Team England Lure Squad

To be able to say that both my Dad and I have been selected to represent England in the World Championships is a dream come true. Back in November, an advert appeared in the Angling Times asking for any lure anglers that would be interested in representing their country in the first ever Team England Lure Squad, to enter the 6th Carnivorous Artificial Bait Boat Angling World Championships, to register their interest. It's always been an ambition of mine to fish in a large competition such as the Bassmasters and the FLW tour in the United States, and I really enjoyed being in the England Youth Flyfishing Team, so within hours I'd sent my details off. Seven months later, two letters came through the post, informing us that we'd both made it in to the England squad! As you can imagine, we were over the moon!

The team consists of Eric Edwards, Gary Palmer, Matt Netherton, Evaldas Skablauskas, my Dad and myself, along with the team manager, Mike Skipper. I'm very proud to be part of a team with such a great spirit and determination to bring back Gold. As newbies to the World Championships, England remain very much the underdogs, but preparations have been well underway for a long time now, and with the event just 7 weeks away, we're working very hard to ensure we can all do our best on Lough Erne this October. We're up against some very experienced teams but I'm sure we can give them a run for their money. I'm also really hoping that now England are in the World Championships it will help promote lure fishing here in the UK, and for it to grow further to the level it has in many other countries.

In the meantime, the squad are looking for sponsorship, and if there are any companies that are interested in promoting themselves globally in this world championship, helping the team and being in it from the very beginning, should contact Mike Skipper, Team Manager at teamenglandluresquad@gmail.com.

The last couple of months have involved practicing and preparing for the forthcoming World Championships. But although the spell of hot weather we've had for a while has been great for barbecues and ice creams, it hasn't been so great for targeting predatory species. Early morning and evening trips along our local rivers have been productive, with plenty of small Perch and Pike, but the bigger fish haven't been showing themselves. One species that the conditions have been suitable for are Chub, and we've caught some good fish from a few rivers recently on jigs and crankbaits.

Weirpools are great places to try, especially when it's been so hot, as they are usually well oxygenated. My Dad and I have had a couple of trips on the Thames recently fishing some of the many weirpools. On our first 'overnighter' this season on our small boat (starting at 3pm on a Wednesday and fishing until 11am on Thursday morning) we hardly got any sleep, but we had plenty of action boating 21 Pike to just over double figures, as well as plenty of Perch on a variety of lures.

The weirs are great for trying and testing different lures and tactics - some of the most effective were Texas-rigged Berkley Havoc Rocket Craws, Pit Chunks, Heavy Weight Thump Worms and the Sébile Magic Swimmer Soft, as well as a variety of spinnerbaits and crankbaits.

On another overnight trip to the Thames this month the fishing was much harder because of sky-high water temperatures, so we spent much of our time targeting Chub. We started earlier in the day and fished the same areas as last time, but only landed 2 small jacks and a Perch, so we relocated to another weirpool with about an hour of light to spare, where we'd planned to spend the night targeting Zander. Within minutes of arriving Dad hooked in to a good fish, which turned out to be an immaculate Chub of 5lb 8oz on a small crankbait.

It was soon dark and time to change tactics for targeting Zeds - I switched to a drop-shot, fishing vertically below the boat, whilst Dad fished an array of Spinnerbaits, Swimbaits and Crankbaits. At around 11.30pm Dad had an almighty take and he hooked in to a good fish. We assumed it was a big Zander or a Pike, and after netting the fish I turned on my headtorch and had a look, as we still didn't know at this stage what it was. We both got a shock as the fish was actually a huge Chub!! It weighed 6lb 12oz and took a 7.5" white Sébile Koolie Minnow, which is a mouthful for a Chub!

Dad then decided to switch rods and went back to a small jig, hoping for more Chub, and at around midnight he caught another of 5lb 12oz - this time on a Texas-rigged twintail.

