The first session of the week however was still cold, though at least the day was sunny and, with a good imagination, just about spring-like. When I turned up I could see the water level had dropped almost to normal, well the water was at least within the banks of the lake. One of my…

Colnebrook LakeThis gravel pit, at the time, was around 50 acres, was very long and about 80 yards wide. It had an abundance of features though with five small islands and many gravel humps and small bars. It was stocked heavily with tench but the average size was quite high, around 6lb. I believed it…

The trouble was, the carp and the weather were not really playing ball. After over a week of frost and fog, the weather had slowly warmed up and the first session of the week looked promising with cloudy skies and no wind, perfect conditions. Despite the lack of rain over the previous ten days though…

Apparently – despite fervent pleas from the police, MAFF, and farming leaders – these idiots who are protesting against Huntingdon Life Sciences are going ahead with a protest in rural Suffolk, despite the significant risk they might introduce Foot & Mouth into Suffolk. The reason? Apparently they “see no reason” why their protest should not…

This month Iíll try and show they are extremely unpredictable as I tell the story of four different waters where the tench may as well have been a different species in each.Littleton LakeThe gravel pit in question is well over 100 acres but the tench are mainly caught less than 10 yards out. This is…

Day 1: Like the rest of you, December and January had seen me catch very little and I was more than happy to try something a little bit different. Jeff Kennett had invited me to have a day out on the Thames in his boat and so at the crack of dawn I helped him…

Peg 84 on the Quarry Park section of the Shrewsbury match length saw me take first place with 12.14.0 of roach and dace on the waggler. I must admit I didn’t really fancy the draw when I pulled it out of the bag as there were a lot of good anglers on what I thought…

Now, for most of us, this is only a couple of hours before work, but often this can be the best time of the day for piking on many waters. So, with a little bit of effort, short morning sessions of little more than a couple of hours, can be well worth all the effort….

There was a stage at the end of last year when I was starting to wonder whether we’d ever get the chance to get back on the rivers again before the March 14th deadline. Three lots of extreme floods brought the Severn over the banks with a peak in November of around twenty feet above…

Having said that, using a little bit of watercraft learnt from fishing for other species in rivers or from carp fishing in stillwaters, the likely location of river carp becomes no more than common sense. Carp are carp no matter where they are so river carp will be located near snags and shelter. So look…