Tales From The Towpath

Despite a bright sunny day (really), we had enough of a downpour last night to waterlog the pitch and cancel today's cricket. Having failed to make decent alternative plans beforehand, I couldn't really make up my mind where to go, so it was back to the canal for a few hours this afternoon, and the swim I'd spent so much time clearing and making fishable.

The tench failed to show and may well be spawning now, though there were no visible signs. I always consider them to be one of the four bonus fish species that can be realistically expected, with pike, bream and hybrids being the others. Roach, rudd and perch are plentiful, with eels and carp exceptionally rare except in Tiverton. Having had such trouble with pike the other day, I made sure I brought along a couple of traces and some unhooking tools today. The pike didn't disappoint either, though they resisted the flashy captures of numerous rudd for a couple of hours before wreaking havoc. I was bitten off by the first pike which grabbed a rudd almost before I had hooked it, so quickly assembled a single barbless treble on a wire trace, and flipped out a small rudd which was taken in seconds. That pike came off, as did a smaller one (same rudd) about five minutes later. I eventually had another bite as I was packing away the rest of my gear, and landed a jack of around 5lb.

Before all that commotion I was pleasantly surprised to land four skimmer bream and four little roach/bream hybrids. I never take these species for granted so I don't mind how small they are when fishing this canal. Truth be told, I had perch, roach and rudd bigger than all but two of the skimmers, which were around a pound, but slipped all the other species straight back. I also love how the clear water of this canal makes all species of fish darker in colour.

Above all, what a relief to put a dry rod bag in my car at the end of the day!

In my last blog post I touched on canal hybrids and how I always consider them to be a bonus whatever their size. What I didn't mention was that they actually do grow to a very decent size in the Grand Western. It's funny how there are generally accepted weights for most species whereby we define them as "specimen"; a 2lb roach, 20lb pike, and so on. Well, I wonder, what is a specimen hybrid?

Recently - ready for the new season in fact - I've been setting myself some 'specimen' targets of my own. Bearing in mind the waters that I fish are generally in Devon and into West Somerset, and almost exclusively on natural venues, my targets might not be specimens everywhere, but they will certainly provide enough of a challenge for me. I set my target for a roach/bream hybrid at 3lb, and today, after work, I was lucky enough to catch one of that exact weight.

I've had a couple of bigger ones before. A 3lb 11oz fish on New Year's Day this year being my personal best, but big hybrids are so rare that I don't see a four pounder as a very attainable target, so three pound it is. I just didn't expect to get one so soon. They're not easily targeted and usually turn up whilst bream or tench fishing, as was the case today. Just aswell, as the tench continue to frustrate, and even though I saw a few swimming about today, I could only persuade one to take my hookbait.

The evening started with a dozen or so boldly coloured perch on worms fished just over a marginal weedbed, and finished with a modest bream on corn. The successful bait for the big hybrid was a cocktail of sweetcorn and red maggots, with the pole being the perfect tool for feeding and presenting baits between gaps in the weed.

I turned up at the canal after work this evening to find someone in the very swim I had my heart set on. The very swim I had been thinking about fishing all day. To say I was gutted would be an understatement - work always passes twice as slowly when I have the anticipation of fishing afterwards. I took a walk past the offending gent, who had no landing net and appeared to be legering, although his line rest slack on the surface of the water between his rod and hookbait (not the most effective form of bite indication). I carried on and had a look at a few other familiar spots. None looked too inviting though. The bankside vegetation had been strimmed where it had previously been around four feet high. Convenient for the angler admittedly, but having to hack out a swim with a bankstick is all part of the charm of this canal for me, and of course all the cuttings were now strewn across the surface of the water.

The angler in my first-choice swim had yet to catch when I passed him again on my way back to the car, although he said that his son, who was about twenty yards away, had landed a few perch. Then, without the slightest bit of prompting from me, he mentioned that he had seen me fishing the swim before, and urged, "go and get your gear and I'll move up there with my son". This was to turn out to be an incredible bit of fortune.

I'm usually a bit wary about jumping into a swim that has been vacated by another angler as fish can be easily spooked, but this chap didn't look like the sort to make too many casts, or bother with trivialities such as loosefeeding! He was willing me to catch something decent to show his son, but all I could manage whilst he was there were a few perch (which his son said "we usually give those to Milky" of), and a lost pike, which at least did provide some entertainment for a minute or two.

It can't have been longer than about fifteen minutes after he left when I hooked and landed something that surely would have impressed his son, and I dare say would have been too large for the hungry Milky to devour; a bronze bream, weighing 6lb 11oz. I was now joined by my good friend Jason, who wasn't fishing, but I'm sure was itching to after seeing that fish on the bank. There was a predictable lull in activity after that, but just before Jason was about to leave I hooked another one, which turned and flashed near the bottom at thirteen metres. "That's a proper one!" I exclaimed to Jase on seeing it, so imagine my horror when all of a sudden it put on a spurt and then launched itself clear of the water across the canal! To be honest, it didn't have much fight left in it after those acrobatics, but it was still nervewracking stuff every time the fish wallowed or shook its head thereafter. Bundling it in the net wasn't easy either. As Jase said, as we lifted the net: "I don't suppose there's many bigger than that out there mate." I don't suppose there was either. We weighed her, a monstrously long, spawned out canal bream of 8lb 2oz. From such a small, shallow canal too, absolutely remarkable.

The jumping bream incident isn't an entirely new one, as it's not an uncommon phenomenom on commercials where it has happened to me, and others, on a number of occasions, but this is a first for me on the Grand Western, or any other canal for that matter. My understanding is that the initial stock of bream into the canal was made sometime in the 1960s when around twenty fish were transferred from the River Exe. Now this explains a couple of things to me. Firstly, the Exe produces double-figure bream so these fish are made from good stock, and secondly, that my eight-pounders ancestors obviously spent far too much time watching the annual run of salmon making their way up river and picked up a few of their habits!

This season has started excellently for me, even though I have yet to get further afield than the local canal, but when I think of catches made since the start of the year, a few spring to mind. Back in March I had my best catch of bream ever, from Chard Reservoir - 27 fish for 108lb - and although I didn't have as many today, I would have to put this session right up there with that one, as I had a new personal best, it was a catch made from a canal, and the average size of bream was even better than what I was fortunate enough to catch at Chard. I had six bream by the end of the evening, weighing (in order), 6lb 11oz, 8lb 2oz, 4lb 10oz, 6lb 8oz, 4b 5oz, and 4lb 9oz, for a combined total weight of 34lb 13oz. I caught the biggest one on a worm and caster cocktail, with the others coming on either worm or corn. They were all slipped back carefully with no fussing or worrying about a combined catch photograph, which sometimes just isn't really all that important.

