New year fishing blog…2014 wasn’t bad but let’s hope 2015 is better.

It is safe to say, I will go no further and go no higher than I have already gone in angling, the main reasons for this are two-fold, firstly I enjoy a full and active relationship with my wife and have a complete understanding of what my penis is for and the important part  it plays in a loving and long lasting relationship which impacts negatively on the amount of time I wish to invest in my fishing and secondly  I get really angry at times, too angry to be honest, angry enough to get myself into positions that mean I am not functioning at an optimal capacity for potential marketing purposes and certainly angry enough and loud enough to ensure that I will always be viewed as a Roy “Chubby” Brown type character rather than a safe but still amusing Michael McIntyre. That’s ok with me, I am settled with that, I am happy with my lot, fishing is just a pastime rather than an occupation or potential occupation for me, I have done pretty much all I want to do, I don’t crave the “fame” thing anymore, not that I ever really did, I have the niche I have because I have always enjoyed seeing my picture in the papers and I have always enjoyed writing, English was always my favourite subject at school after art so what I do and what I get satisfies me.

But I have an itch that I cannot scratch and it is driving me wild, some anglers do crave the fame, they do crave the adulation of the masses, the want the name and they want the status that entails and they don’t mind bending the truth to get it, they simply think of a number and add three if they think it will get them a shot in the papers and unfortunately the papers need content so they turn a blind eye at times to things that really are beyond the pale.

Recently I have seen pictures of Chub, Barbel and Pike that have been ludicrously exaggerated and for what?

A shot at fame?

Are these people having a fucking laugh?

This is the UK for Gods sake, for the most part in the UK being successful in angling equates to getting some free bait and a baseball cap , this isn’t America where pro-anglers can reap millions in prize monies. Away from tackle manufacturing and sales I bet there are less than twenty anglers in the whole of the UK that can make a living directly from fishing and fishing alone and I will go further, the living that most of them are making is shit, they would probably earn more stacking shelves at ALDI or Lidl.

And this is the life that these chancers want? This what they are lying through their teeth for, a chance at that?

If that is the case and with current evidence this seems to be so, there truly are some stupid twats out there in shit-for-brains-land, idiots that will happily and without a twinge of shame construct a stories about large fish that is  quite simply outlandishly fucking ridiculous just to get a moment of fame and a shot at fortune, when, if they were to simply tell the truth about their catches they would over time attain a credibility within the sport that would be far more valuable than the tag “The c*nt that can’t weigh a fish properly” or the far simpler ” Lying bastard”

My year in pictures

I recently placed a few pictures on Facebook documenting some of the moments that have been important to me over the last twelve months unfortunately some of the shots were crap as I had probably had a couple of beers before choosing the pictures that I wanted to use, so here I will have another go at it…

January

 Me and Martin Womble had decided to have a go at fishing the Trent for predators, we thought that we would be able to get onto some decent flood pegs and weasel a few fish out…we were wrong…The Trent had gone all psycho bitch on us and was in the fields, the shot above is a land drain that connects to the Trent, it was barely fishable…

The only action I saw that day was a robin that found the butt of my rods to be an advantageous position from which it could survey all of its territory and launch attacks upon anything is considered a threat, robins look sweet but they are stark raving bonkers to the point of being considered xenophobic sociopaths with anger issues…I like robins.

As I have already said there are some massive twats in angling, and this is a picture of a small pike  that I dedicated to one of the biggest twats out there, a bloke that couldn’t weigh a fish properly if his life depended on it, in fact if the twat in question had landed this fish he would have claimed it as a scraper double that he landed on “his own” Lamprey infused dead-baits. He knows who he is, I know who he is and he knows why I consider him to be a twat and if he has a problem with that then we can always get together and have a straightener on the subject, I cannot say fairer than that.

February 

February saw me spending more and more time trying to get more and more birds into the garden, it also saw more and more squirrels and quite a few rats appear seemingly out of thin air, verminous mammals aside I did however succeed in attracting an almost residential flock of Goldfinch as well as Bullfinch, House Sparrows, four types of tits ( not including the ones Tina occasionally flashes from the bedroom window as I fill up the feeders  ) and a few less common garden species such as Siskin and Nuthatch.

