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I’ve now posted more than 40 articles to my fishing website, www.just-fish.co.uk over the past six years!  This I find quite hard to believe, but this blog seems to have added to the popularity of my website, so as long as people keep reading ’em, I’ll keep writing ’em! Now, because I may be a little short of fishing trips to write about in the near future (though I have a fly fishing trip to Errwood Reservoir at Buxton in the pipeline), I thought it would be interesting to check through Google Analytics, to see which of my articles have proven to be the most popular over the past year. The results were quite surprising.  My most popular article over the past 12 months, with over 6,500 views, is the one I wrote a few years ago about fishing the “Lift Method” for carp & tench. “Lift Method” Rig Diagram from https://www.just-fish.co.uk Top 20 Countdown Okay, pop-pickers, here is the full run-down of the top 20 of my fishing articles, viewed over the last 12 months on www.just-fish.co.uk voted for by you, the angling public!  …Nod ‘arf! Fishing the Lift Method for Carp & TenchSturgeon Fishing on the Fraser River, BC, …

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Just a quick one, but I’ve literally just found out that a specialist angler has caught Britain’s first authenticated 6lb+ perch and set a new British record weight of 6lb 2oz. I don’t know the guy, and I’ve never fished the venue, but this is a landmark fish and from how the article reads, the captor applied real specialist tactics to land this fish, so kudos.  Well done that man. The full Angling Times article is here: [Link no longer exists]

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For the first two or three years of this millennium I generally experienced some great fishing towards the back-end of the season.  For some reason, as my river experience has grown each year, my “final session” captures have dwindled.  For the last 4 or 5 “final sessions” I have targetted perch and failed to catch anything of merit.  I was all set for my final session of the 2010/11 season and after my success piking the previous week, I decided to have a final blow-out session piking, back on the Dove.  With my confidence buoyed by my recent capture, I thought I’d try some different stretches to search out new swims for fishing in the future.  On my way from the freezer after grabbing some pike baits, I spotted my lobworm sack and – despite my previous “last session” experiences with perch – couldn’t resist taking them along in case there was a rare, big Dove stripey out there with my name on it. The original “final” session… I arrived at the first new stretch before dawn and had a walk to find a few features before grabbing my gear.  The wind was absolutely horrendous and I can’t think of a …

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It’s been a while since I posted but the good news is that I did manage to notch up a session in February and I’ve already been fishing once in March but the river close season (which I back 100%) is looming ominously.  I am now faced with the dilemma of which river/stretch/swim/species to target for my final session of the 2010/11 season.  Not an easy one when I’ve got memberships of 5 clubs, all with their own merits, but I prefer to have plenty of options available (usually, but not when it’s down to choosing one last session!).  Anyway, that’s to come later this week, but for now I’ll tell you about my last two sessions, during which I have been reminded just why and how much I love catching pike from a natural river.The week or so preceeding the first session had started off with a lot of rain falling and relatively mild weather, but as my session grew nearer, the rain subsided, river levels dropped and clarity started to return to the water.  These developments had me changing my mind at the last minute; I’d originally decided to fish for barbel, but with the water dropping I had an urge …

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January 2011:  I managed a rather sorry tally of a single session.  I should be going this week, all being well, but as far as January went, I joined Shane Calton on a trip to Toft Newton Reservoir in North Lincs, in search of its large perch.  This trout water is normally fly-only, but for a few weekends each winter they open up for “all methods” days, which allows anglers the rare chance to fish for the reservoir’s head of large coarse fish, which include some massive bream and roach, as well as the perch.  We fished on the 23rd of January which, on the flatlands of Lincolnshire, was bitterly cold mainly due to a Northerly blasting us all day. After a few drifts across the reservoir jigging lures, we were cold and biteless.  Even my home made sloe gin only warmed us up briefly, so we anchored up in a more sheltered area and rotated between lure fishing and deadbaiting.  Shane did have a run on his deadbait rig, which left teethmarks in the flank of the bait, but presumably it was a small fish, as the hook failed to connect.  This was the only bite we had between us and despite …

