Tips & Advice

How to tie a wire trace (instructional video) In this YouTube video I show you all you need to know to tie strong, reliable, safe 2-hook wire traces (also refered to as “snap tackle”) for pike & zander fishing with deadbaits. I go through the tools and components you need and then show you how to tie a wire trace from scratch. I have used this type of quality home-made wire trace for the majority of my pike & zander fishing, for over 20 years and caught countless predatory fish using them. I also wrote a step-by-step “how-to” article on making a wire trace here. Related Video: How to unhook pike safely If you are relatively new to pike fishing, you should also view my video to show you how to unhook pike. These fragile predators need good fish care and handling skills to ensure they are not damaged in the process. Approaching the unhooking process with confidence is a key part of this, and hopefully my short video will help with this. More DIY fishing tackle making tips & hacks I’m quite a hands-on guy and I’m regularly tinkering with things to improve them, adapt them or make them …

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With National Fishing Week/Month (heck, why don’t they go the whole hog and make it last all year, every year and maybe re-brand the country Great National Fishing Britain or United Fishing Kingdom!) upon us, I shall be once again lending a hand at an event being held at Barlow Lakes near Chesterfield.  The day is being organised by my friend – and qualified NFA angling coach – Kevin Miles.  In the past these events have featured tackle stands, taster sessions for novice anglers, fun matches and displays by the Environment Agency.  This year I am not so sure about the setup (I’ll post more details once I know them), but I know that a local floatmaker is coming down, there are demonstrations of various floats and methods – including the unveiling of a new design of self-hooking controller float – and I’ll be in attendance from 10am ’til around 1pm (the event is open until 3pm), so if you want to chew the fat, discuss tactics or ask me questions on any aspect of fishing then pop down.  there’s no entry fee and the lakes are open all day for fishing if you want to combine the trip with your usual Sunday fishing trip.  …

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Although I caught my first barbel from the Trent and my second came from the Derwent, my third and probably the next forty-odd were all River Dove barbel. It’s the place I spent my most formative barbel angling years to date and it’s a river which, although a tough nut to crack at times, I will always hold dear when it comes to summer barbel fishing. The beauty of the river certainly helps; it abounds with wildlife and the combination of gravel runs, streamer weed, gnarled overhanging trees and numerous intriguing twists and turns, make the Dove constantly fascinating. It’s a special river. Andrew’s rods await the interests of a Barbel at sunset on the River Dove I’ve held various tickets for stretches of the Dove and I’ve had varying results from them. Some stretches hold numbers of fish in the 4lb to 8lb bracket with the odd larger fish; others are more famed for elusive but hefty specimens. Due to struggling early-season on the Trent and Derwent in recent years, I decided to give the Dove a go at a narrow stretch, which happened to be the first I’d fished, back in 2003. This would “ease me in gently”, …

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This post is about something that you won’t catch me doing very often, but last weekend I fished a MATCH at Glebe Fishery (part of Ray Marlow’s Mallory Fisheries) and managed to come second out of 11 entrants. It wasn’t what I’d class as “proper” fishing – just lobbing a bait at a bunch of far-too-enthusiastic water pigs and reeling them in – but it was quite enjoyable to get a decent bend in the rod a few times. I mainly caught bream and carp, although there were a few roach and the odd perch amongst them, but others also caught crucians, rudd and barbel. I ended up with 72lb 6oz, with my largest fish being a 9lb 6oz mirror carp. Match fishing is not something I’m planning to do regularly. It’s just not for me, although the banter was good and it was a very social session, which is good every once in a while. Part of my 72lb Glebe Fishery bag The Environment Agency has released an extremely handy feature on its website, for checking river levels.  I believe it’s based on the same data they use for their “rivercall” telephone service, but it’s more up-to-date and it’s free to …

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Sorry everyone, this post is almost 2 months late!  I started typing it shortly after the session and then never got the time to finish it!  So for now, here’s a slightly rushed post, but I’ve a fair bit of fishing planned in the near future so expect a flurry of activity on here very soon! A couple of weeks after the rivers closed I headed to local fishery, Tibshelf Ponds, to target the resident perch which are numerous (It used to be my local water and I would catch several, most times I fished there as a child), but I had an inkling that there were some really large ones there to be caught too. I set up with a combination of a swimfeeder rod (switching between a groundbait feeder & maggot feeder) and a heavy pole float fished on a new Bolognese rod that I’d bought and was keen to try out.  Bolognese rods have never really taken off in the UK, they are designed to fish the deep canals & slow rivers of mainland Europe, and they’re basically a telescopic whip (mine’s 6 metres long) with a reel seat and a rod ring on every section.  They’re …