But a weather window opened up for barbel and so the fishing eventually called me back to the Trent where I presented my usual winter offering for the whiskered ones, a maggot Medusa!

Maggot Medusa works a treat in cold water conditions, just remember to keep the freebies low feed and high attract as the feeding will be in short blasts and of only occasional items and once feed is in the river you cannot take it out.

At the end of February Martin Womble and myself headed off down to the River Wye for the Chub Study Group AGM and on the way we pulled into an army surplus store to buy a Russian T34 tank, well that is what I told my daughter Olivia when I called her up on the phone. She was incandescent will rage when I told her that I had spent all my money on a tank that I would be sitting in the front garden.

Once we got down onto the Wye we found that it was up a slight but still fishable, Martin went straight out for the Chub seeing as it was a chub fishing weekend, I on the other hand went after the pike I had a feeling would be there for the taking in a swim that I had seen exactly one year previous…

Martin was dubious that the pike would play but I had a gut feeling that there was one down there in the depths that would play ball and take me up on my offer of a free sardine breakfast, as it turns out there were two…

With a third managing to slip the hooks via a very fortuitous encounter with a snag, I was gutted to have lost out on a hatrick of fish but more than happy with the 30lb plus I had managed to sack. The night that followed was one of drinking, story telling and general merriment that involved a lot the local Butty Bach beer.

Butty Bach is a great drink but it is one to enjoy in moderation as it has a tendency to throw out some serious headaches to anyone that is new to drinking the stuff, the next day I was bleary to say the least but bleary or not I was going to miss the pike out and go all out for a chub over 4lb so that I had something Chevin based on which I could base my foundations as a member of the Chub Study Group…I failed.

All I could manage to get were some small but extremely energetic sea trout that took a liking to both my flake offering and bread offering…oh well…there is always next season it what I say.

The River Wye is a beast of a river and one that is not to be played with, she is fat up and fast down and the power she generates is truly spectacular, where I was fishing on the second day were some crack willows of impressive proportions that had been twisted into all manner of contorted shapes and then piled up with as much flotsam and jetsam as the river could provide at short notice.

Back at the hotel I failed to take heed of the previous nights warnings of the Butty Bach and took to enjoying one too many at the Red Lion at Bredwardine, it was a sorry and miserably bedraggled me that attended the AGM come 1pm, my head was banging and my guts were rolling but all that was put to grass when my name was called out as winner of the CSG catch of the year award…For fuck sake I had actually won something!!!

March

After the success of the CSG I was soon back onto a fantastic looking river Trent only to find that she had shut up shop and was refusing to play the game at all. Not even  a bite was forthcoming, it was as though the river was devoid of life, she had of course heard the rumour that I had cheated on her with the river Wye and was not a happy bunny at all! Not a single bite!!! BITCH!!!!

Bugger that I am not one to take that type of behavior and so I decided to sack her off for a while and disappear onto one of her small tribs for the day.

The fishing was great and the weather was even better, the sun came out and the temperature went through the roof! Seriously I was in need of some shade by the time it was fully over the horizon, winter ended that morning as I saw my first butterflies ( Brimstone’s and Peacocks) and dragonflies of the year. Happy days indeed.

And it got better as I bagged a few chub, the best of which went to just 4lb and meant that Fairham Brook became another river on the CSG books and I the record holder, my second river record after my 6lb 9oz chub from the Trent.

The only down side being that this was for all intents and purposes the end of the river season barring one last trip out onto the Trent where a few barbel and chub fell foul before fun and games were called to an end by an outdated piece of legislation called the Closed Season…Bah humbug and bollocks!!

The Closed Season allowed me to keep a closer look at the birds visiting the garden and during this time it became quickly apparent that I had an almost resident Nuthatch feeding off my peanuts, he hadn’t travelled too far from the nearby woods but what he brought with him was a very dominating aggressive attitude and a fantastically stunning array of feathers

It was also the time I started a small project to recreate and save some of the plants from the location where Sheffield Council and SYFR would be building their new Firestation…The concept of building on Greenbelt is one that Sheffield Council is seemingly very comfortable with, so remember one thing, if you love the environment and you enjoy wildlife, don’t vote Labour because Labour wants to flood the country with immigrant Labour voters and to do this means they will have to build millions of new homes and infrastructure because these people are not going to be living in tents!

