Team England Lure Squad 2014

For the past couple of months, my Dad and I have spent a lot of time preparing for the Team England Lure Squad trials. Last year, both my Dad and I were lucky enough to be selected to represent the first ever Angling Trust Team England Lure Squad in the 6th Carnivorous Artificial Bait Boat Angling World Championships on Lough Erne, however this year, trials have been introduced to select a team. There were two qualifiers earlier in the year, on Esthwaite Water and Bewl Water, where anglers competed to fish in the grand final staged on Llangorse Lake in Wales.

Most of my lure fishing recently has been spent on local gravel pits, experimenting with rod/reel set-ups, lines and of course lures we thought could work well on Llangorse. We caught some lovely Pike too - two of the most successful lures we used were the 114mm Sébile Suspending Stick Shadds and the 160mm Sébile Magic Swimmer Soft.

There's nothing better than practising on the venue you'll be fishing though, so a week before the trials we made the four and a half hour drive to the Brecon Beacons in the hope of building a picture of how Llangorse fishes and what lures and tactics worked there. When we arrived we didn't get off to a very good start - it was windy and raining heavily, and when we went in to the shop to ask for a ticket we were told it was probably not a good idea to head out as the weather was meant to get worse in the afternoon, so we could only fish for an hour and a half!! Not only that, it was unlikely we could fish the next day as the weather conditions were forecast to be similar! In a mad rush, we dashed down to the jetty and loaded the boat, and whilst fixing the outboard on to the back of the boat, Dad slipped and fell in!!

Despite his legs being soaked through we fished for an hour and came back in, but after returning to the shop and pleading to stay out and fish, we eventually got permission to head out again. Thankfully the weather didn't worsen too much and we caught 10 Pike to around 12lb. One of our most successful lures for Pike were the Berkley Flex Slim and Berkley Flex Rib Shads.

After a wet night sleeping under the oval in the campsite next to Llangorse, the weather didn't seem quite as bad so we headed back out on the lake again. Using a wide variety of lures and tactics we boated 15 Pike, plus a few Perch.

The first Perch I caught weighed 3lb 2oz and took a jigged 3" Berkley Power Grub! It probably would have weighed a lot more had it have not been spawned out.

We headed home that evening feeling very confident we had some idea of where to and how to fish the following week. Well, what a roller coaster ride my Dad and I had during the match days! Day one went really badly for us, and most of it was my own fault. On my very first cast I cracked off on a lure that had worked really well in practice, then I tied on another trace and replaced it with the same lure, not realising I hadn't clipped it on to the snap. I threw it out of the boat ready to make a cast, then realised I had just thrown a lure in to the water! All the other spares of that lure in that colour were back at our B&B, and from then on, the day continued to go wrong as I lost my first three Pike I hooked. Dad had got off to a good start catching a Pike on just his second cast, but he wasn't amused with me to say the least and my frustration rubbed off on him. We lost so many fish on the first day it was ridiculous. I didn't catch my first fish until 1.30pm and we ended up with 7 Pike between us, Dad with 4 and me with 3. Gary Palmer, Eric Edwards and Dan Brackley were on 9, 8 and 7 - the top 6 anglers qualify for the team and although Dad was still in the running, I had some extreme catching up to do on the second day.

Unfortunately, day 2 got off to another nightmare start. Just before the match was about to kick off, our electric motor packed up and stopped working. We thought we were doomed! We were still determined though and tried not to let it get to us, and fortunately we both had a spectacular turnaround. We started catching fish within minutes, and the sport seemed to get better and better. Thanks to a slight adjustment to a specific type of lure, we lost far fewer fish than the day before, and after landing just 3 on day one, I landed 16 on day 2, and Dad caught 9.

Gary Palmer had caught some cracking Pike to 99cm, including a 35cm Perch, and although I caught one more fish than him, his greater length won him first place, and I finished in second place - what a day! I was so chuffed to have made it back in to the team - Dad had also taken the sixth place, so we'd both managed to retain our places in the Team England Lure Squad, along with Gary Palmer and Eric Edwards. The 2014 squad is: Gary Palmer, who is now Team Captain, Eric Edwards, Dan Brackley, Rikki Cooper, my Dad and myself. The two reserves are Evaldas Skablauskas (who fished in last year's team) and Ron Dalton.