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As day was breaking I arrived at the Reading & District AA car park and was sorting through my worms as Will pulled up. Will Barnard not only has a string of massive perch to his name, he is also the angling development officer for Reading, a bailiff and coach for RDAA and is a founding member of a small specimen group based around Reading called SAS Angling! Over the past year, you may have also seen him feature in one or two of Ian Welch’s articles in Anglers Mail too…  Right from the off I got on really well with Will, who’s a genuine, amiable chap, not to mention knowledgeable! My first glimpses of the Kennet gave me instant optimism and I couldn’t wait to get set-up.  It was slightly couloured and with plenty of perchy features.   We set up in a shady area of overhanging near-bank trees, which provided the margins with some shade as the sun rose behind us. The roots were quite terrifying to offer a bait towards, but they were blatant perch (and chub!) holding features.  Before long, Will was getting bites which he was suspicious of.  Eventually after an aggressive tap on the rod tip, …

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King of the Pond Terminal Tackle Range Reviewed by Andrew Kennedy I’ve recently been sent a new range of terminal tackle to review from a company called “King of the Pond”.  The company claims to focus on providing quality and value-for-money in its products, and based on the ones I’ve seen so far, I cannot dispute those claims in the slightest!  On the whole, the rig components are thoughtfully designed and of a very high quality.  I have briefly described and reviewed them individually, below… Swivels All of the King Of the Pond swivels are of exceptional quality. They are all extremely well finished off, with no visible joints or seams and no sharp edges. The swivels are also very smooth-spinning and very strong. There are four different styles of swivel available in the range; Rolling Barrel Swivels (£1.65 for 50), Quick-Change Link Swivels (£1.99 for 10), Quick-Change Helicopter/Chod Swivels (£1.99 for 10) – all of which are available in size 8, feature a matt anti-glare finish, have a breaking strain of 65lb and are compatible with their range of lead clips & buffer beads – and Micro Swivels (£1.25 for 20). The rolling swivels are the perfect all-round swivel …

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Well, I finally got myself out fishing last Thursday! After hearing of a few pike starting to be caught around the country, I gave into my urges and decided I’d target them.  After speaking to the bailiff on a stretch of the tidal Trent, I opted to try there. I haven’t really done much fishing in general on the tidal, let alone pike fishing, but I made my decision based on the water clarity being better than the non-tidal stretches, and the changing tides forcing fish to alter their positions, which would hopefully result in them spotting my bait in the process. With such cold conditions being set in for so long this winter, every species of fish will be lethargic – even those more associated with winter – so the fish will need a reason to move, be it hunger or the changing tide.  By doubling the possibilities, I’d double my chances… I thought! S..   L..   O..   W..  was the general pace of the day. I arrived, just after dawn (Hit the “snooze” button a couple of times too many!), to find I had the entire stretch to myself. Awesome; a whole stretch of prime-condition river filled with undisturbed specimen pike just …

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I very often lumber myself with far too much tackle – travelling light is something I wish I was better at – but sometimes it pays to have a few non-essential items, “just in case”. This is especially true if you’re travelling a long way from home to a fishery and don’t have the option of returning home if things aren’t quite as expected. One can never be sure exactly what to expect when arriving at a fishery; no matter how well you’ve done your homework on weather, etc. there’s always a chance that the water conditions and fish behaviour you’ve planned for are a million miles from reality. I do believe in remaining as flexible as possible in my approach to angling and I know for a fact that having a bit of extra tackle with me has saved me from a blank, or helped me put an extra fish or two on the bank, on many occasions. A prime example of this was a recent zander session on the Great Ouse. I’d taken some frozen deadbaits with me, but zander are notoriously picky feeders, and they will mostly take a fresh deadbait more readily than a pre-frozen one; …

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As we are now well into the Winter months and the pike season is in full swing, the pike at your favourite venue will – like it or not – have received a bit of angling pressure by now and may also be a bit lethargic in cold winter conditions. So it’s time to think about giving yourself an edge over fellow anglers and give the pike just a little more persuasion to be interested in your deadbaits. Over the years I’ve experimented with various ways of enticing pike into the swim and pricking up the senses of any fish already in the vicinity. Pike, as with all underwater predators, have an extremely complex range of senses and it’s these we need to appeal to. There are various ways of improving the looks of your deadbaits nowadays, with things such as bait flags and “paint-on” additives, which are great in clearer water, but the senses a pike must rely on in all conditions are smell and taste. Whether the water is clear or murky, whether it’s sunny or dark, a pike always has these senses as means of locating food; these two senses are also – very conveniently – closely …

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