I had been catching really well and as requested by the clubs committee I was posting my catches on the facebook page , unbeknown to me Mr Oldfield had blocked me , I then received a message from a friend saying he couldnt believe I had not responded to Mr Oldfield's latest post , I explained I hadnt seen it as it was obvious he had blocked me and asked the friend to screenshot it and send it to me . I was raging when I read it .

This was a comment during an exchange with my mate Jon Preen

" I have only ever had an issue with TWO people on here ........... you and your mate ....... basically for the same reasons .......................... both posting self promoting rubbish ................ and if you think its only me who thinks that ........................... wake up mate theres plenty ............. just that its me who speaks up "


The first thing I did was post a new thread saying that I would no longer be posting my catches or offering help and advice online but only face to face after had met them . Within 5 minutes the post was pulled , when I asked why , I was told it was because it was not fishing related and it would give new members a bad impression of the club , When I questioned why Oldfield's post had been allowed to stay , the answer was that he had removed it and apologised to the committee , I pointed out that it had been on 4 hours and he had not offered me or Jon an apology , not that I would have accepted it . Now I have had problems with certain members of the old committee in the past but this stank so I decided to leave the facebook page . Obviously I received numerous messages of support from those who know me well and told me all the comments made by this sad little man were out of jealousy , but unfortunately as I still have a few issues so the blog stopped .

So where am I now , well I was convinced to rejoin the club facebook group , unfortunately my request was declined and after a few pm's to admin and the chairman , I was told why and at the time just let it go but then last week I was allowed back on , so its the start of a new beginning so here we go.

To catch up on 7 months of fishing would take too long so here is a brief catch up . I spent the first few weeks of the close season eeling with plenty caught but the biggest was only 2lb 7oz .

Carrying on from my decision to spend all my time carping including weather permitting even during the winter , sadly to date the lake has fished harder than normal resulting in just 3 mirrors to 19lb 2oz and 3 commons to 14lb 8oz plus one lost , never the less I am thoroughly enjoying it .

I was also guested onto a huge gravel pit with the chance of upping my bream pb but just fell short by 2oz with this 11lb 8oz specimen

I have left the river until now for 2 reasons . firstly my urge to catch barbel has ebbed away and secondly and most importantly was antics of the anglers on the opposite bank ruining it .

I have also made changes to the groups I am have been a member of for some time , firstly I have left the Barbel Society for no other reason than I have stopped fishing for them , secondly I have left the Tenchfishers the reasons for this is that I feel there is now a 2 tier membership , where some are seen as superior to others but my main reason is that there is a growing number of extremely 2 faced members , who in public they come across as nice folk but are nothing short of shithouses .

The other changes have been on some of my rods , as many of you will know from my earlier posts I have been switching all my rods to Free Spirit , well going back even further some of you will remember I had an issue with a certain companies tench rod and was very unhappy with them , well it failed again and I decided enough was enough and I invested in a Free Spirit tench float special to date I have not managed a tench on it yet but have had numerous bream to 8lb 6oz on it plus plenty of roach to 12oz , next spring I have been put onto a lake that produces alot of tench to float tactics in the 6-7lb range .Also at this point i decided to sell my 2 avon specials made by the same company as the problem rod and have so far only replaced one this time with a Free Spirit special at 12ft and 1.5tc , which was given its first outing a couple of weeks ago and managed to land a chub of 4lb 7.5oz unfortunately I had forgot my camera and had to make do with this picture using my mobile .

My 2nd outing was supposed to be after chub and roach , to this end I started fishing using hemp and pigeon conditioner in a small block end feeder with sweetcorn on a size 14 hook.

After 2 hours no roach or chub had showed up but then again neither had anything else but that changed in the blink of an eye when the rod hooped over and on my light chub gear the fight was intense but finally a 9lb 3oz barbel slipped in to the net .

!0 minutes after return the barbel and the rod went again and in to another fight with what was obviously another barbel and this 9lb 13oz specimen joined me for a pic .

At this point I decided both a move and change of tactic was called for , I settled into another swim and switched to cheese paste , the chub decided to play hard to get and after trying a few tweaks I finally managed one battered sample of 3lb 8oz .

Well we are now up to date so what are my plans my plans for the coming weeks , well during the day and leading into dark I will be roach and chub fishing and through the night I will be carping but on the river .

There is one final thing thats happened and thats 3 weeks ago I wrote my Red Pat van off and have now replaced it with a white one .