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After more than a month of abstinence from fishing, I finally got myself back out on the bank between Christmas and New Year. I had a few new bits of tackle – mainly Christmas presents – to try out too. The first trip was an ill-advised, two hour drive to Boston with Craig and his mate Arran, only for us to find all of the drains were still completely frozen over with a good 3 to 4 inches of ice! After a brief bout of self-deprecation for not calling a local tackle shop to check, a swift re-think was required. We needed to find some flowing water to be guaranteed some ice-free fishing. The nearby Witham was an option but, as none of us had ever really pulled up any trees on there, we opted to head back as far as Newark and try a stretch of the Trent which none of us had fished before. It was close to a boatyard and seemed a logical place for us to find some lethargic pike seeking food close to shelter. Craig quickly caught a small jack, probably less than a couple of pounds, and that was it as far as action …

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I haven’t been out fishing since catching the pike in my previous post, but I intend to get a session or two in over the Christmas break.  Have a great Christmas and New Year everyone and the best of luck to those of you wetting a line between Christmas and New Year…  If you can find any water which isn’t frozen to wet it in! Andrew

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As I write this entry, Derbyshire – along with much of the UK – is in the midst of snowy weather so severe that even the most ardent Toyota Prius driver must be wishing they’d bought a “gas guzzling” 4×4 instead! I would be surprised if many anglers are venturing out at the moment because this kind of prolonged cold period can turn most fish completely off the feed. Get ready once it warms up though (after the cold snow melt water has flushed out of the system) and you could be in for some action with very hungry fish! Without expecting anything like this weather approaching us, I managed to time it right and fished just a few days before the snow fell. I’d been lucky enough to receive a couple of products from outdoor gear manufacturer Sealskinz, to try out for fishing. I have owned their products before, which use a unique waterproof membrane to offer the wearer excellent resilience to the elements. My Sealskinz gloves have been used for everything from raft racing to caving and I’ve always been highly impressed by their function. The new products I was trying out for fishing were a winter Beanie …

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It’s slightly less rude… Okay, so this is the second post in a row which is NOT about fishing, but I am a HUGE fan of Alan Partridge and I just had to let this news out as soon as I heard it.  Today, one of my all-time comedy heroes, Armando Ianucci, was a guest on Richard Bacon’s BBC Radio 5 Live show.  In a fairly lengthy interview, he talked – amongst many other things – about some new Alan Partridge material which he had filmed with Steve Coogan.  It is being released in an unconventional manner, by featuring on the YouTube channel of Fosters lager, one episode at a time.  Alan now works for a Digital Radio channel (North Norfolk Digital), still based in Norfolk and the shows are shot from the viewpoint of a webcam in the studio.  Despite Alan’s new setting, this is classic Partridge, so if you haven’t already, you should watch this, now! Also, you can download Richard Bacon’s “Daily Bacon” podcast featuring a full interview with Armando Ianucci here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pstlg Armando also discusses beginning shooting the next series of In The Loop, the new book of that same series, and the much-rumoured Alan Partridge feature film …

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Real life has been getting in the way of fishing recently.  Since my last post I’ve spent a single, fruitless evening sat behind a pair of motionless barbel rods.  I arrived on the river after dark, the air temperature was hovering around a balmy 3 to 4 degrees Celsius!  I knew it was futile before I started, but I gave it a go anyway, wrapped up in plenty of layers.  I stuck it out until about 23.30 and as I started to pack my gear away I noticed all of my bags were covered in frost!  That’s very often happened when I’ve been piking before but never when I fish for barbel! Since then I’ve been up to Blackpool illuminations for a couple of days with my girlfriend and family, and also helped her move house.  This left me with plenty of manly things to do, such as constructing beds & wardrobes, lugging boxes around in a Maun Motors Transit van, covering the bathroom (and probably a few bits of carpet) in silicone sealant and hacking various parts of the garden to bits with a machete (’twas a tad overgrown!), a strimmer and a long-reach petrol hedge trimmer; but left no time for fishing. My …

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