Predator Tour 2016, Hollands Diep, The Netherlands

Last year, Dan Brackley, a good friend of mine, was looking for a boat partner to join him to make a pair to fish the Predator Tour 2016. The Predator Tour is Europe's biggest open boat lure fishing competition, and this year's event was the biggest to date with 98 pairs taking on Hollands Diep, an estuary of the River Rhine.

The event sounded amazing and I contacted Dan to see if he'd be interested in having me as his boat partner, and he very kindly allowed me to form a team with him for the tournament.

The Predator Tour is a three day competition, starting on the Friday and finishing on the Sunday afternoon, so to give ourselves time to practice, we headed out on the Saturday night (six days before the first match day) on the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry. I'm not sure how Dan went about booking the ferry, but somehow we ended up in the luxurious Captains Suite, right at the front of the ferry, with free champagne and beer, which was a great start to the trip!

We managed to fit a couple of hours fishing in on the Sunday afternoon through some heavy rain, which enabled Dan and my Dad to catch their first Zander of the trip.

Unfortunately, we couldn't fish on the Monday due to thunderstorms, but it did give us some time to prepare for the forthcoming match.

Tuesday gave us our first full day to really explore the vastness of Hollands Diep, which is over two miles wide in places! I can't compare the fishing there to anywhere I've fished for Pike, Perch and Zander in the UK - dodging huge container ships as we drove down shipping lanes to reach spots, fishing for Perch and Zander in 2ft of water with 6" lures, whilst being surrounded by huge Mullet tailing around the boat!

We had some great fishing and over two and a half practice days, we caught Pike to 98cm on the Berkley Powerbait Kicker Frog, Perch to 44cm and Zander to around 70cm.

More importantly, we'd found areas to fish during the match, and had an idea of tactics and lures to use - so we put together a game plan for day one.

The way the Predator Tour works is that you have to catch three Pike to qualify, then three Zander and one Perch to complete the limit, then the longest combined length wins. Dan and I planned to fish for Pike first so we could try and get these ticked off (being the most important of the species to catch), and thankfully, our game plan worked.

The atmosphere at the start of the Predator Tour was very special, especially on day one, when we had a helicopter filming just a few metres above our heads!

The marshals signalled the start of the match and the roar of 98 boats zooming off in to Hollands Diep was a moment I won't forget!

Our first fish of the match was actually our biggest Perch of the tournament - a 46cm stripey caught by Dan, but this was followed by all-important Pike of 85cm, 47cm and 51cm, plus another which was too small to count.

During this time I also caught two 44cm Perch and one of 45cm on 4" Berkley Ripple Shads in Cappuccino, which were fantastic fish but didn't count as Dan had already caught the biggest Perch!

Dan also managed a 48cm Zander in the last half hour of day one, and by the end of the day we were 15th out of 98 pairs, needing two measurable Zander to complete our limit, then we needed to improve on the length of fish we'd caught.

Day two started two and a half hours late due to a fog delay. At 10.30am we headed out in to Hollands Diep in still relatively thick fog, which had a very eery feel to it as huge ships emerged through the mist as we were driving to our first spot, although the fog burnt off quickly soon after we started fishing.

We had quite a slow start but our first fish was a 68cm Zander.

On the next cast, I hooked and landed a Pike of 101cm! Unfortunately, it wasn't the nicest looking Pike I've ever caught, with a large area on both sides near the tail showing just muscle. It had probably been hit by the propeller of a boat.

With no more Zander showing, we headed in to deeper water to try and catch our last required fish, and here I caught two Zander - the first fish was undersized, but thankfully on the next cast I caught a 44cm fish to complete the three species total required to finish higher in the table. We climbed to 12th out 98 teams after day two, but there was room for improvement on one of the Pike and two of the Zander, and we knew that if we couldn't improve on the lengths of these fish, then we would probably slip down the table, but we headed in to day three confident of increasing our overall length.

