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Drying Out
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...
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'Specimen' Canal Hybrid
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...
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An Airborne Bin Lid
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...
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Ronnies, Reggie, and the 'other' bream
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...
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The Culm Before The Storm
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...
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Bream, Floods and Golden Rudd
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...
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Exeter Canal Slabs
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...
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Exeter Canal 14-07-12 Photographs
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...
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River Culm - A Close Shave
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;...
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A Quick Round-up
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...
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Serious Pleasure Fishing!
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...
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Halloween Pumpkins
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...
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Tails Never Fails?
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...
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Superstition, Fishing, and Preparation
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...
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Pike On The Pole
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...
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Bread and Butter: Budget Crucian Carp
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....
View ArticleTiverton DAC Christmas Match - Grand Western Canal, Basin/Tidcombe
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...
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How to keep warm in Winter
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...
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Emperor Pike Trials
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,...
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Looking back, looking forward
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...
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