The River Parrett at Oath has been one of my favourite venues ever since I first fished it with my dad four years ago. We caught plenty of fishfrom this deep, sluggish drain - mostly tiny silver bream and roach - but it looked perfect for bream of the common variety. I did catch a couple of bonus fish in the shape of two common carp of around 4lb, and I caught two more when we went back aswell. Apparently the river was polluted several times around about the time we first visited, and it has been noticeable how the river, and the fish in it, have changed and progressed over the past few seasons.

Today it looked the best it has ever looked with the lily pads in particular abundance. It is truly in the middle of nowhere and there are miles of bank to go at, although it is not all easily accessible, with high banks, bankside erosion by cattle, and vegetation limiting the number of swims. The banks are uneven and grassy too, making the long walk to our chosen swims arduous to say the least, but it was worth it to fish this gorgeous double bend:

It wasn't as prolific today as it has been in the past but as ever the river provided unpredictable variety. I caught roach, silver bream, rudd, chub, perch and a 12oz common bream, with my dad having all of those and the addition of a bootlace eel and gudgeon. I also lost a small pike which grabbed a chublet on the way in, and when you add in dace and carp, which have both been caught during our past visits, that's at least eleven species, plus hybrids, and if there isn't a tench in amongst those pads I'll be amazed.

Dad's catch of fish came on the feeder, and included three decent skimmers, whilst I employed the pole for more, smaller, fish. I did hook and lose one very big fish which was immovable for about a minute and that's the problem with balancing tackle here as the majority of fish are 1-2oz, but there is the odd unit swimming around, and bream in particular are difficult to bring to the surface through twelve feet of moving water when using small hooks. Last time here, two years ago, I had several bream to 2½lb in a cracking net, but I lost more than I landed. Frustrating fishing.

And I caught this. A bloody signal crayfish on the Somerset Levels. I had no idea they were this far west.

As I type this it's chucking it down outside. Cricket will be cancelled, but can't be called off before eleven o'clock. I have bait, because I anticipated this, but I wont be leaving the house any time soon. If there is such thing as a fair-weather fisherman then I am not it - I hate bright, sunny days, for they are rubbish for the species and venues that I usually target - but this weather is too foul for even me to venture out in.

The local radio is on and there are flood alerts throughout Devon, particularly bad in the South Hams. Before the rivers burst their banks yesterday, I managed to get out for a couple of hours, running an Avon float down a narrow, pacey glide on the River Culm. I don't fish the Culm nearly enough. It is a beautiful little river but it's also very moody and unpredictable, and not always in a good way.

Yesterday it was good though, because I had scores of dace, a handful of diddy chub, a perch, a roach, several brown trout, and - a first for me - a rainbow trout from a river. Previously, the only rainbow trout I have ever caught came from a fishery in Essex. My club at the time, Waverley AS, had been asked to remove the roach from the largest of their lakes, and transfer them to another lake on the same fishery. Those trout were mostly around 3lb, and this one wasn't anywhere near as big as those - perhaps 12oz - but they were ridiculously easy to catch. For some reason I can remember the exact number I had on the first day we fished there, and it must have been at least ten years ago. Seventeen. Seventeen trout on waggler and maggot. I think I only had about 6lb of roach.

So this capture was worth far more to me. Not that it required any great skill, but what a surprise to see a flash of pink below the surface rather than golden brown or the shimmering silver of a dace. Trout fall off all too easily too, what with their bony mouths, so it was such a relief that I landed the rainbow and got to have a proper look at it, unlike three or four brown trout which threw the hook, before and after this one.

I almost ended up on a commercial fishery this morning after a succession of setbacks whilst trying to make it to Exeter Canal for the first time since March. Obviously rivers were out of the question for today's trip after all the rain yesterday, but unfortunately the accesses to the two most fancied areas of the canal were completely flooded too. This is the first one I tried, on the way to Turf Lock. As you can see, it was completely impassable:

That involved reversing for half a mile over speed bumps on a narrow lane, and I had to do it all over again when I tried to get to the Lime Kilns. With sun forecast for much of the day I didn't really fancy that the Grand Western Canal would fish, and was contemplating fishing Upton Lakes closer to home. In the end I brought up the Exeter & District Angling Club website on my iphone (thank God for smartphones with internet and 3G signal), and located another access point by the Swingbridge.

I parked up and took a walk along this stretch. It was very weedy and there were not many areas where you could set up easily. I did stumble across one opening where there even appeared to be some fish as a cluster of bubbles hit the surface. This was reasonably close to a pylon, so I weighed it up for a few minutes before deciding to give the swim a go. I paced the overhead cables at around 25 yards away on my side of the canal, although the pylon was closer than that on the opposite bank, crossing the water as it did diagonally. It was a very tall structure though and on such a sunny day I decided that it would be safe to fish. Perhaps an overreaction to be so concerned, but then I guess you can never be too careful, especially when waving up to thirteen metres of pole in the air.

It was then a case of raking the swim and making a large enough clearing to not only present a bait and land fish, but also allow plenty of room for a keepnet. So it was that all these things combined to mean that my first cast was made at twenty past nine, after I had woken up at 5:30 and left home a short while after that.

My primary concern was that, having raked the swim so comprehensively for the best part of three-quarters-of-an-hour, that any bream in the area may have been spooked by the commotion. I've not found them to respond very well to the rake on the Grand Western, but then it is far shallower than the Exeter Canal.

Although I landed three tench on pretty light gear last time I fished this canal, there was much less weed around, and I anticipated that the fish would be far more powerful this time of year than they had been back then. It may seem crude stuff, and certainly not conventional pole fishing for a canal, but my rig today comprised of a 0.18mm hooklength (about 7lb) to a size 12 Kamasan B920 hook. It has long been an issue for me, finding a reliable bream hook, as they tend to come off far too often, but since trying this pattern I have barely lost a fish. It is also very, very strong, and I don't think that any tench, however big, would be able to straighten one. Of course with any strong hook there is the conundrum of added weight, as a heavy hook means less natural bait presentation and a hookbait more difficult for fish to pick up. Far more important for tench than bream, but then there is no point hooking a specimen fish just to lose it by having gear that is insufficient, so I am putting my trust in this size and pattern of hook until and if ever I find something better.