Whilst Dan and I were out fishing, Dad had a few hours on the Saturday fishing from the shore and caught this 61cm Zander - that would have come in handy for me and Dan during the match!

By day three, heavy rain across Europe, which had caused flooding in France, Germany and Romania, had caused the Rhine to colour up massively and we had very little visibility, with just 3" in some areas. Unfortunately, we lost a fish and had one other bite, and they were the only two bites we had all day. Failing to increase our overall length caused us to slip from 12th to 23rd, which was a real gutter for us. However, we were up against some of Europe's best lure anglers, many of who know Hollands Diep very well and have fished the venue for years, so we were pleased in one sense, but upset in another!

The prizes were awarded to the winners at the closing ceremony at the restaurant at Euro Parcs Biesbosch, where all the competitors were staying.

The accommodation and restaurant were excellent and we had a great time there, especially chatting to fellow competitors. It was also great to see Evaldas Skablauskas and Vidar Thomassen, also from England, competing in the match.

Congratulations to Luc Coppens and Jeremy Staverman for retaining the Predator Tour title - they have a fantastic record of tournament wins in Holland, also winning the last two World Predator Classics.

It was a brilliant tournament, which was very well organised by Evert Oostdam and his colleagues, and I've certainly learnt a lot from my first time fishing in Holland. Thanks Dan for letting me join you!

Driving Pike hopping mad!

April can be a strange month for targeting predators with lures. Sometimes Pike are still spawning, and Perch normally spawn at some stage throughout the course of the month too, so fishing can be challenging. The Pike spawned a little later this year (in my area, that is) and whilst this was happening, Dad and I had a few trips fishing a local gravel pit and whilst I targeted the Perch with lures, Dad decided to have a change from the lure fishing and target some of the lake's immaculate Roach by quivertipping.

It's nice to do something different every once in a while and a lot of gravel pits, particularly those that are mainly fished for Carp, often hold good specimens of other species, particularly Roach and Perch, by growing big on bait used by Carp anglers, and thriving on neglect.

We both caught some nice Perch, mine on lures whilst Dad caught some beautiful stripeys to just under 3lb whilst targeting the Roach, mainly with red maggots.

Many of the better Roach Dad caught came as the light was fading, or an hour or so after dark, and all the fish we caught, including the Perch, were immaculate - they looked as if they'd never been caught before and their colours were so vivid, enhanced by the gin clear water in this gravel pit.

After a few trips, the fishing began to get harder and on one particular evening, the only fish we caught, a Perch of around 1lb 8oz, was attacked by a nice Pike that was extremely fired up. We decided that this would be our last trip for a while fishing for the Roach and Perch, and switch back to targeting toothier species.

Our next trip was on the Grand Union Canal targeting Zander with Dan Brackley. It was the first time we'd fished together since the Lure Fishing World Championships in France in 2014. The fishing wasn't easy though - it was a glorious day with bright sunshine, but that came with a price. As it was a Saturday, there were barges going up and down the canal every couple of minutes and whilst it can often be a good thing by disorientating silverfish, which the Zander take advantage of, when boat traffic is as busy as it was on this day, it works the other way round. We all caught a few fish though, along with a couple of nice Perch - Dad caught the biggest of the day.

Dan is a great angler and great company too, and I'm looking forward to fishing with him again soon in Holland in the Predator Tour - we'll be heading out there at the end of this month and I can't wait!

Back to the gravel pits, and with spring finally arriving, I thought it would be a good time to try out the new Berkley Powerbait Kicker Frog, new to Berkley's UK range for 2016. The only place I'd tried it out beforehand were in the lure tanks in Glasgow Angling Centre and at 'The Big One' show back in March, but it did give me a chance to experiment with different retrieves. After hours of casting and retrieving in a tank with no fish, I was itching to try it out somewhere that did contain fish!