By 1am we were both feeling quite tired, so after mooring up the boat, we tried to get some sleep. Waking up just before dawn, it was straight back to fishing and we returned to the area where we'd caught the Chub. Casting a Sébile Crankster right in to the whitewater, I had my first Chub of the trip, weighing 5lb 2oz, and then another of around 3lb 4oz.

After landing a few more Pike and Perch, it was time to head for home as the tiredness had caught up with us.

A few days later, after some heavy rain, we had a trip to Pitsford. Although we didn't catch any big fish, we did have lots of action, catching (and losing!) quite a few small Pike, plus a very greedy Perch which was no longer than 7 inches and took a lure the same size as itself! It was a great opportunity to try out a few new lures, which all seemed to produce fish.

A week or so later, we were back on another reservoir - Grafham. This time we were armed with our 9wt fly rods and Zander flies. It took a while before we caught our first Zed, and remained quite slow for the rest of the day, until we stumbled across a couple of areas where we were able to catch a few more, and ended up with 8 in total, the biggest around 7lbs.

The time is flying by and there's still lots of preparation to be done ready for going to Ireland in October. There is also the exciting prospect of many reservoirs opening up for lure fishing, although I'm not quite sure how they're going to fish as the warm weather seems set to continue - we'll just have to see!

Summer Sport on Lures and Flies

Last week I had a great weekend in Staffordshire at Fish'O'Mania XX, showing people different lure fishing techniques with the charity, Get Hooked on Fishing. They had a huge presence at this prestigious event, with experts from different fields demonstrating all types of fishing techniques. Adam Penning and Matt Rosenbloom were showing people how to Carp fish; Callum Dicks, Steve Tucker, Frankie Gianoncelli and Dave Swain match fishing; Scottish Youth International fly angler James Hek flyfishing; Karl Humphries fly casting; Frank Moors fly dressing; Steve Rowley dead baiting for Pike and Pike safety, Dave Smith targeting Catfish, and my Dad and I drop shotting and jigging. There were also other events being run by GHoF, such as the GHoF Fun Fair, 'Have a go' sessions, plus a Tombola with some fantastic prizes. The weather was extremely hot and sunny with temperatures topping 35°C on the Arena Lake where the matches were being held!

The weather was great for visitors and other types of fishing, but not so good for predators. The fishing was rock hard, but a few people managed to catch their first Perch on lures.

Well done to Jamie Hughes for winning the individual match on the Saturday, and what a comeback for England in the International match on Sunday to win! Congratulations to Will Raison and Alan Scotthorne!

A few weeks previously, my Dad and I were also at GHoF's complex of lakes at Ealing, at their official opening on the 22nd June with Keith Arthur and top match angler, Tony Curd. We were showing youngsters how to catch coarse fish using jigging and drop shotting tactics. The weather wasn't so nice though, with, at times, horizontal rain and gusty winds - but they still caught plenty of fish! Some of the species caught drop-shotting or jigging tiny soft baits included Rudd, Perch, Tench, Bream, and even small Crucian Carp! The GHoF complex in Ealing is a great place for people who want to start fishing and Sarah Collins, James Thornhill and the team there are very friendly and helpful.

I think targeting coarse fish on soft plastics has a huge amount of potential. On June 16th, my Dad and I set ourselves a target to see how many species of fish we could catch on soft plastics in one day within a two mile radius of our home. We started first thing in the morning, and fished right round until around 10pm - by that time we were pretty exhausted! We caught 7 species that day - Pike, Perch, Chub, Brown Trout, Dace, and even Minnows!

By far the most impressive capture of the day though was a Carp of just under 9lb that my Dad stalked on a jigged Berkley Honey Worm. I'd just caught a Dace, and we were wandering upstream to a weirpool where we knew we had a chance of a Brown Trout, when Dad spotted this Carp in about 3ft of water, rooting around in the silt. He dropped the Honey Worm right in front of the Carp's nose, and the fish was on it in an instant!

He also lost a good Roach too, which would have been 8 species, but you can't land them all!