One thing that has to be done when creating a wildflower meadow on an area of existing grass is the stripping back process which can either be done chemically or manually, I don’t do chemicals therefore a shovel would be needed.

And once this is complete it can be seeded and plugged, I took hundreds of small plugs and larger plants from the flower meadow, Knapweeds, Wild Carrot, Sorrels, Red Campions and Hawkbits by the bucket plus many other species of plant that would be of use to the butterflies that I hoped would move down from the site once an alternative site was created nearby.

April

Well, Closed Season or not, I couldn’t face a full three months away from fishing so I did some trips out onto the still waters and canals after predators. A days Perch fishing at Alderfen saw Dan Stewart Smith bag a few nice perch on lobworms, Alderfen is a great little complex and it throws out a fair number of pb’s

Away from the fishing the wildlife was really starting to fire me up, new species were being identified everyday, it is truly amazing what you come across when you start to really look at things rather than drift through life in a haze of stress. One of the cutest little critters I came across was one of the fairy moth species, so small and so very spectacular!

On the top meadow the Red Campion was coming into full flower and starting what would be a spectacularly beautiful last display for Bowden Housteads Flower meadow. My pug plant collecting went into over drive.

But on a plus of all this I was spending far more time on the lower meadow which hadn’t really grabbed my attention until my existing butterfly meadow was marked for destruction, one thing I soon noticed were the Brimstone. An unusual Butterfly for Sheffield as it is dependent on one type of tree, the Buckthorn and Buckthorns are not that common in Sheffield , this is something I plan on changing because the Brimstone is certainly one in the cap and something to brag about for Handsworth.

I also had my first brush with some of Darnall’s ” Wrong type” of Muslims that had been barred from the local mosques because they practice an different type of Islam to the majority, my views on Islam are well know and well documented but these seemed to be very friendly and very approachable even if they sounded like they were killing a cat and sacrificing it to the devil himself.

Like me they too were disappointed that their place of worship was going to be developed, unfortunately it seems Sheffield Council are not interested in these types of Muslims because they are too few in number, I wonder if it would have been a different outcome if there had been more of these types? Never mind the small matter of blocking a Fire Station being built on greenbelt they would have probably gotten the green light to rape and molest children…but only if they could muster enough votes to ensure the Labour pigs got to stay around the trough….Gone a bit too far with that analogy? Not if Rotherham is anything to go by.

The Barbel Society show came and went and with it was launched the prototype “Swords grab and go” bait bucket for the angler in a rush, which is pretty much me through and through. My one comment about the Barbel Society show would be that it is not busy enough, bridges have to be built, rebuilt and repaired. The Barbel Society needs to be part of the future of angling and not its past.

May

May arrived with a flourish, the butterfly season was well on course and new species were being logged everyday almost, the creature below is a Mother Shipton day flying moth and it almost gave me a coranary because I thought it was one of the less common Skipper species of butterfly, the Dingy Skipper, that’s the problem and the blessing with a new hobby, you are learning all the time, everyday you have to expand your knowledge

This moth loves to flit over rough grass and on the warm May mornings and early afternoons before I left for work it became a common sight along with the other day flying moths the dramatic black and red Cinnabar and Burnet moths.

Taking advantage of a wonderful birthday present saw the Clan Swords taking a round on the clays up at Bradfield, this is a hobby I intend to further now that the mortgage is almost up and the spare cash situation about to improve a little.

The first caterpillars were collected from Bowden Houstead and these were moved onto suitable donor plants away from the planned destruction that had either been moved or sourced elsewhere, Sheffield City Council may not care about the small things in life that make it worth living but I do, so fuck them and their Common Purpose if you want something doing do it yourself.

Another new one for the lower meadow was the Small Copper a nice little butterfly that isn’t too common and worthy of being looked after. Over the next few months I saw maybe twenty or so of these charming little critters, hopefully 2015 will bring more!

A few trips out after trout were the only fishy experiences I had during the month of May, I have to say I was starting to really miss the river and no amount of fluff chucking or butterfly watching was making it go away.