Mike Skipper, the team manager, put on a fantastic event held at a stunning venue. It was also great to meet other like-minded lure anglers I'd never met before, and to say I'm really looking forward to attending the 7th World Championships on Lac Bourget this October is an understatement!

That's not the only match I've fished in this month. At the beginning of May I fished in the Lexus Individual and Team Flyfishing Championships on Grafham. I didn't do so well in the individual match on the Saturday, but our team, the Pitsford Pirates, qualified for the Lexus Team Final this August on Rutland by finishing in 4th place, which was a great result, especially as none of our team members had much time to practice on there! To qualify, we had to beat a strong field of top teams, fishing midge tip lines with nymphs, and either a sunburst blob or booby on the point. I also really enjoyed fishing with Fen Oakley, who was representing SKB Fishbums - it was the first time we'd fished together since we were both in the England Youth Flyfishing Team.

I've also had some other great news recently. Just in the last few weeks I have been given the role of Project Manager for an initiative being run by the charity, Get Hooked on Fishing, called GHoF Bedfordshire. Thanks to lottery funding, the lakes at Shuttleworth College (coincidentally where I completed my Extended Diploma in Fish Management course) have been dredged and the plan is to create the site in to a teaching facility for those wanting to learn to fish. We'll teach all kinds of fishing there but I am very keen to introduce people to lure fishing once it's all up and running. Things have only just started to get underway, and it's going to be a massive project, but it has masses of potential and I'm really looking forward to it. As the project is still in it's infancy, there's not much more I can really say at the moment but to find out more information check out the recently-launched Get Hooked on Fishing Bedfordshire Facebook page, which we'll update as work progresses. We're hoping to open it in April 2015, so if you're interested in helping out, please feel free to drop me a message on the GHoF Bedfordshire Facebook page.

On Good Friday, I also helped Get Hooked on Fishing at their complex of lakes in Ealing, for the launch of GHoF and the Angling Trust's 'Family Fishing' campaign. Over the course of the day there were 119 participants and Dad and I were showing people jigging and drop-shotting for the coarse fish.

As there are no Pike in the lakes at Ealing, and the Perch are only small, we were able to use light fluorocarbon leaders, using 0.5g jigheads rigged with Berkley Power Maggots and Maxi Bloodworms, or drop-shotting with the same soft baits.

Every participant really enjoyed trying lure fishing for the first time, and everybody caught a fish, many of which was their first! We caught a real mixture of species, including Goldfish!

Finally, we managed to squeeze in an afternoon flyfishing for Carp on a local gravel pit, which is awesome fun if you've never tried it, and our favourite way to catch Carp. Using Mixer flies made from Deer hair that my Dad ties, we caught 3 to 17lb 7oz.

Spotties, Stripeys… and Rubber Lips!

For the last week of the season, my local rivers looked absolutely spot-on for all kinds of fishing. The never ending rain we had all winter had finally stopped, the rivers had receded back to their normal levels and in some areas temperatures topped 20°C - which is unusual for March!

However, that warm weather, combined with the longer days and perfect river conditions caused both Pike and Perch to spawn. At the beginning of the last week of the season we concentrated on lure fishing for Perch, and although Dad caught an immaculate 3lb 13oz stripey on a small deep-diving crankbait, and I also landed one of 2lb 13oz on a drop-shotted Berkley Ribbontail Grub, the fishing was really tough.

After seeing lots of small jack Pike in the margins we began to realise what was happening, so for the last three days we decided to have a change of plan and target Chub on lures.

I love fishing for Chub with lures - the bites are so aggressive, no matter what the size of the fish is. Fishing small crankbaits and soft plastics rigged on Owner Ultrahead Finesse Type Hooks, we banked a few lovely fish - the biggest, which my Dad caught, weighed 4lb 14oz and took a 65mm Sébile A.T Minnow, which looks very much like a Slug as it's falling through the water.

