So, there you are, replete with good food and a pink wife (or was it a good wife and pink food ? I can’t remember…………….). The sand has finally worked its way into your beer, the kids have disappeared along the beach with the last of your foreign currency, and you haven’t taken a single…

Saturday was a little frustrating. I competed in the Earlswood Lakes Windmill Lake open, drew peg 23 and was a little dismayed upon arrival at the peg to find my old mate Bob Marklew sat at the next peg. Now anyone who knows Bob will tell you that to draw next to him is the…

On Saturday I went to Earlswood Lakes on the bream lake for the first time in a few weeks and drew peg 51 on the dam wall. Several weeks ago this was one of the best areas to be on the Windmill Lake with lots of big bream being taken. Unfortunately for me it would…

I can’t believe how bad the weather is for July. At this time of year we often find our rivers low and clear but the Severn right now is running about two feet above summer normal level and quite coloured. Talking to other anglers around the country it seems a nationwide thing and even the…

I’ve had a lot of people contacting me about the Leigh Sinton fishery since I told you about it last week. Most questions were about the actual fishing and best methods and baits. Well, there are so many fish there that I think you could catch on virtually anything you tried! On the day I…

The bread flake hookbait drifted slowly down into the depths, sometimes hiding itself amongst the free samples. I twitched the line to ensure I was watching the correct piece of white dust. I was. From the corner of my eye I watched the mullet shoal come in, voraciously savaging the tiny particles, racing each other…

Last Saturday saw me at Carr Mill Dam near St.Helens on the Kamasan British Open final. This match was for anglers who had scored twenty or more points in the Kamasan Matchman of the Year league last term. In all around seventy anglers competed and to say most of us struggled would be an understatement….

Stillwater carp angling is never going to be easy. Each season brings itís own problems to solve. At this time of year, fishing on some lakes can be especially hard due to the weed growth dying off. In high summer, the weed – especially that awful bane to the carp angler, Canadian pond weed –…

With the recent mild winters, there is now considerable weed remaining over winter, giving the angler no respite at all. Fishing in weed can be really soul destroying. Imagine winding in after a blank night to find the rigs covered in weed. Were they like that all night? Couple this with the fact that fish…

The other lake had actually been mentioned in Jack Hilton’s famous book “Quest for Carp”, though even as late as 1985 it had been fished but lightly and at the time I was there I was more often than not fishing alone. Two beautiful lakes, neither over-stocked nor over-fished, and with reputations for being reasonably…