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Tag Archives: pike fishing

Coarse & Match Tackle Department at Phil’s Bait & Tackle – Fishing Tackle Shop in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts

Coarse fishing, match fishing & pole fishing department at Phil's Bait & Tackle - Wagglers, stick floats & pole floats for sale at Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire fishing tackle shop & bait - Drennan, Middy, Sensas, etc.

Click on the image slider below to open a full gallery of the coarse fishing, match fishing, pole fishing, pleasure fishing & specimen / specialist fishing tackle department at local independent fishing tackle shop, Phil’s Bait & Tackle at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Phil’s has a large department catering for general coarse, specialist/specimen, match and pole fishing, with large stocks of: float rods, quivertip rods, avon & multi-tip barbel rods, poles & whips, free spool & baitrunner reels, bait (live maggots, casters & worms, groundbait, boilies, freezer baits, pellets, particles, flavours, glugs, oils, frozen pike deadbaits, hemp, luncheon meat, sweetcorn, etc.), luggage, terminal tackle, hooks, leads & swimfeeders, mainline, hooklinks, floats, lures, rod rests, fishing chairs, seat boxes, metalware, landing nets & keepnets, bivvies, bedchairs, unhooking mats, cookware and many accessories. Brands stocked include: Korum, Drennan, Preston Innovations, Middy, Maver, Shimano, Daiwa, Chub, Guru, MAP, Dinsmores, Matrix, Shakespeare, Fox Rage, Kamasan, Gardner, Dynamite Baits, Mainline Baits, Sticky Baits, Sensas, Sonubaits, Marukyu, Ringers, Van Den Eynde, Baitbox & Bait-Tech. Their well-stocked shop is open to browse and try out the latest fishing gear and there’s always someone on hand to provide advice on tackle, bait and local in-form venues. Phil’s Bait & Tackle also …

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Fox Warrior+ 42 inch Carbon Landing Net & Handle – Review

Fox Warrior PLUS - 42" Carbon Carp Landing Net & Handle

The Warrior range of carp tackle from Fox has long been associated with combining great features with exceptional value for money.  Warrior rods and other hardware have been immensely popular and successful for Fox, over the years.  So when I was offered the chance to use & review a selection of the limited edition Warrior+ (that’s Warrior PLUS) range, I was eager to see if these could live up to their legendary status. In this review I’ll look at the 42 inch Warrior+ landing net, designed for landing carp and specimen fish.  My first impression when I put the net together was that it’s extremely light.  This is thanks to its all-carbon handle and arms. The one-piece handle is a good thickness and, although lightweight, seems very strong.  At the butt end it features a subtle matt grip and a handy Duplon butt cap, which not only helps the handle bounce when dragged along the ground (as opposed to making the hideous scraping noise of handles with metal butt caps when they’re dragged) but it also helps stop the net slip from between your legs when resting it in the water whilst playing a fish.  At the head end you’ll …

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Korum Specimen 42 inch Latex Mesh Triangular Landing Net Review

Pike in Latex Mesh Landing Net

2017 UPDATE!!! Unfortunately Korum discontinued their 42 inch Latex Mesh triangular nets some years ago (despite still selling their excellent Latex Mesh spoon nets and – new in 2018 – Snapper Folding Latex Pike Spoon), but as it is still the best pike fishing landing net I’ve ever used, I kept the review online in the hope that it spreads the word about the many benefits of Latex mesh for pike in particular. I regularly receive emails from frustrated anglers who are looking for a similar pike net with latex mesh. In fact, with the amount of contact I receive on the subject, I think Korum are missing out on some serious business.  The problem is, they never marketed it as a pike net, so not many pikers were aware it existed!  As much as I like using Korum tackle – I think they sell some well made, innovative gear – I have been secretly hoping that a competitor will fill the gap Korum left when they stopped making their triangular nets with Latex Mesh. Angling friends, I’m pleased to say that day has arrived!… Firstly, I was emailed by a chap called Ray who had become so frustrated by …

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Something to Chew on

Releasing a big pike - Chew Valley Lake pike fishing

I’m never going to fish that place! I decided a few weeks ago that after putting off the idea for a few years – for various reasons:  (“It’s not real pike fishing”… “It’s far too easy to catch a huge pike on there”… “Results will drop off before I get there, like at Llandegfedd, Blithfield”… “I don’t want to join the rat race in the fight for tickets and then rejoin it in the fight for best spots”, etc.)  – I would finally this year try for some winter tickets to pike fish at Chew Valley Lake. I love fishing rivers, drains and canals for pike.  The looks and fight of a double-figure river pike are hard to beat, but occasionally I get the urge to seek out larger fish.  Visits to reservoirs in the past haven’t been too productive for me, but I have the tackle and – thanks to these previous trips – a bit of experience of reservoir fishing.  So what if reservoirs are man-made?  The pike in these venues are as wild as any from a river.  They may have an easy, protein-rich food source of naive stocked trout, but this all adds to the challenge …

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Caught In The Act Review – Parts 3 & 4 – Autumn & Winter

Caught In The Act Parts 3 & 4 DVD

By reading this review, chances are you’re already familiar in some way with the Caught In The Act project, you’ve either watched parts 1 & 2 or read my previous review.  I think it was clear that I really enjoyed the first two films and I must say that the Autumn & Winter instalments in parts 3 & 4 do not disappoint. Just in case you’re not familiar with the format, each of the two DVDs is split into five ‘acts’ of around 15 minutes each.  Stu Walker and Bob Roberts film all of the footage themselves besides presenting the films, taking turns to be behind the camera or behind the rods.  They are also joined in a couple of the Autumn & Winter acts by friend James Gould, who manages to more-than-justify his appearance with the capture of some fine specimens for the cameras.   There’s also a short sketch of what I believe is the first fully animated version of the “Jack’s Pike” cartoon strip by Brian Roberts, which Bob regularly features in his blog. The fishing in CITA is never complicated, just simple rigs and techniques done extremely well.  No angler should feel out of their depth when …

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Winter Blues – Pike & Barbel Fishing (and blanking!)

