Picks of the Decade.

 Choosing candidates for this is pretty tough, so a few of these may not strike you as being particularly big for the species but in terms of its size relative to where it was caught it. Some of these places would surprise many anglers as to where the fish came from. Over the years I have been extremely lucky as to what I have managed to slip the net under, others have required the utmost skill and patience, often pushing me to the limit.

 Here are just a handful of fish from the 2010's and yes there are so many that some catches that mean a lot to me won't make this but I have to draw the line somewhere. Most of these are actually personal bests too.

This bream was my first double figure fish off a canal, since then I have been lucky enough to do it again, special fish and very special waters that certainly make you work for the rewards, a truly special fish for its environment.

Almost an entire days trotting culminated in coming away with one grayling, that one grayling weighed 2lb 11oz and still the fight gives me nightmares. The fear a big grayling puts in you when they turn broadside and power off downstream is quite something, you struggle to find words to describe it.

The river Cam is home to some special fish, this is one of them, March 13th, bitterly cold and bare footed holding one of the most awesome wild carp I'm ever likely to catch, 27lb 12oz, caught on rudd gear in the boat. Quite a fight indeed, Brian deserved a knighthood for getting that in a 22'' drennan landing net.

Having witnessed a 13lb 3oz zed to the boat the day before I had a burning desire to get back out. Less than 24 hours later I was posing with this incredible looking fish, again in the boat and with all light gone the take was so powerful the rod jolted to simply let me know it was time.

Not a personal best but my best lure caught pike off the mighty Wye, a Rapala X-Rap minnow was the savour to what was fairly tough fishing. A couple of shows just off some sunken trees indicated where the lure had to go, ten minutes later and a few casts she was in the net.

One of the best looking barbel I have ever caught, a comfortable double that fought so hard I had to rest afterwards. Just twenty feet wide and 2-3ft deep hardly seems the sort of place one would target barbel but it certainly doesn't bother them.

Two years on Newdigate with the sole purpose of catching one of the two big golden orfe had finally come to an end. 6lb 12oz of a brilliant looking fish, shame they fight so poorly but it can be forgiven. Ten trips after starting and a faithful buoyant maggot on the method feeder was the orfe' downfall.

Opening day on a sun swept Stour gave up a couple of its gems, this chub being the largest at 6lb 8ozs, there was a time I'd had two six pound chub ever, fishing the Avon/Stour that figure soon crept up quite nicely.

Canal rudd very rarely get up above 4oz and often are the bane of a surface anglers session, however this corker at 2lb 5oz certainly put a smile on my face, perfect in every way, just one day hope to follow that up with a 3lber from a canal, that would be something to rival any capture during a season. Especially off the somerset levels.

Enton....does that place need an introduction? such an awesome place but not as easy as anglers make out, many hours I spent on there in search of crucians and managed just a couple, my best here at 3lb 8oz, during all that time I didn't lose a single fish.

Possibly the shock of the decade, the river will remain nameless as I hope to one day cross paths with this incredible common once again. On my MARKIV split can rod and pin, freelined bread it really was the best way I could hope to catch such a carp, no name, wild and at 28lb 3oz she is my biggest common and river personal best, quite a fish. I still dream of that fight in my head at night after seeing the photos again.

Having literally stepped off a plane from Asia just six hours earlier this immaculate double figure barbel took a fancy to a trotted piece of meat, one of the prettiest specimens I've been lucky enough to catch, just over a foot of water, a tiny bush just hiding the front half, first cast...easy.

A snow carp? my only one of the 2010's and what a fight, 2.8lb bottom, 15ft float rod and pin, chub were the intended target. A double figure carp though certainly wasn't quaffed at.

Two hours and possibly six miles of marching the towpaths put me in touching distance of achieving an incredible feat, that being catching a cut carp. Over the last few years I devoted some considerable time to targeting canal carp with varying success. Carp however do not come better looking than that fish above, 19lb 9oz and possibly a lot older than I. 

My personal best carp and a fish known as the "ghostie leather", 35lb 8oz and on bream gear including 6lb line was not just the envy of myself, a few onlookers clearly appreciated its capture and after a couple of photos she went back like a trooper. Names and fish aren't my kind of thing, but this lake I'll make an exception to as it holds some iconic carp, this being one of them.

My first twenty pound pike (21lb 9oz) and thee prettiest I have caught, from a river too made this catch so much more impressive, I shook like a crapping dog for ages after I had landed her too, I was physically terrified! But not long after realised just how fantastic it was, simply superb.

Possibly the craziest catch from anywhere in 2010's, roach x bream hybrids are very rare throughout london and this was the first I'd caught since the late 1990's. Whilst stalking carp on a really cold morning I noticed a flash of silver under my feet as I walked along the towpath and realised this awesome/freaky creature was feeding on the weed clinging to the canal wall, a nice flake of bread soon captured its attention and forever opened my mind to the real possibilities these canals can produce. 5lb 1oz.