I started on three red maggots and I also hook these differently when using a large, heavy hook, obscuring most of it by threading the first maggot up the shank. If you squeeze the maggot and do this carefully, then as long as your hook point is sharp then you should be able to do this without damaging the grub. Expecting lengthy waits for bites, I decided to use a pole rest for the first time in ages. I didn't actually have to wait long as I had a quality 8oz roach after about five minutes. Well if bait presentation is good enough for roach then it's usually good enough for bream, and a further ten minute wait saw me latch into my second fish on my second put in, this time a dark old slab of 5lb 10oz, my first proper bream from this canal. Other than perch and rudd, those were my last fish on maggots. I changed to worm and caster and had two immediate bites, bringing a couple of 2-3lb tench, before things slowed up and the sun got hotter, higher and brighter.

During this time I noticed a rudd scooting about just under the surface, so I lifted my rig out of the water and made an effort to catch it by dapping the maggots on the surface. It was obviously in feeding mood as it made several attempts at grabbing them before eventually getting hold. It turned out to be - as I had suspected - a golden rudd.

I've been thinking a bit about this capture and it has hardened my resolve to try and concentrate solely on natural waters this season. A fish like this is very rare from a canal and much unappreciated where it is a bait-snatcher in commercial waters. What with the rainbow trout from the River Culm the other day, it has been a weekend of fluke catches. I'm starting to think that I should perhaps see how many species I can catch from rivers and canals this year. The next fish to show was a first for the season aswell, an eel, and the biggest one I have had for some time, weighing around 1¾lb.

In spite of overhead conditions that were not ideal, I continued to get bites on the worm, ending up with another tench and a further four bream, in between whiles picking up a few rudd on the whip. Eventually the bream stopped feeding and there was a period of inactivity lasting almost two hours as I waited for some cloud cover. The bubbles returned but the bites never, until a change to corn saw me latch into a strong fish which weeded me and came off, no doubt a decent tench. I thought I had found what they wanted and would get a few bites on the corn after that, but it wasn't to be. I packed up more than a little frustrated that there were clearly more feeding fish in my swim that I couldn't catch, but ultimately very satisfied.

Three tench and five bream. The bream weighed 5lb 10oz, 5lb 7oz, 5lb 13oz, 5lb 3oz and 5lb 8oz. I weigh them as I catch them to avoid bad handling at the end of the day.

As an aside, one of the tench had a very nasty wound on both flanks, definitely not caused by a pike, and I would suspect either inflicted by a cormorant or possibly even an otter? There are certainly a number of cormorants that fish in the area.

There is more to canal breaming than just squats and skimmers. I grew up mostly fishing the Grand Union Canal, where a 2lb bream was a big one and a single red maggot, or double pinkie, was considered to be a hookbait that you put on in search of bonus fish. The Exeter Canal, and Grand Western Canal - both in Devon - are a world away from the methods we used to practice on the Grand Union around Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire.

As an example, I had to scale down in order to get bites today, but I was still using a 0.14mm hooklength to size 14 B520 and number 10-12 hollow elastic, and this is for bream. Big bream though; I had them to 6lb 3oz today, along with a tench of 4lb 8oz and a big eel weighing 2lb 5oz.

You may have seen on television, or read about, handling eels and how to keep them calm, and I can tell you that running a hand along the flank of the eel really does work. Today was the first time I have ever tried it and I was amazed how docile the eel became, and it didn't wake up again until I returned it to the water, where it swam off strongly.

I didn't start fishing until 1:30 this afternoon as the original plan for today was to go to Taunton to watch the touring South Africans warm up in a two-day game against Somerset, but with the risk of spending much of the day looking at covers, I decided against it. As I arrived at the canal, an enormous ship was making its way past me and the canal bed had been churned up leaving the colour of the water similar to that of the tidal River Exe that runs parrallel.

I fished the same swim again, as the accesses I mentioned in my previous post are still flooded, but I still chucked the rake through a few times to clear the weed which had been pushed about by the passing ship. It took an hour before any signs of bream materialised, and then a further thirty minutes or so before I was able to get a bite from one. To cut a long story short, I ended up with nine big bream (4½lb+), with the three biggest going 6lb, 6lb 2oz and 6lb 3oz, aswell as a big skimmer of more than a pound, and six smaller 3-4oz skimmers, giving me easily 50lb with the addition of the tench, eel and a smattering of rudd to 12oz.

There was also a roach/rudd hybrid, which brings my species count for the new season to 16, with only canals and rivers fished so far. Roach, perch, bream, rudd, tench, eel, pike, dace, chub, brown trout, rainbow trout, golden rudd, roach/bream hybrid, roach/rudd hybrid, silver bream and sunbleak, aka 'motherless minnow, have all been hooked and landed. Moreover, I have now fished Exeter Canal five times and had over 150lb, made up of 21 tench, 14 big bream and over 200 other fish. Brilliant venue.

It can all get a bit repetitive, this blogging malarky, so I've kept it to photographs only for today. Incredibly, all these fish came in an afternoon session lasting just four hours.

Jason had eleven bream to 6lb 5oz for a total weight of 59lb 8oz

Jason's second biggest bream, weighing 6lb 3oz

Jason landing bream number seven

The biggest fish of the day at 7lb 7oz

My four fish totalled 24lb 8oz

Sometimes conditions are so perfect that you just know that you will catch. Indeed sometimes they have to be perfect for you to catch anything at all. They were certainly pretty close to that today; overcast skies, a dropping river, and even the stick float angler's biggest ally, the upstream wind, were all present and in place for an after-work trip to the River Culm.

Before I go any further with today's session though, how about this for a close shave on the same river the other day:

I hate cows. Anybody who says that they are harmless obviously has no idea what a menace they can be to the angler. Friendly as they are, I always sense danger when I enter a field with inquisitive cows and fishing tackle. This group of 40 or so bullocks were getting closer and closer to the edge as I trotted from the gravel bank below. I had already shooed them away a few times with my landing net, but on one occasion, with my back turned, part of the bank subsided and fell in large clumps into and around my ankles. I looked up and could barely believe my eyes as the bullock with horns was stood there with its two front legs on a piece of bank only a foot thick, where the rest of it below had collapsed! The picture above was taken after I'd forced him back with the landing net again, but he was looking right at me with both feet forward when the soil gave way. God knows what would've happened if the whole lot had gone.