Our next trip was an afternoon on our boat on the River Thames - it was the first time we'd been there since October, as we had so much rain over the winter, for much of the time the Thames was really high and coloured. The water was still very stained, with little visibility, and this made the fishing tough. We both managed to save ourselves from a blank though, fishing in and around weirpools - with a 2lb 6oz Perch on the 9cm Berkley Ripple Shad, and a small jack on a Sébile D&S Crank.

Two weeks ago, Paul Garner invited me and my Dad for an evening's fishing with the founder of Sébile lures, Patrick Sébile, and a few other people from the Pure Fishing crew, as they'd flown over to the UK for a business meeting that week. Paul took us to some fantastic looking stretches of the Warwickshire Avon. On his very first cast, testing a new soft bait, Patrick caught a Zander!

Then almost immediately after, he landed a Pike too! Paul joined in on the action landing a couple of small Perch, but after that the weir went a bit quiet. Soon after, we all moved on downstream to another stretch that Paul had caught a few fish from recently. I was using a shallow diving Sébile Koolie Minnow when suddenly, the water erupted as I watched a good Pike slam it just inches under the surface. It was a nice fish too, but that was the only one we caught there. Meeting Patrick and having him show us all how to fish the lures he designed himself was fantastic - it was just a shame we didn't have more time!

The next day, Paul, my Dad and I fished together on a couple of other stretches of the river, before returning to the same weirpool where Patrick caught his fish the previous day.

Each of us landed a couple of small Pike to start with, before Paul took us to another fantastic looking weirpool, where we caught Perch, Zander, Pike and Chub on various Berkley softbaits including the Flex Rib Shad, Gulp! Hellgrammite and the Havoc Rocket Craw. The biggest surprise of the day was when my Dad was targeting some Chub when he caught a small Barbel that was also mixed in with the shoal. It was perfectly hooked in the mouth on a yellow twintail!

Paul had to leave early but we carried on for another couple of hours in the weirpool where my Dad had caught the Barbel. We landed a few more nice Perch, Chub and Pike when suddenly I had a good whack, again on the Rocket Craw, and managed to land a cracking Pike weighing 14lbs on the dot! It was a really enjoyable day with some great sport - thanks Paul!

My Dad and I have also had a couple of trips flyfishing for predators on Grafham recently. On the first of these trips, we had quite a slow start, with just one Zed of around 3lb by lunchtime, but as the day progressed, the fishing got steadily better and better until we found one area when it was literally one Zander a chuck! By the end of the day we'd landed 36 Zander, all between 7 and 9lbs, apart from that first fish. I also landed a Perch of 2lb 15oz. As it was getting dark, and light levels decreased, it was interesting to watch the Zeds follow our flies up, literally only feet from the boat.

After such a fantastic day fishing, we were both keen to get back and have another go, but over the next week the weather got steadily hotter and hotter, plus, we were both quite busy, so in the end we returned a fortnight later for a half day. The water felt noticeably warmer than the previous trip and we knew we could be in for a tough day. We caught a few Zeds, but the fishing was nothing like the trip before. During the last hour I landed a nice Roach/Bream Hybrid of 4lb 3oz, plus my Dad also landed a cracking Brownie of 5lb 12oz.

To be honest, we both felt we would have rather taken our trout gear as the reservoir looked brilliant for some dry fly fishing. In fact, I don't think we've ever seen such as massive hatch of Daddy Long Legs - there must have been one every square metre! Apparently, it had been like that for a few days too!

The hot weather looks pretty set in for the next fortnight - which is not ideal for predator fishing - so we may try targeting a few more coarse fish on lures and flies.

Get Hooked on Fishing!

June 16th is a special day for anglers that love their river fishing. However, the last few weeks since my last blog have been extremely busy, so I'm going to leave talking about the opening day until my next posting.

Since our previous trip flyfishing Grafham for predators, my Dad and I have managed another couple of trips there in the last 3 weeks. The sport has been good, landing around 30 zander so far between us. Although we haven't had any monsters, we've managed to catch a couple of scraper doubles.