On one of the last days of the season, whilst targeting Chub, I spotted a Carp swimming along the margins. I thought I'd try and stalk it with the drop-shot rig I already had tied on, so I cast a couple of feet in front of it, but it started to move away. I thought I might have spooked it at first, but it did a 360° turn and sucked my Ribbontail Grub up! It was a fantastic fight on a light spinning rod!

Normally, once the season comes to a close, my Dad and I have a few days rest and catch-up before thinking about going fishing again, but on March 15th we headed to Needham Lake in Suffolk, where the Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain and the Lure Anglers Society had organised a lure fishing day for youngsters. Although we were very lucky with the weather and it was a warm, sunny Spring day, the fishing was really tough, again probably because the predators were getting ready to spawn, or already spawning. Twenty youngsters were divided in to pairs and were allocated with a coach. Each of the 20 youngsters that came along were so enthusiastic and keen - they were soon picking up different lure fishing techniques, and some were even using baitcasting reels! Well done to Max Rushbrook and Aston Lander for both catching their first ever Pike.

Jason Skilton, Suffolk R.O for the P.A.C, Ron Dalton from the L.A.S and Mark Brewster organised a really enjoyable day. Lure fishing is a great way to introduce newcomers to the sport, and I'm sure it's going to grow in popularity over the coming years.

Since then, we haven't done too much fishing. We tried lure fishing a local gravel pit for a few hours, which wasn't very successful with only a couple of small jacks to show for it, but it was great to try out some new lures we'd recently bought!

Last week I had my first trip of the season flyfishing for Trout on Grafham. My Dad and I had some fantastic sport fishing floating lines and a team of Buzzers with a small Booby on the point, as the fish were very high up in the water. We only fished for a half day but landed around 40 rainbows in total, and I also caught a Brownie of around 3lb 8oz. We probably could have moved to other areas and had a better chance of landing some bigger, overwintered fish, but it was such great fun we just got carried away and ran out of time!

I'm looking forward to another trip to Grafham, and if it warms up enough, it may soon be time to target Carp on the fly!

Yesterday Dad and I went to a training day along with others from the Angling Trust and Get Hooked on Fishing in Nottingham. Dad and I had brought along a couple of lure rods, as after the training day (if we had time) we'd planned to stop on the way back home and have a couple of hours lure fishing for Zander along a stretch of the Oxford Canal. We hadn't fished the stretch for around 6 or 7 years so we didn't know what it was going to be like. We mentioned it to James and Charlie from GHoF Ealing and it turned out they had some lure gear in the back of their car too, so they decided to join us!

Although the area still looked exactly the same, the fishing wasn't. I caught one tiny Zander and also lost one of around the same size, but unfortunately that was the only action we had. Still, it was a nice evening and even better with James and Charlie.

The season ends well for my Dad!

With only days to go until March 14th, my Dad has definitely been making the most of the good weather at the end of the season - river Carp to 22lb 5oz, Chub to 6lb 12oz, a 10lb 2oz Barbel and two 4lb Perch are just a few of the great fish he's caught recently!

Mind you, what a wet year it's been so far! The rainfall over the last couple of months has had a massive effect on fishing, but despite the wettest winter on record, we've tried to get out as much as we can on the banks of our local rivers.

A few weeks back, my Dad and I fished with Keith Arthur along the Grand Union Canal lure fishing for Perch, filming for Sky Sports' Tightlines. For the filming, we'd initially planned to lure fish along my local River Lea, but with a huge band of rain swooping across the country a couple of days before, the river was still too pacey and coloured. Plan B, which was a local gravel pit, was also out of the question as the river running adjacent had flooded in to it, so we had a last minute change of plan. I'd only fished the Grand Union Canal once and that was in a blizzard last year, so I had little idea of how it would look, but because the water in the canal is fed from the Tring reservoirs, the clarity was surprisingly clear and looked great for lure fishing when we arrived.

Unfortunately though, it was still raining and it had to be one of the wettest days Dad, Keith and I have EVER fished on - it just didn't stop! After around an hour and a half of fishing, and a change of tactic to a crankbait, on my first cast I caught a Perch of 2lb 7oz on a Berkley Frenzy! Flicker Shad, quickly followed by a smaller one. 