Before that drama I'd only got in an hour or so catching dace from a river that was still too high and muddy for a really good catch. I packed in as I wasn't expecting sport to improve a great deal and also didn't fancy being crushed to death by a bloody cow.

No cows to worry about earlier though as I crept into a tight swim at around 5pm. First mistake was to erect my sixteen foot trotting rod and set up an intricate stick float rig, with strung out number 8 and number 6 droppers, up to a bulk of number 4 shot twenty-four inches from the hook... and then fling the whole lot straight up a tree.

I rigged up again - this time at the rod's shorter length of twelve feet - and slipped on a couple of white maggots. I enjoy the anticipation that comes with setting up beside the river bank for a trotting session; the opportunity to feed for ten or so minutes while setting up always heightens the expectation of a bite first cast. Of course that's rarely the case, as I treat the first dozen or so trots as an opportunity to gauge the depth of the swim and locate any snags/deviations in the riverbed.

The first 45 minutes were pretty productive with half a dozen roach - the target species - demanding the use of the landing net, along with a couple of very small dace. Thereafter it was hard work with never more than two fish in consecutive casts, but by cutting the feed right back there were bites to the end of the session. Initially I had fed quite heavily, expecting the fish to be hungry after expending so much energy in the floods, but this didn't seem to be the case, and I think next time I'll feel myself into the session, although I might even leave the trotting rod behind altogether as I have a feeling that the best way to catch the biggest roach might be by legering.

Eventually dace overtook roach as the dominant species, and there were a couple of perch too, but the best fish were the roach which ran to 12oz in a total net of just over 10lb. I packed in at 9pm, possibly missing prime time for any big roach which may have hitherto declined to feed, but I do like to get a photograph at the end of each session.

Summer has never really been the season for me when it comes to fishing. After all, the cricket season is such a short one in comparison that it always takes precedent, and with the best periods of the day being so early, the preparation and travelling at stupid o'clock can become very tiring. Having said that, the weather we have had this summer has been spot on for enjoying my favourite species - bream and tench - and more or less removed the need for an early start. With heavily overcast skies, it is possible to walk the banks until you find the fish, even in the middle of the day, and that's exactly what I did in the early part of the summer.

Since my last blog post however, I have only managed one decent outing in search of coarse fish when I met up with Dom Garnett for a crack at Shobrooke Park Lake near Crediton. Out of sheer laziness I declined to tackle up a sleeper rod, something which Dominic did do, and was rewarded with two common carp, the first around 7-8lb, and the second, a stunning fish of 17lb 10oz. I would have been happy with either as it's been a long time since I last caught a carp now. My groundbait feeder, and then a switch to the maggot feeder, brought me plenty of interest, mostly from smallish roach, until a switch to worm on the hook brought a few better samples over the pound. The worm was definitely more palatable to roach/rudd hybrids than it was the genuine roach, accounting as it did for several over a pound, up to 1lb 5oz, but the first fish to pick up half a worm was the best roach of the day, bigger than the biggest hybrid, but dropped back before its weight could be recorded.

That hasn't been the only unweighed escapee of the past two months either, as a brief session feeder fishing on the Tidal Exe with my mate Jason saw me catch my first mullet. This one escaped a photograph too. After unhooking the fish, I rested it in the margins in the landing net for a breather, and it leapt straight out! A decent fish too of probably three or four pounds I would imagine. I'm not sure what I'm most disappointed about; no weight, or no photograph. In any case, we also saw a dirty great mottled lamprey that afternoon aswell.

I have to say though that, angling-wise, the highlight of the past couple of months,, especially when looking back at the photographs, was an outing to the Little Dart, which is actually very close to where I live. This was something Dominic had been eager to get me doing for a while now, but the weather had always seemed to conspire against us, and the trip was aborted on a couple of occasions before we finally made it back in July. Standing in the river in chest waders and flipping casts into numerous little gaps and riffles, often at rising trout, was brilliant fun. Even without a rod, I think clambering through some of the deeper, more overgrown swims would have been an adventure in itself.

The swim in the photograph above was negotiated to the other end of the trees, and I can assure you that in places it was deeper than I am tall. I even hooked three trout, but was unable to bring them to hand, on account of not being able to lift the rod any higher than about three feet!

As for the picture of the rudd at the top, this was taken in an evening wander on the canal with Jase, where we had a dozen or so to about a pound on bread. And that's a round up of literally every trip since I last blogged. Roll on autumn...

Okay, so I've stolen the title of this blog post from the tagline fom the excellent Idler's Quest blog by Jeff Hatt, but it really rings true of today's outing, where the prestige of catching the smallest fish of the day was as heady as landing the biggest! Check out this lure-caught monster from Adam Moxey; Dom capturing the special moment on camera for him:

Moxey's wasn't the only mini-pike we caught and it wasn't the smallest we saw either. A couple of really titchy predators were spotted in the margins, with Dom's fly approach the only method with an outside chance of catching one. Unfortunately, on both occasions the pike scarpered when the fly hit the surface. I think they were more worried about the fly eating them than the other way round!

Moxey cleaned up in the morning with five jacks on little shads before I got there, but the best method in the early afternoon seemed to be a 3" wobbled roach and the scores were level within a couple of hours as I had five to about 4lb or so. This lean fish first snapped a deadbait in half on the retrieve, before a fresh bait was grabbed as it was sinking through the water in the same spot.

The more takes I had though, the bigger my remaining deadbaits were getting, which was reducing my chances of catching the smaller fish. Dom then showed off the effectiveness of the fly, landing his own set of five, including a perfectly proportioned four-pounder.

So a fair few miles of bank covered, three methods, one kingfisher spotted and I think 17 pike at the final count. The perfect way to waste a sunday afternoon.

If you are going to blank, you may aswell do it in good company. Recently, I met with fellow westcountry blogger Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish), for a crack at pike on Somerset's River Tone. Jamie hasn't had a pike before that wouldn't be referred to as a jack, so I thought I would take him to a couple of spots I have been shown and fished myself, when my enthusiasm for pike was first whetted. Unfortunately, it was bitterly cold on the levels and we failed to entice a single example of the species from a surprisingly coloured river. The session still flew by, filled with chat about fish caught, fish lost, and a moan about moaners, among other things. Just a shame the only fish we hooked were already dead, and from the sea.