However the seeds and the plugs down on the lower meadow were really starting to grow and their inaugural blossoms began to attract their first customers and I have to say when I saw the first caterpillars and obviously breeding butterflies that began using the area I really did feel a proper sense of achievement at what was happening. If anyone wants to start and do something like this I cannot encourage them enough and the best place to start would be the Grow Wild project that give away packs of FREE SEED!! Google them and get involved.

With the free seeds come a couple of small bee houses but I have to be honest I found them to be next to useless and so with my very limited DIY skills I set to making my own using some scrap wood a tube of no-more-nails  a few dozen old teasle stems and some paint that was just laying around the house, my bee house was a little too late but I expect to get a few in 2015. I have plenty of these types of bee around me so it is only a matter of providing them with a suitable nest site to use

Up on Bowden Houstead the Long Jawed Orb Weavers began to be seen in numbers along the wet side of the field, these are awesome looking spiders and one to keep an eye out for next year if you have never seen one before

Whilst down on the Lower Meadow late one afternoon I found a very special little butterfly, the Small Heath, a species that commands notification as it is in “special measures”, I hoped that it would not be the last one I saw …it wasn’t.

June

June was finally here, the field was full of Skippers Large, Small and I really do think Essex as well as some of these little beauties looked to have black antenae like the Essex jobs have.

Another butterfly that was out in massive numbers was the Ringlet, the field was literally covered in hundreds at any time of day when the sun was out. I like Ringlets, they are active and striking and not something I ever remember seeing as a kid.

But June is not about butterflies June is about fishing and I was ready for it, I was seriously ready for it, the Trent was looking in fine fettle and in my head I had a plan and I intended to execute it with no mercy given or asked in return.

To say I was happy with this opening salvo would be a gross understatement the likes of which I would struggle to fathom, I was ecstatic and as soon as I returned home I took it to Facebook to announce my good fortune. It was there that Abigail Brewster picked it up and asked if Angling Times could run with it, now this made things tricky as I had got the hump with AT a year previous ( to the day) when they did not award me a prize for a brace of double figure bream I had taken from the Trent..however…I had not gone to them, they had come to me and so I thought better of my stubborn streak, water was under the bridge and as such allowed AT the sole rights to the catch.

The chub obliterated my PB of 6lb 12oz and was my first “7″, I was truly elated to have finally  joined another very select group of anglers that even Dick Walker wasn’t allowed in to ( he never had a 6lb tench and he never had a 7lb chub) and furthermore delighted that the AT awarded me the one prize that I really want a Drennan Weekly award. Most of all I would like to thank Abigail for picking the catch up and running with it which forced me to look at myself in a critical light and admit to myself that I had been a mardy bastard the year previously.

Meanwhile away from the fishing I was out every morning collecting Burnet Moth breeders and cocoons from the top field and moving them down to the lower field where their host plants were doing fantastically well!

Collecting the breeders and the new emerging moths was a fantastic little project that gave me a lot of exercise and cleared away some of the potential disaster that was going to befall this sight once the JCB’s arrived to plough it all in, I knew I couldn’t possibly clear the entire field but I would give it a bloody good go!.

Soon I was seeing more and more caterpillars on the new site and this gave me even more determination to collect even more critters and save them from doom.

Everything from adult moths and butterflies to early instar caterpillars and spiders made the trip down, Furrow Spiders and Nursery Spiders being two of the more regular attendees of my free trips

The end of June also saw Danny Johnson and me make a trip darn sarf where we had a few good bream, I had a scraper double and a nine and he had a new pb of 12lb plus and an eleven…Happy days!!

July

July saw me clock my first Longhorn Beetle on the meadow an impressive creature with a fine pair of longhorns…July was a month of good fortune as my first fishing session of the month was an absolute stormer with a double figure barbel falling foul of my traps after only a few minutes, plenty of fish were in the area and I had a birthday!

The fish were not only rammed in like sardines they also liked the sardines that I added to my free feed, the oily slick proving to be irresistible to them. I banked five fives according to my records and an absolute beast of a creature at 7lb 2oz Although the strange thing is as I look back through my e-mails I seem to have only sent the returns officer for the CSG ( Jon Conway) the details of four of the fives…Bizarre!

