Mixed Bag Part One.

 This weekend I decided to have a change in tact and set myself a little challenge for the 2 days I had planned, the weather was suspect on the Friday with showers on and off then prolonged sunshine followed by more rain but the weather on Sunday was beautiful at around 25c, fishing and tanning weather, just the tonic to top up my colour from Cyprus.

 The weekends target was to get 10 different species from wherever possible, lakes, rivers and canals.

 Friday turned out to be a great day with 6 different species caught, here are the winners.

 

1st on the list was this fat three-spined Stickleback, one of the largest I've ever caught on rod and line.

 

 

Then this amazing specimen of a Brown Trout was banked after a very tough fight on the light tackle, at 4lb 14ozs it is the biggest of the season and absolutely pristine, a truly fine specimen probably the best condition Trout I've ever caught and at nearly 5lb a massive brownie.

A typical section of one of my Trout beats, you'd be excused for thinking this was in the lake district somewhere.

 

 

Next up was the ever present Chub, I had a hat full of these up to the 4lb mark, this one taken from a small back stream on a single red maggot, I did also catch a Dace but was extremely camera shy.

 

 

 In order to build on my tally I headed down to target Barbel, Roach and Rudd, but after a few hours of trotting I couldn't find either of the two silver species and the Barbel were visible but not in the mood to feed.

 

 

 

A pristine Minnow, in spawning colours complete with tubicals.

 

  

 And with the night drawing to a close, I did manage to catch a Barbel too on my favourite rolling technique, at 6lb 9oz it was spawned out and now looking to fill out the void towards the back end of the fish, not to mention it certainly gave a brilliant fight in the fast water and I got the rod wrenching take to match the fight. That was it for Friday now for Sunday's trip.

 

 Total species caught on Friday was 6.