After Jamie left at 3pm, I hopped over to the nearby Taunton - Bridgwater Canal for a walk and a wobble. Twitching a little sprat around eventually brought interest with a jack pike whipping a sprat of the hook before a second fish stuck on the return walk. The method is simplicity in itself, and a great, busy way of fishing. The rig is just a wire trace to a single barbless treble. Perhaps this is what I should have planned for the day, rather than sitting it out on the river with static deads, but it seemed our best chance of catching a half-decent pike, but for conditions, which weren't brilliant.

Today was a complete change of pace, with me and Ben Franks travelling to Silver Springs Fishery in Congresbury. I rarely fish commercials, so it takes something exceptional or quirky to persuade me to visit one, especially one more than an hour from my home. In this instance it was the chance to catch a new species; a mini, non-native one; the pumpkinseed.

They were much trickier than I expected. Initially I fished too far out; the venue is stuffed with roach and the little pumpkinseeds couldn't get a look in. Eventually I sussed it. Fishing off the road tip, and just touching bottom, I managed to pick off about a dozen, the first one (above) being just about the biggest. Franksy didn't share quite the same enthusiasm for pumpkinseeds as I did and was sat behind two alarms by lunchtime. Lunch was very welcome too, and brought over by the owners, who were very welcoming even though we were the only ones on the whole fishery, which comprises the lake we were on and a similarly sized specimen lake.

After a hot chocolate and just about the best breakfast sandwich I've ever had, I decided to try and target the chub, which have been caught to over 5lb from here. We followed the wind to the other end of the lake. Hoping to find some chub there, I shallowed up and began spraying caster at around twenty metres into the open water. More small roach resulted from this approach, and eventually, a 2lb chub aswell:

Ben, meanwhile, was picking up carp on the feeder and tutti-frutti sweetcorn, but I managed to more or less match him by landing three big skimmers to 2lb, and then another chub. In the water this fish looked very decent, but it was so skinny behind the head, and didn't quite pull the needle on the scales round to 3lb. If we measured fish, rather than weighed them, this chub would probably be a new personal best.

I ran out of casters about an hour later, and a switch to red maggot completely altered the stamp of fish I was catching, with only blade roach responding until the end of the session.

Regular readers of the blog will know of my indifference towards commercial fisheries, but I really couldn't fault Silver Springs or the day we had there. I was concerned that the novelty of catching a pumpkinseed would soon wear thin and I'd be forced to fish for carp, but this wasn't the case. Chub are a great species for anglers who like to get away from pellet fishing, and I don't know why more commercials don't stock them in sensible numberss. It seems to be an all or nothing approach with stocking fish on most commercials. When chub do go in, they tend to be stocked in much the same way as carp, with 'bagging up' in mind. Much better to do it the Silver Springs way in my opinion, where the capture of a chub can be much more appreciated.

What a session! And to think I almost allowed it to be dictated by the toss of a coin. There was too much rain overnight for me to risk the long drive to the Somerset Levels, when they might be flooded with muddy water, so I picked up Jason and we headed to the Tiverton Canal instead. Despite finding it very weedy where we parked, we set up for a mobile approach in the hopes that at least the floating weed would be clear around the next bend. Eventually we did find an area free of surface weed, but it was littered with leaves. Back to the car then after an hour or so, and with a decision or two to make. It was a toss up - literally - between another spot on the Grand Western Canal, or a trip down the M5 to Taunton. Heads for the latter, but it landed on tails...

I got a mile down the road and then had an overwhelming urge for a change of scenery, so did a U-turn and trounced it off to the Taunton Canal anyway. It looked a bit muddy from the car, but casting a 1oz roach down the centre boat channel revealed it to be pretty clear, with just enough colour to make us feel confident of catching.

The first fish came within half a dozen casts; this vividly coloured, 1lb perch engulfing a small roach as it was twitched along the near shelf. There was a bit of a wait for the first pike of the day, but in the meantime I got chatting to an angler fishing the pole. He reckoned our chances of locating a few fish were pretty good, considering he'd already seen pike striking through shoals of roach and bleak. Of course, I also couldn't resist picking his brains about bream and tench fishing on the same canal.

Jason had the first pike, and the second; both around 2lb a piece. I then had my first from effectively the same swim. We had seen a decent fish disturb the surface as we were landing and unhooking Jason's second pike, and a few casts with a wobbled bait must've really wound it up, as it hit it like a steam train, nearly pulling the rod out of my hand! In fact, all the pike we went on to catch displayed similar power and we witnessed the majority of the takes.

As with my previous proper visit to this canal, the day was full of intrigue as the fish are so visible. The most fascinating chain of events came when Jason located some tench dotted along a two hundred yard stretch of water. Just as we were debating the identity of one particularly large tench (or was it a bream?), a pike shot out of nowhere and seemingly made a grab for it. We were just about ready to give up on the area too, but this was all the convincing we needed not to abandon it prematurely. Jase soon spotted another pike on the far bank, but with the scores at six-all, I abandoned any thoughts of fair play and sent a cast over to it without even asking! The roach settled on the bottom a foot or two in front of the pike, and five minutes later I was in the lead for the first time.

My guilty conscience soon got the better of me and I promised Jase the next pike we spotted. Serves me right that it happened to be the best one of the day at just over 7lb! Again, we watched this fish pick up a static freelined deadbait off the bottom.

That remained the biggest pike of the trip until the very last cast. By this point it was almost too dark to fish and Jason had retired to the car whilst I used up the remaining baits. It was one fish after another, with one 2lb jack running about 15 yards off a tight clutch immediately after taking the bait. It even bit through the wire trace as I was unhooking it (but I was still able to remove the hook easily). The total count at the end of the day was seven pike to Jason and 12 pike to me, plus that perch. We never lost a fish between us all day, despite using a single, size 8 barbless treble.

Back to the final cast though, which produced a cracking canal pike, similar in length to Jason's but a bit chunkier by my reckoning. Anyway, we will never know, as I rested it in the net while waiting for Jason and it decided to return itself to the canal. Deja vu, after my first mullet did a similar thing back in the Summer. Obviously not fans of the blog, then.

Cricketers are a superstitious lot. Not so much anglers, but if there was any such thing as a bad omen (aren't all omens bad?), when fishing, then it's probably knocking your bait over before you start. Now I'm not blaming Dominic for our less than miraculous results the other day but that's what he did. And it also takes the attention away from the fact that I chose the venue with the assurance that we would catch "plenty of roach and probably a tench or two". Oh, and we also both forgot to obey perhaps the biggest angling superstition of the lot: don't put your keepnet in before you've actually caught anything...