Most of the fish average 7lb, which are great fun on the fly. We've also caught a couple of cracking Perch weighing 3lb 10oz and 3lb 7oz.

Occasionally, we catch the odd Bream on our Zander flies - they normally average between 8-12lb. You wouldn't expect a Bream to take a 4 or 5 inch fly, but we've caught quite a few over the years, including some big hybrids.

The next trip on Grafham we planned to target Pike. We picked a day that was forecast just 5mph winds and when we left home the conditions looked perfect, but by the time we arrived at Grafham, the weather wasn't quite what we were expecting. Instead, it was more like 16mph northerly winds with horizontal rain thrown in! We sat in the car deciding on whether it was worth going out, as if it got much windier, the boats would have to be called in anyway. In the end, we decided to brave the conditions, and boy, was it worth it!

Within an hour or so we'd boated 6 Zeds, but despite the great start, it was the Pike that we were really after, so when the action died off we motored to a different location in the hope a big Esox.

By the time we'd arrived at our new spot, the rain was really chucking it down. My Dad decided to try one of his Tarpon flies, a Black Death, and just 20 minutes later, he had a very soft take which he instinctively struck. As he was playing the fish I got a quick glimpse and guessed it looked around 18lb. After a terrific fight, as I netted the fish, I realised I had underestimated its size! It was a magnificent looking fish weighing 26lb 6oz! That was the only Pike we saw that day, but glad we'd made the decision to venture out.

That was my last trip there targeting predators, but my Dad has been back since with an old schoolfriend, John Rochester for an afternoon session. John had never caught a Zander before, but by the end of the afternoon, between them they'd landed 7 - including a nice Brownie for John!

My next trip to Grafham was Trout fishing, practising for the Airflo International Midland Heat, which the Pitsford Pirates had entered. In practice, I fished with Bart Farmer covering from Sanctuary Bay right round to the Sailing Club. We caught a fish each in Savages but eventually found lots of fish from the Nature Reserve right in to Valley Creek. After perfecting a couple of methods, and pooling all of our knowledge as to where to go and what tactics to use, we were ready for the match the next day!

I was drawn to fish with Nick Preston, fishing for the GWFFA team. I'd caught 4 and Nick had caught 5 when boat pressure in Valley Creek took a toll within the first two hours, so we had to search around for more fish. It turned out to be quite a tough match - I finished on 7 fish, and they were all tiny, but Nick had a fantastic bag of 8 fish for over 22lbs! The top 6 teams qualified, and unfortunately, after coming 4th in the Lexus heat on Rutland where the top 3 qualify a few weeks back, the Pirates came 7th! To say we were gutted was an understatement, but that's fishing! Well done to those teams that did qualify though.

The hot, sunny weather we'd all been craving finally returned a couple of days after the Airflo match, and there was only one thing on our minds - Carp on the fly! We arrived very early at one of our local lakes, hoping that there would be a few fish on top, and sure enough, there were. Teasing them in to taking a couple of mixers off the top, it wasn't long before our home made flies, made from deer hair, did the business and we were both playing fish. Dad's first fish of the day was a broad Common of 20lb 2oz, then just a few minutes later I also hooked and landed a Common of 19lb 2oz!

I was still wiping my hands with the rag when Dad hooked in to yet another fish, this time a Ghostie of 18lbs on the dot - for the first hour the fishing was quite insane!

After he landed the Ghostie though, the fish became a bit more wary and although plenty were showing, they were reluctant to take. The beauty of flyfishing is that you can land a fly right in front of a fish you're targeting, without spooking it, whereas if you cast a controller float to it, there's a good chance the fish will bolt off in the opposite direction because of the splash. I caught a couple more doubles, although not big, but it was great fun stalking them!

