Articles

Catfish are amongst the most difficult fish to target in the UK. Certainly in the East Midlands, not many fisheries are licensed to stock them and they can be sporadic feeders with a tendency to feed primarily after dark, and predominantly when the water is warm . Add to this the species’ abrasive pads lining the mouth and throat, along with a reputation as a strong fighter, and you have a highly prized and very worthy adversary. My previous two outings targeting catfish – both night sessions at Willowbank Fishery and Shatterford Lakes – had yielded me nothing. So when I saw a report on the Anglers Today website – detailing an unbelievable capture of 810lb of catfish and carp in a 48 hour session from Willowcroft Fisheries, near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire – I was more than a little intrigued! Upon contacting the fishery, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the staff, who duly answered my (many!) questions about the fishery, its fish, its recent form, etc. As luck had it, the cats were feeding well following a recent warm spell, so a date was arranged. Accompanied by Craig Croft-Rayner I made the trek down to Wisbech for …

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Each May marks another year since the demise of Chatsworth Angling Fair; a show which in my eyes was much more than an event. It was an angling institution. Its omission from the year’s angling calendar is a sad loss for our sport. Very rarely are so many angling disciplines showcased in one place together; with Coarse, Match, Sea, Fly, Carp and Predator fishing all strongly represented. I have many fond memories of the Angling Fair, stretching back to when I first attended, aged twelve. Two of us were dropped off nearby, and made our way to the main entrance, where we realised children were only allowed free entry when accompanied by a paying adult. Having saved pocket money for a few months, we didn’t want to “waste” part of it on the entry fee. So, being a bit slimmer in those days, we found an area of fence we could slither beneath, and headed towards the tented village that made up the majority of the fair. What a revelation it was to find row upon row of tackle dealers plying their wares, with bargains to be found wherever you looked! We spent hours perusing the stalls, testing out tackle, …

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Trotting for grayling on the River Derwent What an unpredictable year for the weather last year was! With fluctuating water levels, and temperatures which never really stabilised for more than a couple of days, it was hard to know what best to fish for. My annual winter pike campaign was virtually a non-starter, with only a handful of jacks to show for eight or nine sessions! I’d been promising myself a return to a day ticket stretch of the Derbyshire Derwent ever since I last fished it, about three years ago. With my pike fishing being so dismal, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for some time-out, trotting for grayling on a crisp midwinter’s day. After entering the annual Boxing Day charity raft race on the river at Matlock only two days before, I was a little hesitant at fishing the stretch. I had witnessed first-hand the thrashing of the water with 300 paddles and an incessant hail of eggs & bags of flour; seemingly enough to support a small nation’s grain industry! Indeed, this was still very much evident when I arrived at the river. It was like an eerie, wintry war zone. The streets were very quiet; the …

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Since catching my first pike eight years ago on a tiny gravel pit, I have become more and more fascinated with this species and their ability to thrive in a variety of contrasting habitats. The versatility pike show has led me to constantly evolve my own pike fishing, in both technique and venue type. Along the way I have tackled rivers, drains, large & small lakes and canals in search of pike, and although I haven’t exactly mastered all of these waters, I can approach the majority of smaller venues, confident that I can make the most of the conditions I’m faced with. One type of venue I had not yet attempted was one of our many large trout reservoirs. When you look at the statistics of large pike caught in the UK from the past 20 years, an astounding proportion of 35lb-plus fish have been captured from trout reservoirs. These immense, deep, mysterious waters – constantly re-stocked with protein-rich, naïve, farmed trout – provide any resident pike with a near-perfect environment for attaining huge weights. In fact, with the sheer volume of water in these reservoirs, you’d be forgiven for getting carried away, when trying to quantify their pike …

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Spurred on by my recent capture of 3 x perch over 2lbs, and confident there were more fish to be caught, I returned to the same area for a few evening sessions lure fishing. Being so late in the year I could only arrive on the bank with about an hour of daylight remaining, so I had to make the most of what little time I had. I armed myself with a selection of my most successful perch lures of the past few years, along with a couple of wildcards, just in case. When lure fishing, you’re bound to have your favourite lures, but there are always going to be days when your favourites don’t work. So it’s always worth carrying a few patterns which have never caught you a fish before. All lures have their day, and you never know for sure when that’s going to be! One lure I was glad I had taken along was a Storm Naturistic Perch, which is a soft-bodied swim bait. This style of lure has a soft rubber outer body, with a heavy internal weight. They sink quite quickly and all the action comes from the tail, which is shaped to move …

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Big perch can be truly enigmatic characters. At times almost impossible to track down; at other times they giving themselves away with gleeful aplomb. Ignoring baits is an infuriatingly perfected big perch pastime. But get the timing right they’ll take anything you throw at them!

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By mid-August, I am usually well into my stride catching river fish, especially barbel. This year, however, I’ve struggled to even get a bite! The problem with becoming confident in certain methods, baits and even venues, is that it’s easy to become set in your ways with your approach. The old adage “If it aint broke, don’t fix it” springs to mind. But what happens when it is broke, and your tried and trusted methods fail you time and again? It’s so easy to dwell on glories past, sticking with the same setup in the hope that it will work eventually. The truth is, conditions change, swims change, fish can become wary of certain rigs and baits. If you find yourself struggling, you must start ringing the changes until you find something else that works. Two chance meetings earlier in the month inspired me to get out of my recent rut, and I’m so relieved! With very few bites, and a single measly 10 ounce chub to show for several after-work river sessions, I knew I had to change something. My initial focus, along with trying a variety of different swims, was to change my baits until I found one …

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In the past couple of decades one place in particular has become synonymous with catching giant sturgeon. It is, of course, Canada’s Fraser Valley in Southern British Columbia. Recently I was lucky enough to visit this region and sample its legendary sturgeon fishing for myself. The Fraser river itself is immense, running some 850 miles from it’s source in the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver. The majority of sturgeon fishing is concentrated on the river’s lower reaches, with most charter boats being based in the “city” of Chilliwack. I had booked 3 days fishing, along with my friend Tim, with a local company called Aqua Ventures, which is operated and skippered by experienced guide Grant McCallum, who I met in person at the “Go Fishing” Show in Birmingham earlier in the year. When looking at the Fraser as an angling venue, don’t expect to have the river to yourself. You will see plenty of other boats over the course of the day, but the river is so vast that the angling pressure is hardly noticeable. Besides sturgeon, the Fraser is possibly the world’s most important salmon river, as it channels millions of pacific salmon …

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Filmed on location in Chilliwack, British Columbia, when Tim and I fished for the mighty white sturgeon on Canada’s famous Fraser River:

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My first ever zander, at 6lb 4oz, caught back in the year 2000 Zander can often be the most infuriating species to target but when things go right they can also be one of the most rewarding. The species has been the subject of my on/off love affair which started when I first tried zander fishing, and banked my first zed, back in July 2000 (it took a freshly caught dead roach presented on a float-paternoster – rig nerds!). It took many more sessions before I banked another zander and I never came close to the 6lb 4oz PB I had set myself with that first fish. Sometimes I would sit at a water all night, expecting something to happen – with the conditions seemingly “perfect”, yet never see a sign of a zander. Other nights the zander have made me aware of their presence with the odd strike and dropped run but, try as I might, I could neither hook nor land one. After failing to land a zander in my last 7 night sessions I had been starting to fall out of love with the species. But, like a teenager with a crush, I just kept on trying. …

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