An hour later the keepnets were removed from the water containing exactly the same amount of fish that they entered it with - none. We relocated. Another stretch of the Taunton Canal, and immediately found fish; rudd, roach, bleak and even several tench swimming around. It was a busy, but admittedly pretty easy, couple of hours fishing after that. Every bait worked, from breadpunch to caster, but the result was always the same, a small rudd or silver bream, although I did catch four roach, and my first bleak for about seven years.

Although bites were regular, the fishing became tedious, with most fish twenty to the pound. Combined with us both being long-term sufferers of restless legs syndrome, we packed up and spent the last hour-and-a-half in search of more exciting fishing and a pike or two.

Drifting little deadbaits along both near and far bank soon found them; this five-pounder being the biggest of three for me.

Looking back, perhaps "less than miraculous results" is a bit harsh, as it was still an enjoyable trip. Although it was a difficult start to the day, with no bites at all in our first choice swims, by the end of the day we had each ended up with a trio of hard-fighting pike, a chunky perch, and plenty of bites from the smaller species. A net full of winter roach would have been nice, but it takes more than a couple of trips to build a picture of how localised certain species are along miles of canal.

Otherwise, I've not managed to get out fishing since that trip with Jason a couple of weeks ago, and I've spent much of my fishing-related spare time getting bits together and sorting out my new pole, which I plan to properly christen next weekend on the Grand Western Canal during the Tiverton DAC Christmas match. It's been absolutely ages since I fished any sort of match so no doubt I'll be a bit rusty, but we'll see how it goes. You forget how much time is consumed by preparing even for a small club match, so I'll have to ensure I have rigs to cover all eventualities, and spares too, not to mention bait preparation.

The quest for traditional stillwater fishing goes on. After fishing council-run Browne's Pond in Bridgwater back in the summer, I found myself on another local authority water today. Wellington Basins consists of two ridiculously small ponds, but I did chuck a waggler out here for an hour once, when I first discovered it, and had a few roach.

The setting is not exactly picturesque as it's tucked away behind a leisure centre, and situated next to a mini skatepark, but if you're able to ignore the line in the trees and everything else outside the parameters of the water's edge, then the pond itself is actually quite pleasant. Like Browne's Pond, the water is clear, and there is enough weed growth to create some interesting features and support life below.

First impressions today were formed by the sight of fireworks strewn on one side of the smaller pond and a dog barking relentlessly at its owner on the other. The weather forecast was pretty shocking to be honest and it lived up to expectation with the wind gusting through an opening right across the lake. I tried to stave off putting up the umbrella but eventually the rain became too persistent and I had no choice.

This was the first outing for my new pole and I didn't want to risk any possible disasters in the wind so fished both of my lines at around six metres; one straight out in front and the other at a bit of an angle to the left (downwind). The first line was for fishing breadpunch, whilst I cupped in a single ball of groundbait and a few loose pinkies and chopped worms on the other. The first three fish on bread were tiny roach, followed by a bonus 10oz skimmer, then a few better 2oz roach before the wind picked up and I found it easier to fish the line at an angle. This time little perch and the odd roach showed. Jason's assistance was required when the wind got under my brolly and everything began sliding along the bank and my box nearly took off with me still seated!

Not long afterwards I was bringing in a perch, when it suddenly became a lot heavier a couple of metres from the bank. It was obvious that it had been grabbed by a pike, and we soon made out the swirls amidst the rippling surface. I've never been lucky in these sort of scenarios and I've had one or two decent pike grab fish on the canal, but they always either let go, or bite through the hooklength. As the fight went on, I suspected that the hook must have found a hold in the fishes mouth, and eventually its head popped up we could see a couple of fluoro pinkies tagged on the end of its nose.

I had to break down the top two and pull the (number 6-8) elastic through the top section with my hand, otherwise I would never have got it in a position to be landed. It was then a matter of deciding whether to chin it or try and land it. I had one go with my seemingly inadequate net, and somehow bundled it in first time. A fat, golden pike, which the gloomy pictures didn't do justice to.

After the pike, which weighed an ounce into double-figures, we packed the pole gear away - a decision dictated entirely by the weather - and had a brief go with sardines but to no avail, despite trying the obvious features. It could've been the only one in there for all we know, and that's the mystery about fishing these kind of venues. Even if the fish aren't enormous, there is always scope for a surprise or two.

Yet again rubbish weather has limited my options. Seeking seclusion from the wind and rain was the priority today, and somewhere I could try and get through my leftover bait from yesterday. Predictably, most of my pinkies had found their way out of the bait box and into my carryall overnight, so I turfed them out, leaving me with maggots, a few worms and a bit of bread.

You may have noticed that I label my posts by species, venue, and venue type, which could be either canal, river, drain, stillwater, or commercial. Now this isn't always easy to decide when it comes to lakes. Little Yeo Fishery, in Witheridge, isn't strictly a commercial fishery, being on the Tiverton Angling Club book, but the stocking density is high and clearly aimed at providing plenty of bites. In many ways though, it's a typical farm pond, complete with lily pads and, today, a decomposing badger on the bank.

Crucian carp aren't typically the sort of species that you would associate with autumn and winter fishing, but they were my target today, and I wanted to see whether I could put together a decent net of them on breadpunch. Again, this wasn't a day for testing out my new pole at the longer lengths, as crucians tend to be located quite close to the bank. A few chopped worms were potted along the right-hand margin, and red maggots loosefed over the top. This line only produced a couple of crucians through the day, although a number of decent roach did turn up.

The breadpunch line in open water produced the bulk of the action, particularly from skimmers, with almost every bite being a lift of the float. I caught more crucians as the afternoon went on, and probably would have had more throughout the day if I'd chosen a swim at the shallower end of the pond, as the skimmers seemed to have bullied them out of the way today. Disregarding the maggot line, which didn't really work anyway, this was an extremely cheap days fishing. The venue is on my club ticket, which I join for the canal anyway, is within a fifteen minute drive of my home, and I used much less than a loaf of bread. Decent fishing on a budget.

Now that I only pleasure-fish I tend to take things easy, usually making any required rigs on the bank and spending more time in search of bonus fish than I otherwise might've in a match. In that respect, when I was a club match angler, it was always my style to fish for bites and target a section win, with less emphasis on pushing for the outright win. Well it wasn't so much a case of fishing for bites on the Grand Western Canal yesterday, but a bite.