Hello John, please add fish of 5lb 9oz ( 20×13.50 - 5lb 1oz ( 19.5 x 12.5 )- 5lb 8oz ( 20 x 13.5)  - 5lb 10oz ( 20.5 x 13.5)  to my record. They all came on HBC paste balls fished over soft mixed  pellet on the non-tidal Trent

The 7 came just before dawn and I have my good mate Danny J to thank for the pictures as he drove all the way from Doncaster to take them and witness the catch, the importance of good mates in angling cannot be overstated, without them it all means nothing.

July became very hot and as the month moved on the Trent began to lose a little bit of flow as well as becoming clogged with massive amounts of weed, the weed was brimming with life so I couldn’t grumble as it would bode well for growth rates of this years new fry as well as all the other fish in the river but it was making fishing a little difficult. 

And so I switched over to nights fulltime to avoid the sun and the sun related dickheads that seem to exist just to rub salt on my ring piece, what the fuck is it with some people, are they deliberate wankers or is it just that they are of poor genetic quality therefore they know no better?

This was the theme of the tune wherever I fished during July, sometimes it was Polish lager sometimes it was Stella and sometimes it was cheap cider, the nationality of origin is not my point the lack of consideration is multicultural and multinational, I curse them, all and wish a plague upon all their house!

Just to make a point however when I did fish days I fished cute and still caught plenty they just tended to be a little smaller but small is good, it means that a water has longevity in its favour

August

August saw my lower meadow begin to really mature with lots and lots of flowers really taking hold, what had been feral grass that held good numbers of butterflies the year previous was now hosting far more species of flora and as such far more species of fauna.

One species that I had not seen the year previous was the Common Blue, not a rare butterfly by any means but one of my favourites and one I really wanted on my new meadow in numbers and so I was very happy to find some males and females going about the business of making me happy!

Unfortunately August was the month when the Fire Station building process began, the porta cabins moved in one day and were thoroughly vandalised the next, the locks were glued the paintwork ruined and Sheffield Council left in no doubt as to what the locals thought of them, I was sick to my guts and was if truth be told happy to be going on holiday so that I would miss the JCB’s arrival and the ruination of a lovely little meadow that had been one of my favourite spots for watching wildlife in Sheffield.

All I could do was curse them Roman style, possibly futile, almost certainly ineffective but none the less I cursed each and everyone involved in the decision to desecrate this area to a life of misery and ill fortune.

A small sheet of lead was inscribed with my curse and buried on the site and with that final act I left England with my family and went to Crete for two weeks of beer and free boobs!

But even in Crete I couldn’t resist getting to know the local flora and fauna a little better, this beast is an Argiope spider and is truly the most awesome creature I have ever seen spin a web! It consumed on average 2 wasps a day and these were not our small British wasps these were the mega wasps of Greece!

On my return from Greece I was met by a postman carrying this little lot! Happy days! I had finally gotten my hands on a Drennan cap and badge and I cannot thank AT enough for them, I also found out that I had won the Catch of the Month in CAT for the two 7lb chub…My fishing was going great guns!!

And so with 24 hours left before I had to return to work we took ourselves off down to Nottingham to visit the wife’s mother and during this trip I christened the cap in fine fashion, by home time it was covered in slime and stinking!

I sent an e-mail to AT to thank them…

“Here is a shot of a nice chub of 5lb 15oz I had on the Trent last week, it was part of a five fish bag that included another five pounder and some three’s…nothing spectacular really, the reason I am sending this shot in is that this was the Christening of my Drennan hat and thought it appropriate to say a big thank-you for giving me the award.”

One thing that did disapoint me about August was the fact that the excavation on the meadow had not commenced which meant that I would see it, the porta cabins had attracted a lot more graffiti however and this cheered me up no end!

When you are involved in fighting the establishment it is great to know you are not alone, social media can play a great role in organizing protests and focusing peoples attention on stuff that some would like to slip in quietly, never be placid and accept the unacceptable, scream shout and make a fuss…be more French than English, make a scene!

