James' Angling Adventures.

 As time edges much nearer to my trip to the Hampshire Avon for the opening day of the Pike season on the Royalty I've managed to get nearly everything prepared and with a day spare, but today I did get an unexpected morning on the river, always nice to be out on the banks, even if I'm not fishing. My girlfriend headed off to Oktoberfest with the girls, so I naturally headed off out fishing in search of Pike and Perch, Chris and I travelled back over to the River Mole with some unfinished business.  The sun was out in full beam for a majority of the day and that's not usually conducive for Pike to feed and we found that out today for large swathes of our trip out but there were flashes of what is possible when we turned up in our first swim, that didn't exactly look text-book but it provided me with a storming take as it latched onto the Sprat and made off down stream with it.  My first Pike of the day, a jack just under 5lb. I was fortunate to catch this Eso

 Today presented itself as a good opportunity to go off out and try dead baiting for a Pike or two, my brother Chris deciding last night that the offer to join me was too good to pass up, so we organised ourselves at 7am this morning and headed off into deep Surrey.                                             The river was in good nick and was perfect for spotting Pike in the shallower water, with a few small Pike proving easy to spot but not easy to catch, nearly every slack for around the first 100m had a Jack Pike in, good to see a healthy population but none over 3lbs so we carried on walking to try and find more hideouts where more substantial fish may be held up, awaiting it's moment to pounce on it's unsuspecting prey.  On a couple of the beats we found a few more Pike but unfortunately they weren't feeding, but the scenery was nice and it felt good to be out of London, no noise of traffic or sirens, just piece and quite, with the consta

 As the Autumn is upon us now and the predator season draws nearer any spare time will be used on trying to catch a double figure Barbel and a 2lb + Roach, two specimens of two species that are not easy to catch but I like a challenge and being out on the bank fishing is good enough for me but it adds a little more adventure to it and all things fishing, like water craft and using the knowledge I have of the venues to extract the best from them.  My most recent trip out was in search of latter, the Roach haven't been as forthcoming this season, for reasons unknown but I have managed over a dozen 1lb + Roach to an Ounce under two pounds, so the objective was to snare a Roach over that specimen mark, and the session started off very quickly with my second cast drawing a good solid tug on the 1.5oz quivertip, a typical Roach fight followed with the usual jagging on the rod tip as it fought in the current but with a short battle over the first Roach of the day was in the keepnet an

 This season I have decided that the cooler month's of the fishing will be dedicated to the pursuit of the predators that inhabit our waters, Perch, Pike and Zander will be my targets and hopefully I'll be successful in my quest, my quest will probably take me to rivers, canals and lakes, maybe even a reservoir of two.  In all the years that I have fished I have never spent a prolonged period targeting the likes of the Esox Lucius, which for me is a very impressive species of fish and some challenges I would like to achieve is the capture of a 20lb Pike, a Zander over 5lbs and a 3lb plus Perch, obviously anything over that would be fantastic, I would love to be as dab handed at catching predators as my younger brother Richard, who has PB's to his name that are to be envied, Pike over 25lb, Zander at 9lb 9oz and Perch over 4lb 8oz, catching one of these species at that sort of weight would be target achieved, but I'm not expecting it to be an easy task.  Although t

 After a short while off of the bank due to work mainly and other commitments, I managed to get a small session in this afternoon, due to the constant rain I knew it wasn't going to be a long one either, whilst walking the banks I did see Barbel in a few swims and also some Chub knocking about but nothing really wanted to feed, quite surprisingly aswell due to the amount of rain, as I thought it would spur them into a feeding frenzy but after four hours it never really happened.  But thanks to the silver's population on my local river, it provided me with the only sport of the day, a mix of Roach and Dace were to be the only species caught, a couple of years ago the silver fish population was at a very low level due to the over predation of the Cormorant, but over the last 12 months only a handful have been sighted, much to the relief of anglers like myself.  Unfortunately the rain persisted and got heavier and heavier, after an hour of the rain it was time to call it a d

 A few hours spare, I decided to grab a trotting rod and headed down to one of my local rivers, the aim was simply to catch whatever I could find, I fished a few good swims and with in the first hour or so I caught a cracking Chub of 5lb 11oz, a new PB for this river and my third biggest ever Chub, also in the same swim I hooked and landed a crazy Barbel that gave a good go at showing me why even small specimen's are worth catching.     Only a little guy, say 4lb or so, but great fun.    During the winter this fish could easily go 6lb and it's the second 5lb + Chub from the same swim in two weeks, it certainly showing some pedigree, is any larger ones lurking there? only time will tell, later on in the session I caught a few small Chub, an Eel around 2lbs and a couple of pristine Roach.     Both 5ozs or so, from the same batch and absolutely pristine, scale and fin perfect. 

 Specimen Carp banked, but keep reading the post to find out more about the fantastic capture of a truly magnificent fish.  The day started off in a more subdued fashion as Richard (brother) and I donned a rod and some light gear for some Roach and Perch and a heavier set up with the view to maybe finding an Esox, it was a lovely day to be out fishing, Rich had a few Roach and a couple of missed takes off of the small jack's, but nothing really appealed to me so I held off from the fishing and stood and watched the million's of small silver's mainly Roach devour his bait before it even got through the water column to the required depth, one of the only places that I know where an abundance of small silver's exist in the vicinity of London, due to Cormorant predation and poor spawning over the last few years due to the out of sorts and unpredictable weather.  In the summer, this river just looks so good, just lush green vegetation everywhere, further d

 Barbel fishing recently has been a success, with a few Barbel coming to the net just over 8lbs, so a couple of days ago I headed off out in search of another Barbel, as I made my way down and joined up with Stu, we decided to head to a swim I have recently found them in and as we headed into the swim a Barbel of around 6lb flashed up, that was the only invitation I needed, out came the Barbel grub and cast straight out, but instead of it trotting down towards the fish, it caught on a bush and in trying to flick it off it spooked off the Barbel and the swim was dead, but within 20 minutes a Chub was on and it wasn't long before it was netted, around about the 3.4 mark.  As the day went on the Barbel frustrated me and was only met with one other take which was in the form of another Chub, which weighed 4lb 3oz, a good Chub but not a massive, only one other Barbel showed itself and it was a good fish, definitely a double but it evaded capture, but I'll be back to catch her.