I was full of anticipation, if not optimism, for the Tiverton DAC christmas match, but after an hour of fishing and nobody in my section having reported a bite, the signs were not encouraging. Truth be told, I was worried when I drew my peg, as I walked the length on Friday and discovered that the water was heavily stained, a kind of red-brown colour. I really wanted to be at the basin end, as a mass of water entering the canal from the culvert draining the hill road from Tiverton to Cullompton left everything 'downstream' markedly worse.

I'm afraid I didn't get any photographs from the match as I was hoping to take these at the end, but some heavy rain, and no doubt exhaustive disappointment, deterred me. I had three bites. The first one I missed, but the second one met with the solid resistance of a good skimmer. I could've cried when the hook pulled! Well not quite, but to compound things, Wayne Mitchell (Team Jinx), on the next peg, then had his only bite of the match resulting in a 1lb skimmer bream. I then slipped on my bream rig, laying a bunch of squats on a size 18 hook a couple of inches overdepth. This brought a further bite fifteen minutes from the end, seeing a roach of 130 grams safely landed at least.

The going was so tough, I think that the most successful tactic was purely maximising the amount of time your hookbait was in the water. I learned nothing by swapping lines as bites throughout the section were so rare. There were six fish caught in my section, and six of the ten anglers didn't catch and may not even have had a bite as far as I'm aware. Annoyingly, that dropped skimmer cost me second in section, which would've at least seen me get my tenner pools money back.

There were 40 anglers competing in total, and the sections elsewhere fished pretty well, with roach, skimmers and even a small tench caught. Credit must go to overall winner Simon Maunder who fished according to conditions, rather than being blinkered by the reputation of the venue as a breadpunch-only water, catching over 5kg of big skimmers on chopped worm.

The fishing might have been rock-hard for some of us, but the organisation of the event was superb, and there were even more prizes than anglers at the presentation afterwards. Thanks to those who arranged all this, and the ladies who put on a fantastic breakfast beforehand, and hot dogs and hot drinks after.

I'm sure many of you will have seen the devastating images of the Grand Western Canal in the news and on the TV last week. The section affected is where I have had some of the best days roach fishing that I have ever experienced. A few summers back, I could catch double-figures of quality roach in an evening on the waggler and hemp. Add to this probably the biggest rudd in the canal, bream of all sizes, perch, pike and tench all to specimen size for such a canal, and it will take many years to recover. Even repairing the bank, and filling this section with water again is not something I can see happening in the near future, such will be the cost. I understand that the club are awaiting the go-ahead from the Environment Agency to net the lake which has been formed in the field, and they are hopeful of recovering at least the majority of tench.

I have to point out for those of you who don't realise, that the section used for the Christmas match is a considerable distance away from the breach so was not affected, but arguably the best fishing on the canal has been lost. There are two damned off sections now, either side of the collapsed bank. I have not seen the other end but understand that it is very low. A very worrying time for those of us who love this canal.

A return to the canal might've been about proving a point to myself. The Christmas match last week didn't go as I would have liked, and I wanted to see whether the ideas and rigs that I had prepared would be effective under 'normal' conditions. The muddiness has since dropped out, and it actually looked spot on to be entirely honest, with just a tinge of colour.

Starting at around 11 o'clock I decided to concentrate solely on roach, given a few overnight frosts recently. I settled on two lines. The first was in the deepest water at about seven metres and probably didn't receive any more than about half a big pot of liquidised bread in total before I packed away at 3.30pm. The second line was fished a further two sections past this at around ten metres, where there was still a reasonable depth. I put in two small balls of groundbait here (VDE Supercup and Supermatch, mixed 50:50) and planned to loosefeed squats over the top with a catapult. This lasted about half an hour before I decided it was too inaccurate and attached a toss pot to my pole instead.

I fished the bread line for a good hour and a half before having a look on squat, so it was a case of shipping the pole out to ten metres to feed before taking a couple of sections off and dropping in on the bread. I didn't feel like I was really wasting too much time doing this and the benefit far outweighed the disadvantages.

I had a blade roach immediately on the bread but no bites then for ten minutes. Taking an inch off the depth made an instant difference and I soon started catching regularly, first on a 3mm piece of punch and then 4mm. All the prep of the ten metre line paid off as I caught my first five fish on that line in no time at all. It was then a case of swapping between each line every time bites tailed off, which kept them coming until the end of the session. In total I had 102 fish; all roach apart from three little hybrids. Some of them were very tiny and out of curiosity I weighed the lot, which came to 3lb 2oz and might not seem impressive, but this was actually the most enjoyable days fishing I've had for a long time. I had constant bites, but was really made to work for them on what was a bitterly cold afternoon full of wintry showers.

I did briefly find myself attached to something bigger when a pike grabbed a roach on the way in. They're not usually a problem down this end of the canal, but it didn't seem to have a detrimental effect on the roach fishing anyway. It struck again ten minutes later, this time nicking a roach from me, and that was the last I saw of it. I knew it was there before I'd started as it had tried to grab my plummet as I was plumbing up!

I often justify the wearing of my Russian hat by calling it lucky, however, I haven't really ever had much justification for calling it that. Today, after missing or dropping four runs out of five, frankly I was thinking of taking it off and setting fire to it.

Pike were the target, with the realistic prospect of beating my personal best, all thanks to Chris Lambert, who not only organised exclusive access to a previously hardly-fished (for pike) lake for our party of nine, but also leant me a couple of rods that were more up to the job than anything I owned. Well, one of the rods at least, a Nash something-or-other, I think. But the second rod he handed to me saying "Here's the piece of litter", a Dragon Carp rod which sadly didn't feel the weight of a pike all day, though bent alarmingly on the cast.

My first run came on that rod though; a twitchy affair which failed to pull the line from the indicator, but I was using a small rudd deadbait and didn't want to delay the strike. Nothing. Just as I was cursing my luck, the other indicator did drop off and this time I set the hooks. I won't even speculate on the size as I haven't caught enough pike on these methods to for any estimate to be credible. Besides, I thought the next fish felt much bigger and turned out to be a jack of around 7lb, so it can't have been that much bigger if it was.