On June 6th, the guys from Pure Fishing, including myself, helped run a tuition day at Cob House Fisheries in Worcestershire for staff at GoOutdoors, who have recently been expanding their fishing ranges in their stores across the country. The aim of the day was to introduce them to different types of fishing, and hopefully, some of them would catch their first fish. On one of the lakes they fished for Carp with Steve Egerton, (Pure Fishing's Marketing Manager). James Robbins (Shakespeare's Brand Manager) was based on another lake fishing the pellet waggler. Roy Marlow and Wendy Perry of Marukyu were based on another lake and Grant Harris (Director of Pure Fishing UK) and I were teaching flyfishing on one of the other lakes. What I didn't realise before I got there was that there were no trout in the lakes! Luckily, I'd brought along with me a couple of mixer flies just in case there were some Carp on top, as it was forecast to be hot and sunny. Teaching someone to cast and catch a fish in one hour is quite a challenge (it took me a year or so just to learn how to cast properly), but a couple of nice fish were caught on the fly! Anyway, it was a great day, everybody caught, and I think that most people enjoyed themselves.

A couple of months ago I was invited by Sarah Collins, Chief Executive of Get Hooked on Fishing, to meet with her and Clive Copeland, Head of Participation of The Angling Trust, to see whether I'd be interested in helping youngsters learn a little about lure fishing. It was to be part of a 6 part mini series with Sky Sports and Sky Sports Living for Sport to be filmed and shown on Keith Arthur's 'Tightlines'. Part 5, which I took part in and will be aired tonight (June 21st), was filmed two weeks ago, and as there are no predators in the lakes at Ealing, we fished scaled down jigging and dropshotting tactics, using tiny softbaits such as Berkley Power Maggots and the Maxi Blood Worms. Whilst Pete Waterfield was giving the group a talk, my Dad and I set up 19 light lure rods, some of which had been kindly lent to GHoF by the Angling Trust - half of them with drop-shot rigs, and half of them with jigs.

We finished just in time before the filming was to begin! Most of the youngsters had never used a rod and reel before, only having used a pole, so they did really well catching quite a few - in fact, nearly all of them caught, consisting mainly of small Rudd and a few tiny Tench. It was a great day and I met some lovely people - Nigel Botherway, the presenter, Pete Waterfield, Dean Macey, James Thornhill, Charlie Moore, Grant Fear, Eddie Edwards, and Chris Gadsden - to name a few!

Sarah Collins and the GHoF team have put a lot of hard work in to helping young people get involved in fishing. Ealing is a well stocked fishery which is fun to fish, with good facilities, opportunities and a great project to be part of. Tomorrow is the launch of Get Hooked on Fishing Ealing, which is also going to be filmed for Tightlines.

Unfortunately, I'm finishing this blog on a sad note. For the past two years I've been studying Fisheries Management at Shuttleworth College, and tonight I will be saying goodbye to all the great friends I have made there, including the teachers, Chris Vaughan, Steve Waters and Claire Baker. I've had some great times and fantastic experiences I will never forget, and I'm going to miss them all hugely. I'd just like to wish them all the best in the future. Also, for anybody who is just leaving school and is interested in Fisheries Management, I would highly recommend Shuttleworth College.

A mixed bag of species on the fly

Over the past month, I haven't really managed to fish as much as I would have liked! Things have been pretty busy lately, with my course at Shuttleworth College coming to an end in just a few weeks. I've also been in Redditch with Pure Fishing on my work experience where I had a great time and learned a lot!

When I could go fishing, I mainly targeted trout on reservoirs such as Rutland, Grafham and Walthamstow. As the water temperatures have been slowly warming up, there have been some huge buzzer hatches and the sport has been fantastic!

I did manage to fit in one trip lure fishing last month, albeit targeting species you wouldn't normally associate with having a predatory instinct. Sarah Collins, the CEO of Get Hooked on Fishing, recently contacted me to see whether I'd be interested in meeting her and Clive Copeland of the Angling Trust, to talk about promoting lure fishing for youngsters at GHoF's new complex in Ealing. It's going to be officially opened on the 22nd June and being filmed on Sky Sports Tightlines, which I'm really looking forward to. Despite there being no Pike or Perch in the 6 small lakes on site, I took my gear along to try and target the coarse fish with very small soft baits and scaled down set-ups. I've caught Rudd, Roach and Bream on lures before, so I thought I'd give it a try, as I think it could be a great way of introducing youngsters to lure fishing.

