Fenland Rudd Part One.

 When someone mentions the word "Rudd" my ears prick up and I listen intently, any snippets of info, any ideas on waters where they reside are keenly sussed out, but this region in particular needs no introduction, it is hands down - the place to go if big Rudd are you're target. For years I have toyed with the idea of driving up or jumping on the train up to the River Cam or one of the many Lodes that hold Rudd.

Looks good and ideal Rudd territory.

 2lb plus specimen's are very common and down where I live this is almost unheard of, 8oz fish are about as exciting as it gets, specimen's are deemed to be as rare as rocking horse dropping's but the Fenland area makes up for our short fall, catches of monster Rudd are reported in the angling media practically everyday of the traditional river season, 3lb Rudd as big as that sounds aren't uncommon, the very thought of being able to cradle another monster bar of gold was getting too much to bare, so it was high time that I made some arrangements in order to catch one.

 But before we get to my inaugural trip to the picturesque setting of the river Cam I had a little something else I wanted to test out. For a few weeks after work I was doing lots of research on a boat, calculating horse power of engines suitable for potential vessels to do fishing in, having a boat for the Fens makes life so much easier and access from most banks are limited due to private farmland and/or poorly kept banks due to wild vegetation, so it was a no-brainer that a boat was needed. With plenty of hours spent looking and recommendations form various anglers who have already dabbled in this field I finally settled on a complete kit.

 The boat that I settled on was a Seaco 2.65m inflatable boat with a solid transom and hull, the construction of the boat is pretty good and setup I found was very straight forward, the engine I ended up purchasing was a Minn-Kota Endura 30, completely electric so it runs very quiet even at full power, this aides me to sneak up on unsuspecting fish to within yards of them. The engine is hooked up to marine 12v battery and is easily charged, I got a whole day out of the one charge and still had over 60% of life left, clearly a good choice.

So here it is, ready to go.

 Now, on to the fishing and it did not disappoint, I made the journey up in the dead of the night with an arrival time of maybe 6am, for the day I was meeting two fellow Rudd anglers, Giles and Kevin. These anglers know the water's around that area very well so I was going to learn a bit I thought.

A good un'

 The river was a lot more coloured than I envisaged but you can only fish what's in front of you, it took me a while to catch my first fish but at 1.13 I was very very pleased and although I fished for 14 hours large swathes of the day were spent searching for fish, the day yielded six Rudd and a Roach and the weights of my Rudd were 1.01, 1.10, 1.13, 1.11, 1.13 and the biggest at 1lb 15oz, so close to a 2lber but unfortunately wasn't quite there, the fishing was great and the company was great too, both Giles and Kev managed 2's which was great, it nearly was a hattrick!.

1.13

1.13

Back she goes.

Best of the day at 1.15.

Aren't they just stunning creatures.

 I'll be back for certain for parts 2,3,4 and so on.