The last decade bore witness to some fantastic years after roach. My personal best of 2lb 15oz remained comfortably out in front but was joined by an additional 7 fish over the two pound barrier, all from Thames tributaries fishing a range of tactics. My favourite species and its not hard to see why.

My one and only dace of the decade that surpassed the 1lb barrier and fish that was immense, the images of this fish do not do it justice and have always found big dace difficult to convey in shots, however, at 8 drams over the pound mark I had numerous fish one winter over 14ozs, since then they have disappeared almost entirely.

When it comes to looks this towpath mirror has it all, black as your hat, a little battered as you'd expect a big wild carp to be, but also represented a personal best mirror off the canals at the time. 25lb 4oz and what was even better is I got to share the moment with my dad who was taken aback by its sheer size and the fight? of course it was of biblical proportions as it always is. Escape is the only plan.

I saved possibly the best barbel I'm ever likely to catch to last. First ever visit to the H.Avon and I decided to settle in the top swim on the pipes. Half an hour before dusk I popped out my 18mm pellet tipped with a grain of buoyant corn and just hoped for the best. As the light faded over the fields my tip slammed round and was locked into battle with a big fish but with no headtorch I couldn't tell what I had or how big it was. My mate Stuart made his way upstream to assist me with the weighing and photos. Having finally landed her she was resting in the net and could only make out a portion of the body, still not fully appreciating what I had just caught.

Once Stu had arrived with me I lifted the net out the river and then it hit me at what I'd just caught, she was a truly Hampshire Avon giant at 14lb 6oz and is still my personal best. The feeling of seeing that fish for the first time and holding her still plays back in my memories museum. 

What a first fish to catch off the most iconic of our rivers. Luck and skill in perfect balance and the reward was much greater than I could ever have hoped for.

 What are your favourite memories from the last decade of angling? feel free to pop a comment in the box. I am intrigued to hear your stories.

My 2015 Overview.

 It has been quite a year, as ever I simply enjoy getting on the bank but catching specimen fish of various species enhances my enjoyment, can't think of any other sport that I could enjoy more.

 January: The first month of the year was fairly quiet, plenty of Grayling were caught on the Test over a few trips along with some healthy sized Roach, although nothing large came out it was enjoyable.

 February was spent doing pretty much the same, Grayling were high on the agenda and managed to crack the two-pound barrier twice with the best nudging 2.02, larger were seen but never tempted. Also wangled out a stunning wild river Linear Carp using the technique of stret-pegging. Plenty of other fish also fell during the colder days of the month but that monster Grayling did evade me. The Roach were also on form and I had a couple of very decent bags, one of these was edging towards 30lb.

Beautiful fish aren't they.

 March is always a strange month but things weren't too bad, again a few good Roach came to the net and I had a real red letter day on the Barbel front with a 7 fish haul topped by a 11.13 specimen. Plus I started my canal campaign which fast-forwarded it turned out to be very successful.

 April for me is always a month of transition, the river season is over and the other waters don't usually start producing until it begin's to warm up, but the month's stand out trip was a very short, quick fire spinning session in search of Perch and banked a new personal best weighing in at 3lb 6oz. The rest of the month was a combination between Gudgeon, Trout and Tench with some Crucian's chucked in for good measure.

Stunning creature.

 I do like May, one of my favourite month's as the temp' starts to improve and a lot of species come out of their winter slumps to feed with gusto, my canal fishing took an upward curve as I banished the disappointments of numerous difficult blanks by overcoming a stunning 25.03 Mirror Carp, accompanied by a 7.02 ancient looking canal Bream. A few other species were caught but the canal fish were the highlight of the month.

 On to June, I continued on the canals with more success, I was catching at a rate of a fish every two sessions, fish were hard to locate and even more difficult to catch, the opening couple of days I managed a bumper haul of Roach and Barbel on consecutive days, it was great fun but nothing massive again. My Bream campaign started but it didn't go off like I hoped and missed out on a double-figure fish by a fraction too. Also I had banked some lovely pristine Tench along with a new species to the list in the form of a 4.07 Golden Orfe.

 Usually in July my Mrs and I tend to go away on holiday so I don't get as much fishing in but still made a concerted effort to get on the bank, the Loddon proved to be a little tough but had Chub to 5.09 but the larger specimen's remained elusive, I smashed my PB Brown Trout with a 7.2 animal and I started to locate some great shoals of Dace by taking some to a shade over 14oz.

 August was fairly quiet as I didn't do much fishing but the stand-out trip was travelling to Somerset to track down canal Rudd with Russell Hilton, we were both successful and on the second day I topped my haul with a 2.01 specimen through much hard work and plenty of selective angling.