I drop-shotted a 1cm Berkley Power Maggot on a size 14 hook, whilst my Dad fished a Berkley Angleworm on a very small jighead with a size 12 hook, and within a few casts I'd caught one of the recently stocked small Carp! It was a great bite, and fought well on my light lure rod! We fished for another hour and lost another of around the same size, but also landed a few small Roach and Rudd!

My next trip was trout fishing at Elinor, practising for the World Bank Masters Final, after qualifying at Blackdyke in Norfolk at the end of March. Although the fishing wasn't easy, my Dad and I both caught on a variety of methods over the course of the day, but the two best tactics we found were fishing blobs or buzzers under the bung, or a team of small lures and nymphs twiddled back on a slow glass line. As predicted, the fishing on match day wasn't easy, as a strong wind blasted down the lake and the fish wised up very quickly as flies of all shapes, sizes and colours were presented in front of them. I finished with 4 fish, but Pascal Rommelaire from Belgium won the match. Congratulations to him, last years 3rd place, Andrew Scott who came 2nd, and former England Youth teammate Fen Oakley who came third, and who also caught the tagged double figure rainbow. Top angling!

We then had a couple of afternoon trout fishing trips to Walthamstow and Grafham fishing from the bank. Again, it was extremely windy but we still managed to catch some nice rainbows on both venues.

Over the Bank Holiday we had a brief spell of warm sunny weather. I'd been keeping an eye on my local lakes to see when the Carp would finally start basking on the surface and taking off the top - as that's when it's time to get the fly gear out! Although the warm temperatures didn't last long, there were a few fish sunning themselves so we decided to have a session targeting them on the surface.

We started on a crystal-clear gravel pit and had a great start with two fish of 15lb 14oz and 12lb 11oz coming within the first hour.

 

It soon clouded over though, and a chilly breeze came from nowhere, which put the fish off feeding on the surface. I managed to sneak out one more of 16lb 7oz, but it looked all over for surface fishing, so on the way home we popped in on another lake. The north-easterly breeze had pushed the Carp along one bank and within 10 minutes of arriving my Dad had a cracking Common of 15lb 5oz that gave him a great fight on his 8wt.

As the wind strengthened even more, it became harder to spot fish, and after a couple of missed chances, we only landed one more of around 6lb before we decided to head on home.

On 17th May, I fished in the Bob Church Classic on Rutland. I hadn't had time to practice for the match, so I wasn't sure how I would get on! The rules of the match are that you kill your first 4 fish and then catch and release 12 plus time bonus. I was partnered with Dean Rudd from the Soldier Palmers team, but Dean hadn't managed to practice either, so we were both in the dark to what areas had been fishing well.

Luckily, between us, we made a good decision and fished along the 3 trees and Normanton and quickly started catching.

I fished a midge tip with 2 buzzers and a cormorant on the point for most of the day. I finished with 14 rainbows and a bag weight of 9lb 9oz but it wasn't enough to get me in the running, although it had been a great match which I really enjoyed, especially fishing with Dean who was great company. Congratulations to runaway winner, Leigh Pond!

The day before the Bob Church Classic marked the opening of fly fishing for predators on Anglian reservoirs so, as we were unable to fish the first two days, my Dad and I had an afternoon session on Grafham that weekend. We couldn't have asked for a better start - on my very first cast I had a powerful slam that resulted in a Zander of around 8lb.

My second cast produced another of around the same size, then on my fourth cast I had an immaculate Perch of 3lb 6oz.

During that short space of time my Dad also had his first Zed of the season - a cracking fish of 10lb 1oz! The action continued in to the evening landing a few more good Zeds and I also landed another Perch of 3lb 7oz.

In the next few days I'm hoping to get another trip flyfishing for predators on the reservoirs, and June 16th is looming, so there's plenty to look forward to!