Well sorry for the ramble and chest clearing but hopefully things will return to normal next time .

Till then tight lines and I will leave you with this sunrise from last week .

Lovely chubbly

Well a few sessions and few fish to catch up with . first session was between xmas and new year . Lou wanted to catch a small fish , so sorted my old telesnatcher out and we went off to local lake after 3 hours and Lou getting chilly she had caught 3 roach around 4 - 6oz and lost what I think was a decent perch all on bread punch . Now it was my turn , Lou went home and I shot off to the Trent for a couple of hours , river was normal level and clear I only managed 1 bite ( which was to become a recurring theme ) but made no mistake with this 4lb 2oz chub .

A couple of days later Lou arranged to meet her mate for lunch , so I took the opportunity to sneak off for a couple of hours . After missing a couple of bites on cheesepaste I made a couple of minor adjustments and snared the next one resulting in this 4lb 13oz chub but yet again that was it .

A short trip in early January produced not a sniff on a river carrying 3 feet of flood water I would have bet on a barbel , A week later and back again , plan was to fish a couple of hours into dark but to stay overnight under brolly , the wind was shocking and swung everywhere and brought rain with it , I had to reposition brolly 3 or 4 times and ended up using van to aid as a wind break .

Mid afternoon and rod hoops over and battle commences with a january double figure barbel of 10lb 1oz

A while later and a couple of bangs on the tip and I added this 3lb 4oz chub .

I had a bite to eat and relaxed for a couple of hours and suddenly rod was off again and a 9lb 9oz barbel was netted , shortly after and the last fish of the session turned up in the shape of barbel no3 weighing 9lb 7oz

Well today aint gone to plan . Was slightly later leaving home , called at local Mcd's for breakfast but shut for maintenance so headed to Newark and looked everyone else had . Got to lake in time to help one of lads sort a fallen tree out . Go round to see another mate who had managed to get boiling water on his hand , out with first aid kit and germalene on it . Off to fancied river swim it was up about 2 foot and bits of dead weed coming through , get chatting to another guy . Hour later set off to swim just as someone else drops in . 2nd choice swim taken so in to 3rd choice got one rod around 1pm and within 10 mins had a chub do the i will leave you playing this tree branch trick . At 5pm upstream rod takes off and in the 6 or 7 steps it took me to get to the rod 30 yards of line gone , what followed was the hardest fight off any fish I have ever had , at one point it snagged my lead in an overhanging tree and I ended up perch precariously on margin of swollen river trying to free it and luckily it pinged off , the fight continued and I finally netted a 10.13 barbel after 20 minute fight !!!! I added a 7.14 , 6.02 and one around 5 .Guess the debris coming down 
put the chub off 

My next session was my 2nd blank of the year and another 1 bite day , unfortunately I was taking a pee , a bit like the fish that picked that exact moment to ram the tip round !!!!.

The bite while peeing happened again the next session and it was made worse by the fact that the way the tip shot round the fish had to be on but it sprang back nearly as quick , thinking fish may have another go I left rod out for another 10 mins then wound in to find the hooklink had broke on my figure of 8 loop . Bearing in mind the 1 bite situation things didnt look good but 2 chub in half an hour saved the blank , fish of 2lb 11oz and 3lb 10oz.

February arrived and getting to river and finding it was up and rising it yet again became a barbel or nothing looking session . First fish I connected went mental and gave me a very hard tussle but turned out to be this baby of 5lb 7oz

With half an hour of session remaining my february double turned up in the shape of this pristine 10lb 2oz fish .

With the weather on the turn and the river dropping , I arrived to find ice in the margins and a cold foggy morning , I also had this buzzard for company .

This again turned into a 1 bite day and came 2nd cast and another pristine chub of 2lb 14oz.

The last session for this blog was a couple of days ago and forecast was for a high of zero degrees and an easterly wind chilling it to around minus 4 . I sat through rain , sleet , hail and snow all for 1 bite an hour before I had to leave , luckily I hooked and landed what looked like it could be a low 4lber but turned out to be empty and came in at 3lb 13oz .

Well thats it for now , the river season dont have too long left and I had planned to have a go for a big tidal barbel but the chub are about and conditions are right so its lovely chubbly to the end now . Next season I have decided to make a massive change in the species groups I am in , I will be leaving the 2 I am currently in and have applied to join the Chub Study Group , as I write this I have been informed they are full but have done an introductory letter to be printed in their next magazine to see how feelings are about me been allowed in .

Well thats all for this ramble . Tight lines to you all