Every time it was painted over it was repainted, how annoying it must be when the plebs won’t play nicely, I never like to play nice and it seems several others out there take the theft of their greenbelt even more serious than I do!

September

Bad days arrive for everyone and  however hard we screamed and kicked about Bowden Houstead we knew the day would come and so it did on the 11th of September Sheffield Council broke its own rules and changed its own guidelines to suit so that it could grant permission to destroy an area of high biodiversity in the name of cost cutting and progress. As I have said before I hope everyone involved in the decision to do this dies of cancer and I hope it fucking hurts, Greenbelt is for out children, it promotes the redevelopment of brown field sites and encourages recycling. Yes, the cancer thing is harsh but I really don’t give a fuck, in fact if you find the “last fuck” I ever gave about being harsh, can you tell it to come home as I haven’t seen it for years.

One last mission was at hand though and even whilst the diggers did their bit I was on the far side of the field searching for refugees, the quadratus below was the last one off the site, here she is on her new web

The fires Station was now underway and the field utterly destroyed withing 24 hours but those that gave a shit had one last little fit of temper for the poor old porta-cabins that were housing the tools.

One day when politicians fail to heed the calls of the public it won’t just be porta cabins that get burned down. Everything will be burned down and they will know the error of their ways and no amount of Common Purpose bollocks and backroom meetings will save them from the wrath of the plebs.

I needed to chill out after all my environmental troubles and so it was off to Alderfen for a bit of fishing where me and my dad had a decent net of crucian carp, some have said that these are actually hybrids but to me they look the part and I was told they came of good blood stock but I am not an expert on it so I won’t argue, whatever they are I had a great days fishing with my dad and that is priceless.

October 

The lower meadow was now winding down, I would have said at this point the experiment had been a partial success as it is easy to see that compared with the almost mono-culture of grass it was it now hosts far more species of wild flowers and is less flat, this has promoted an increase in insects as the ground is less liable to getting waterlogged and several ants nests have moved into the banks but it needs to be expanded…

And so I began the digging out of phase two! Lots more plugs and seeds were sourced and another phase of my hobby began to take shape, lots of hollowed banking was included to home all manner of wildlife from insects to small mammals. on top of the seeding and plugging an additional 30 small gorse, 200 snakes head lillies, 200 alliums as well  200 daffodils were also planted, I like gorse as it attracts and holds a massive amount of wildlife especially birds that love to nest in the mess of thorns it provides, I was asked by a chap from Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife why I hadn’t used Broom as it is a safer option, simple, I have never seen Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch or Linnet nesting in Broom.

Up at the top meadow where the fire station is being built security is now super tight with a large green fence erected around the site, this hasen’t however stopped the guards being beaten up twice, machinery being vandalised and fires being started. We told them that this would happen, did they listen, did the fuck.

On the fishing front the early part of the month saw me come away from the Trent as it was in a strange sort of form, perch fishing was the order of the day and Alderfen the chose venue, we had loads of fish but we did not quite manage to break the 3lb bar

rier…oh well…never mind!

I cannot complain at a 2lb plus perch even though I would really like to bag a perch over 4lb, I suppose I will have to wait a while yet especially as my all singing all dancing kitchen and restaurant was nearing completion. Pulled lamb with  hoi sin was selling like hot cakes ! As the month moved on I made a few trips onto the Trent after barbel as October can be a great month to bag a really good fish in fine fettle…I did catch but they weren’t big! But good pictures are something that need to be practiced so I tried to get what I called a “Rinko shot” as I returned one of a few small barbel I had.

The next visit to the Trent however saw me taking advantage of the chance to get an overnight session in, the water was in good form with a little bit of flow and just a shade of colour even if it did feel rather cool to the touch. Bait was an over glugged Hook Bait Company Spicy meat pro offering over a high attract low feed offering.

Here is a draft of the e-mail I sent into the AT describing the capture…It really was quite special!!

I arrived on the non-tidal Trent an hour before dark only to be greeted to a torrential downpour of rain,  making my way to the area I had in mind was difficult to say the least and twice I almost stopped to fish closer swims but I had a gut feeling with the small amount of extra water we have had that the fish would have spread out and become a little more active.