Winter barbel & pike fishing on the River Dove

I only had time to get out fishing once between Christmas and new year.  I’d had a pike fishing itch to scratch for a while and despite conditions which were far from ideal (after the bout of mild weather and heavy rain), I decided to pike fish on the River Dove. The Dove is a spate river and therefore it’s notorious for the speed at which the level rises and colour increases. So it was to my dismay, but no surprise, that I arrived to find the river coloured and rising! I should have been barbel fishing in conditions like this but my heart was set on piking, so I had left my barbel rods at home! I stuck it out regardless and fished to the conditions as best I could, but I only got a single dropped run all day. A run I didn’t even notice at the time because my float, cast to the far bank, would only stay in the slack water if I let out a big bow of line. Not an issue in itself, however, it was an extremely blustery day and the combination of wind and the flow meant my float was constantly dancing around all …

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A Right Royal Day Out

The Royalty fishery pike fishing Hampshire Avon

I headed South to fish surely the most famous river fishery in the country; a venue I first heard of through reading Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing, probably two decades ago. The venue is, of course the Royalty stretch of the Hampshire Avon. Since first hearing of it, I’ve seen countless big fish photos in the weeklies and read various anglers gush romantically about its history and its uncanny knack for producing big fish. I have known of its legend for the majority of my angling life, but I have never challenged my childhood preconceptions of a distant, wild, unspoilt dream venue, which I’d vowed I must fish one day. I had naively put the Royalty on an almighty pedestal, which it could never have quite lived up to in reality.

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Home-made buoyant leger stems – DIY tackle tutorial

DIY Tutorial make your own buoyant leger stems for pike & zander fishing

It’s often good practice when predator fishing to keep your mainline up and off the deck, to avoid bottom debris (especially around autumn time when there are lots of fallen leaves & twigs) and ensure a truly low-resistance presentation. Many anglers achieve this through the use of pop-up/buoyant leger stems to attach their leads when deadbaiting. Buoyant run rings and pop-up leger stems might also be useful in carp fishing and other specialist angling. For example, a floating run ring could be the perfect way of attaching a surface controller float when floater fishing for carp; whilst a buoyant leger stem could be used an alternative to a sunk float – to allow a running lead rig to be used over weed (instead of a fixed lead on a chod rig, for example). Buoyant leger attachments have been on the market for years, most notably in the form of Middy’s Buoyant Leger and Fox Leger Stems. Annoyingly, the Middy ones have become difficult to find and the Fox ones tend to just fall apart! They’re way too fragile for me to use with any confidence, so I started modifying them. Then I thought, instead of paying so much for a …

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2011 – That was the year that was

Andrew lands an Errwood reservoir rainbow trout

I haven’t posted a “true” blog post for a while now, I seem to have been abusing this blog and using it mainly as an interactive advertising board for other things I’ve been up to. My own fishing has been very disappointing lately (more on that later), and I turn 30 in a couple of weeks, so I’m in quite a reflective mood and thought this was an opportune time to fill in on how 2011 was for me in fishing… 2011 started off very slowly for me. A multitude of reasons have left me spending far less hours on the bank than I would have liked to, but thankfully most sessions I’ve made the most of the time I had and caught some reasonable fish. I only had chance to fit in one session before March, but then managed a couple more river sessions before the season ended.  The only fish I landed during this period were a few pike, topped off by an 18lb 13oz beauty, which I blogged about here. Once the rivers closed, my fishing mainly went on a self-induced hiatus. Buying my first home became the priority and despite ours being a relatively straight-forward purchase (so we were assured by the estate agents!), …

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A River Predator Hat-Trick!

Pike zander & eel fishing river Trent

I got this season’s predator campaign off to a great start last week, when I tackled the Trent near Nottingham.  After fishing elsewhere all day to try and catch perch, river carp and barbel, I arrived at the river about an hour before sunset, having caught none of the species I‘d been trying for.  I hadn’t managed to catch any fresh deadbaits either, so all the zander bait I had with me was a frozen pack of 5 small roach.  It was going to be tough to make them last, but targeting zander I was only expecting a couple of runs anyway. My simple deadbait rig for zander, incorporating a buoyant leger boom I setup two rods with low-resistance run rings, which I’d adapted and added some small pieces of foam to pop the rig up and keep the line out of the Autumn debris on the riverbed.  There are similar items on the market, called leger stems, but I’ve never been happy with their quality so I make my own.  They’re simple and cheap and I’ll go through exactly how I put them together in a future feature.  The run ring rests on a run rig rubber, which incorporates …

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