 September is another of my favourite month's as the days are still longish but the slight chill in the air gets certain species feeding better, namely the big Roach, only the one came in this month but it was a good omen. Double-figure Barbel and large Dace. I travelled around abit but whilst visiting the Stour and Avon fishing was tough.

Beautiful fish. Magical fish.

 October was always going to be interesting and it didn't fail me, the capture of a PB Roach/Bream Hybrid from the canal, some more very large Dace slowly approaching the pound mark, along with my second Roach over 2lb of the season.

 Now November, by this time I'm starting to realise winter should be settling in yet it wasn't even cold, at times I was still out in a t-shirt!, again I wasn't particularly successful on a few trips but when I did catch they were fantastic fish like this stunning Autumn Common of 23.09 from one of my local canals, plus another "fish of a lifetime", this clonking fish pulled the dial around to 2lb 10oz which is the largest Roach for quite a few years.

 Then December, where do I start. It has been quite a month, having been off work for a couple of weeks leading up to Christmas I stepped up my efforts on a couple of fronts by putting in some serious legwork and I certainly reaped the rewards, Chub to just under 6lb, beating my PB Zander four times to finish on 7lb flat with Brian Roberts, a lovely days trotting with Tom Aldous on the Itchen for Grayling and Roach, some big Dace on the Avon, catching my fourth 2lb Roach at 2.06, double-figure Barbel and last but not least, I realised one of my angling dreams as I successfully targeted a twenty-pound Pike and from a River too, at 21.07 I was and still am so made up, a truly wonderful experience and what a creature she was, I'd love another one just to prove it wasn't a fluke!

That's it from me, I hope you enjoyed your angling journey's in 2015 like I did.

Tight lines for the new year and be lucky, make those dreams, reality.

Monster Canal Hybrid.

 Yesterday morning I set about doing some lure fishing on my local canals in search of preds, I left the house before sunrise to try and locate some fish before the sun got high and put them down into the water column, Pike were the main target along with the chance of Perch and Zander but I wasn't holding my breath for the latter two species.

 I had a decent selection of divers and jigs to use with my new addition of the Savage Gear 3D rainbow trout (20cm) version which by the way look bloody amazing in action and after lobbing it around for a dozen casts I was amazed that I didn't even get a follow. I spent a fair amount of time pumping lures around and had my first follow off of a Pike of around 6lb, it followed the lure almost the whole way in but I ran out of water when it turned away back out into the track.

 It had been a lot of casting about to get a follow and for it to turn away was a little annoying.

 Further on up I did get a hit on a little fire-tiger Rapala and at first I thought it was a Perch but very quickly in the clear water the culprit was revealed in the shape of an extremely small Pike, now this is certainly the smallest Esox I've ever caught, probably weighed 6-8oz and true perfection in miniature.

 That little surprise released back to hopefully grow to a leviathan that I'll one day find again I continued my wander on up, the lure fishing didn't yield anymore hits so a quick walk back down a few hundred yards to where I spotted another shoal of Bream. A change over to my canal peacock quill float and a little dumbbell of bread was in order, a perfect cast amongst them was totally ignored but I cast and cast again until I got a knock, when I did after nearly half an hour the peacock float cocked and vanished from sight, fish on and immediately I didn't think it was a Bream as it fought very well and even stripped line twice during the fight, whatever it was though stayed deep for a while which added to the excitement as to what it could be then a very large silver flank revealed itself under the surface, a Roach of epic proportions?? Or a Hybrid?, both of which I've never seen or caught on this canal in particular.

 As she approached the net it got bigger and bigger, I couldn't get it in quick enough as this was just too big to risk losing, seconds later she crept into the net and rested up as I prepared the camera and scales, now this looked massive and weighed more than I thought, a house brick came to mind as it was packed to rafters but was a proper warrior of a fish, upon laying it on the mat I identified it as a Roach/Bream Hybrid and it had 4.13 to beat to top my PB, she did it at a canter, in the sling it went 5.09 and after deducted the sling the final weight was 5lb 1oz. Wow, this canal just keeps giving and not to mention another (68) points in the Blogger's Challenge. In the grand scheme of things a 7lb Bream isn't massive but for a canal that's very big, a mid-twenty pound Mirror Carp is also a big fish anywhere, so for this R/B Hybrid to have also been caught it just makes me wonder what else is in here and that's excluding the 3 Crucian Carp I spotted on my very trip down this season. Blow away by that fish and it was certainly old as it took a fair amount of time to recover before sinking back into the seamingly baron waterway.

My leviathan canal R/B hybrid of 5.1 and a new PB to boot!

A 30" Pike net healthily taken up by this awesome specimen.