 

As soon as I arrived I was greeted to a rolling fish, I knew straight away that I had made the right choice even if I was drenched and my gear soaked.

 

There was no need to be too subtle so I rigged up with 12lb Kryston Snyde to my night time rigs of Synx Kryston coated braid to a size 4 Drennan Super Specialist topped with double Spicy Meat Pro boiliie that had been glugged already for me ( I am a bait tester and big river consultant for Hook Bait Company) this would be fished over a high attract low feed ground bait and a few small pellets to send out a flavour trail the fish could home in on very easily without “feeding off”, the water temp is now falling and with it the fishes metabolism is dropping also

 

My plan was to sit it out and wait for a bite and try to get myself warm and dry…Unfortunately the fish had other ideas and so I remained wetter than an otters pocket for most of the night as I landed fish of 14lb 2 oz ( new PB) 13lb 6oz ( makes up my brace pb of 27lb 8oz) another obvious double figure barbel ( est 10lb 4oz-10lb 8oz but not quite 11lb ) that was returned un-photographed and  un-weighed which is a first for me as I have pictures of all my doubles as well as three smaller barbel that went to about 9lb.

 

Dawn did not come too soon and by 10am I was away and up to my chin in a hot bath drinking a nice mug of hot chocolate.

That session as they say was special. I have been very very lucky this season but I have also fished rather hard when the opportunity has arisen, you only get out what you put in as they say.

November and December

November started very mild, so mild that I saw a new species of butterfly on the meadow when I thought pretty much everything would have shut up shop, the creature was a migrant species called the Clouded Yellow and I have to say it was stunning and extremely hard to get a decent shot of but however mild the start of November would be , the end would be very wild, Christmas starts for me the last week of November and that would pretty much be that for fishing opportunities till January when I would if conditions arise have a go at getting another chub over 7lb

Nottingham Piscatorial’s show was the highlight of the month with the talk from Des Taylor the funniest I have ever heard, in fact I would say his was the best angling talk I have ever heard, a very funny man in an absolutely stunning venue and one I would love to play…Just not quite sure if they would have me

 

HBC did manage to sell some stuff to the 400 punters that were in residence but thanks to the A1 we arrived late which was a boo-boo we won’t make next year.

November also saw me grow an extremely unlucky beard that saw my catches drop off extremely fast, I think that my thick thatch actually became home to a small Clan of Fuck-up Fairies or Catastrophe Imps, whichever were living on my chin is irrelevant I was either catching nothing or having the shots go to cock.

 

 

The final straw was an 8-0 pike drubbing at the hands of Daniel Stewart Smith, no more than 15 minutes after getting home there were an group of homeless fairies heading of into Sheffield City Center to join the long queue of illegal immigrants outside the Town Hall  waiting for their free house and free money via Sheffield’s City of Sanctuary status.

 

I did feel a bit bad about adding to the burden of Sheffield tax payers but I couldn’t take any more of their associated bad luck that they were bringing with them, it was time for them to go and live down Page Hall with the Roma

Heavy rain and a big drop in temperature saw me and Martin Womble on one of the Trent’s little sisters where we managed to get in among the fish, Martin got a CSG river record the day previous to our visit and on our trip out we had 4 chub and a roach between us, my luck was changing!

The best of the bunch was a decent roach of a pound and a bit ( I cannot remember…I think it was 1-3) on bread flake

 

 

 

 

Another nice surprise was an article I had done for CAT made it to press just in time for Christmas, happy days!!! There are a lot of good anglers out there that catch some cracking fish, I don’t mind ghost writing for them for a 50-50 split as long as they don’t mind me writing bollocks.

 

 

December however is not a good month for fishing December is about work and so I will end this here as I have no more fish to offer you but I will share a couple of shots that I like and are important to me.

 

Christmas is for family, we can get together and build our bonds, have some fun and get drunk whilst eating way too much and if like this year there is snow we can go outside on a Boxing day and try as best we can to break our necks sledging and build snow men.

 

Jack Doona can do his impression of a Wednesday striker and the wife can do her famous impression of a snow witch calling down the weather.

I love my snow witch and I love my friends and family, take care, see you all next year!

 

TTFN!!