Dad also switched to a crankbait and caught another, which we didn't weigh, but was a low 2lb'er.

We covered a lot of ground with a variety of different tactics but the fishing was surprisingly tough - I think the damp and cold had got to us all too, so that didn't help. After exploring further along the canal with no success, we decided to return to the area I'd caught my 2lb 7oz from for the last half hour and Keith caught 4 small Perch on a tiny jigged shad, plus Dad had a couple more on a small Sébile A.T Minnow - a shad that has been great for us this season.

Only until recently have my local rivers been clear enough to fish with lures - they're still carrying a lot of water, but when they were coloured we both decided it might be a good idea to try some quivertipping for a change, targeting Chub, Barbel and Carp as we were desperate to get out and fish.

As we do with our lure fishing, we kept mobile, as normally most of the bites come within 5-10 minutes of casting out in a new spot, so after 15 minutes or so we would up and move again if we hadn't had any action, sometimes returning later to the same swim if we felt there was a good chance of another bite at a different time of day. Roving along local stretches of river, hitting likely looking spots, and using a simple running leger rig with 6lb line, size 8 or 10 hook and a cage feeder, stuffed with liquidised bread and breadflake on the hook, we had a great couple of weeks fishing.

Most of our trips were afternoons, often fishing in to the dark for an hour or two, and over a couple of weeks we landed 14 Carp to 22lb 5oz, most of which were doubles, a few Chub to 6lb 12oz, a 10lb 2oz Barbel plus plenty of Bream around the 5-6lb mark. On one of our first trips Dad landed 3 Carp in an hour from one spot, for a combined weight of just under 50lbs!

Although the river still wasn't quite right for lure fishing on one afternoon, whilst Dad was quivertipping I decided to give it a go - I had one bite and that was from a stripey of 3lb 1oz, on a Texas rigged twintail.

A couple of days later, we headed to Farnborough to spend the weekend demonstrating lures and lure fishing tactics at the Get Hooked on Fishing Funfair at 'The Big One' show. Thanks to Pure Fishing lending us their demo pool, it was a great way to demonstrate different types of lures and tactics, from large swimbaits to finesse drop-shot rigs. It was a great weekend and the amount of people, young and old, wanting to see lures in the water, or have a go themselves was brilliant. In addition to the lure pool, at the GHoF Funfair there were plenty of other activities - you could practise throwing and cupping accuracy with top anglers such as Will Raison, Des Shipp and Keith Arthur, just to name a few; make fishy crafts and even have a go on a fish playing simulator! Without the hard work of Sarah Collins and all the other great volunteers for the charity, the GHoF Funfair wouldn't have been possible - it was fantastic to be involved with so many enthusiastic anglers and volunteers from all areas of the sport.

By the time 'The Big One' was over, the clarity of our local rivers had begun to improve, though they were (and still are) carrying a lot of water, so Dad and I decided to try and make the most of the good conditions before another huge band of heavy rain fell the next weekend and have a couple of days in search of big Perch on lures. Despite the rivers looking fantastic, the fishing was quite challenging, possibly because of the unusually high temperatures for this time of year, and predators getting ready to spawn.

However, I can't think of a better time of year to catch a big Perch and Dad has had two crackers, the first weighing 4lb exactly, which took a Texas rigged twintail, and the second weighing 4lb 1oz, caught on a small crankbait the day after his birthday!

We also fished on his birthday for a couple of hours and he caught a Pike of 12lb 2oz from a local stretch of the River Lea, plus another of around 8lb, which are quite good Pike for the Lea.

Last weekend I ventured north of the border to Glasgow Angling Centre, for their Spring Open weekend, demonstrating lures in their outdoor lure pool alongside Jan Porter, Ant Glascoe and Julian Chidgey. This was the second time I've visited GAC's Open Weekend, and just like the last it was a fantastic three days, meeting and chatting to lots of interesting anglers.

With only a few days of the season left to go, I'll be trying to make the most of it before March 14th. Then it's time to dust off the fly rods!