I was to have another stuttering run a bit later on, but once more my strike met with thin air. Small jack pike? Surely too cold for eels. The next run was unmissable, except I did miss it! I was on the phone at the time, bemoaning my bad luck to my dad, when the alarm started screaming as line poured off the spool like a carp picking up a bolt-rigged boilie. I picked the rod up and could feel the fish kite from 2 o'clock to 1 o'clock. Well, as my mate Dom Garnett says: "they don't pick up the bait with their fins", do they, so I had to strike. Bugger. More excuses sought. Another active jack? Carp fouling the line? 20lb pike? Damn.

That was at 12 noon - most of the activity around the lake had subsided by this point - and I had one more chance an hour or so later. Finally I connected, and this time a long, heavy pike stayed on, but only just. I could see a single point of one of my trebles in the top lip of the fish. Thankfully I managed to avoid a hook pull or getting the trailing treble caught in the mesh. Truly heart-stopping stuff. I then unhooked it in the landing net without the need for forceps, as though I'd just landed a 2lb chub.

Neil Edgar shouted over asking if it was a good one but all I could muster in reply was "it's a double". That was an understatement. I've never seen a bigger pike on the bank myself, though all the other lads certainly have. She was a bit lean at the bottom end, but the dial on the scales still wrenched round to just shy of 19lb, before the weight of the net was subtracted. This gave a final reading of 17lb 7oz, easily a new personal best, and a stay of execution for the lucky hat! Thanks to Neil for a great photograph, which the fishery liked as much as I did, using it as their cover photo on Facebook.

What's more, it was the biggest one of the day, which was an organised pike trial. The fishery opens to day ticket anglers (booking only) in a couple of weeks time. For more info, go to www.emperorlakes.co.uk

Again, I can't thank Chris enough for inviting me along and lending me the rods, and Neil for the pictures of the big one. Thanks guys.

What a miserable, wet end to a year of mixed fortunes on the angling front. The fishing was so good in the first quarter of the year that, as May approached, I was thinking about giving up on cricket I was enjoying my fishing so much. It all started on the very first day of the year, with a big, wild hybrid from the Grand Western Canal.

More crazy winter canal fishing followed when I returned a week later and had six more tench on chopped worm, whilst several visits to the River Tone in search of chub were also productive. Although nothing huge materialised, there were plenty in the 2-3lb stamp like this one:

The rivers have been impossible to get on recently though, and with the canal collapsing in Halberton, I've been at a bit of a loss knowing where to fish for the past few months. In an ideal world, I would never have to fish the commercials, but one or two visits have given me some great results this year; none better than a couple of monstrous crucians weighing 3lb 4oz and 3lb 7oz from Marsh Farm, where the tench fishing was also extraordinary.

Of course, I could never have caught a fish like that if I avoided commercials completely, but it's the constant obsession with stocking and netting that bothers me. I much prefer waters where the stock are undisturbed and left to their own devices, otherwise it all just seems so artificial, which is why I've also been on the lookout for what I refer to as 'stillwaters' on this blog. These have come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny ponds run by the local authority, to 80 acre reservoirs, and most have offered good fishing and thrown up a few surprises. Chard Reservoir was probably the most productive trip of the year, where I had 108lb of big bream, whilst tales of a big, uncaught, carp in a Bridgwater pond have whet the appetite for a carp quest next year.

I want to set some specific targets for 2013, and a big carp is somewhere near the top of my wishlist. I might hit the commercials in search of a twenty-pounder, but I also want to try and locate some in the canals and river systems, whatever their size. I've tried commercial water perching over the years but it hasn't proved particularly inspiring, or successful, and my favourite puddle for perch is now closed to day ticket anglers in any case.

Not all fish this year have been big, like this pumpkinseed, a new species for me, and one I wanted to catch enough to travel beyond Weston-Super-Mare for.

I was also happy to see a stickleback on a trip to the Tone, and caught my first bleak for years, from the Taunton - Bridgwater Canal. A trip to the River Huntspill is planned for next season, and I've been assured of reacquainting myself with another prickly mini-species - the ruffe - which I'll look forward to.

What 2012 will be remembered for by me however is dreary spring days, filled with tench, and then bream, by the bucket-load. Exeter Canal was a new venue for me this year, but I enjoyed some exceptional trips in March, catching 13 tench to 5lb 7oz on my first two visits, fishing the feeder, followed by three more on my next trip and an amazing haul of roach.

I spent a little time away, before returning and finding that the bream had woken up, much as they had done on the Grand Western Canal, becoming more dominant than tench. I broke my personal best on the local canal with a fish of 7lb 12oz, and then 8lb 2oz (both times in a couple of hours after work), whilst the biggest I had from the Exeter Canal weighed 7lb 7oz.

Best fish of the year though? Had to be this 2lb 7oz grayling, which was just beyond anything I have ever expected to catch from my local waters, and I doubt I will beat unless I make a visit to one of the more famous southern chalk streams, somewhere down the line.

Other highlights include catching my two biggest pike, another 3lb roach/bream hybrid from the canal, and my first fly fishing outings under the guidance of Dom Garnett, firstly along the urban River Lowman running through Tiverton's Amory Park, then followed by a trip to the altogether more tranquil, wild, surroundings of the Little Dart in Witheridge. Magic stuff; if only there was more time to do it all.

Above all, thanks to all those I've met on the bank and through the blog, who've shared information or pointed me in the right direction, and contributed towards a most enjoyable year of fishing. To those whose blogs I enjoy reading and who drop by to read, or leave comments, on mine. And to my friends who I have spent time on the bank with through 2012, making even the most horrendous weather (and we've had our share this year) bearable.

It would also be remiss of me not to mention Dave Sellick, for his help on Exeter Canal (my new favourite place), and for providing the quote of the year. After complaining about putting his pole in dog crap on three occasions on the canal, and being asked why he didn't just move his roller, replying: "I did... it was three different bits of shit!"

Let's hope 2013 is even more rewarding for you all.

Drying Out

'Specimen' Canal Hybrid

An Airborne Bin Lid

Ronnies, Reggie, and the 'other' bream

The Culm Before The Storm

Bream, Floods and Golden Rudd

Exeter Canal Slabs

Exeter Canal 14-07-12 Photographs

River Culm - A Close Shave

A Quick Round-up

Serious Pleasure Fishing!

Halloween Pumpkins

Tails Never Fails?

Superstition, Fishing, and Preparation

Pike On The Pole

Bread and Butter: Budget Crucian Carp

Tiverton DAC Christmas Match - Grand Western Canal, Basin/Tidcombe

How to keep warm in Winter

Emperor Pike Trials

Looking back, looking forward