We tried it out for the first time on a huge set of local gravel pits. The fishing there isn't easy by all means (and that accounts for every species that inhabit the pits), but there are some good Pike lurking about in there, if you can find them, and the venue seemed perfect for the Kicker Frog, being shallow, mostly reed fringed and with lilies beginning to emerge.

It took just five casts to catch a fish on the frog - not a monster, but it was great to christen a new lure!

Unfortunately though, the second fish I caught on the frog hit the lure so aggressively it ripped the legs off, and it was the only one I'd brought along with me on the day! I thought I'd brought more than one with me, but I'd left the others at home!

It turned out to be my best day numbers wise on the pits, with five Pike banked in a few hours fishing, although nothing big. There was one particular fish that followed my jerk bait in and watched my lure as I deadsticked it for two minutes - I managed to film it on my GoPro and you can just about make out the Pike as it eyes up and takes the lure!

Dad also caught a couple of better Pike, and experienced something we've only ever encountered before with Carp. After hooking in to a nice Pike of around 10lbs (the fish on the left of the photo below), the fish on the right followed it in to the net!

Over the course of a few trips fishing a few different venues, we caught some lovely Pike to around 15lbs on the Kicker Frog. Below is a video I've put together of a few fish caught on the frog, plus a few rigging options too:

Between us, Dad caught the biggest Pike of the month. After walking around the huge gravel pits I'd described earlier with only one jack Pike between us and a few half-hearted follows, with just an hour to go before dark Dad spotted a very nice Pike in the margins. He decided to quickly change lure, and even move in to a different swim to get the perfect cast. They weren't really proper swims, as this venue is very wild and there was a steep drop of about 5ft down to the lake fringed by thorn bushes, so as all this was all going on, I had the net on the ready, but the pole extension had become jammed and I was trying desperately to pull it out so it could reach the water. Dad's move paid off and seconds later he hooked in to the fish, so I had to try and get to the fish, but ended up slipping down the bank and in to the thorns - but I netted it, and that's all that mattered to Dad!

This April was very busy with Get Hooked on Fishing, with two Family Fishing days taking place at Rib Valley, and one last weekend at Thames Water's Walthamstow Angling Academy, along with 'have a go' sessions on most Sundays throughout the month. These events, which have been a huge success, would not be possible without the help of those who have volunteered for us. There are too many names to list on here, but I can't express how vital they are in helping the charity give people the opportunity to fish, often for the first time, so an enormous thank you to all our volunteers!

To round this blog post off, I often read features in magazines, articles online and chapters in books, with the aim to try and improve my fishing, but very rarely do I see something that isn't a 'how to' and instead recalls unusual, funny and fascinating stories that we experience when fishing. I already have a copy of Dominic Garnett's 'Flyfishing for Coarse Fish', which I really enjoyed, and in a way Dom and I are quite similar as we both love catching different species of fish in unusual places on lures and flies, and whilst it is nice to catch big fish, that's not always what fishing is all about, and Dom reiterates that in his latest book 'Crooked Lines'. Dom has a great gift of getting back to basics and portraying the atmosphere and experience in words - blood, sweat, tears and all. Once you start reading 'Crooked Lines' it's very hard to put down, and that's down to Dom being one of the best creative fishing writers around. I would thoroughly recommend reading his new book!

Several species to end a super season!

Thank goodness Sunday was the first day of Spring! We've had a strange winter, with temperatures up and down like a yo-yo, which I think has affected the fishing and our run-in to the end of the river season. The last six weeks of the season were the hardest my Dad and I have ever experienced targeting predators on rivers - thankfully we've caught a few nice fish this past month, but we were certainly made to work for them!

At the end of February, I had a call from James Robbins, Shakespeare's Brand Manager, asking if I'd like to fish the River Wye for a shoot advertising some new Shakespeare products coming out next year. With our local rivers fishing so hard, I jumped at the opportunity and a couple of days later I was gearing up for my first day targeting Pike and Perch on the Wye. The last time I'd fished the Wye was when I went Salmon fishing when I was 10 - my Dad and I were embarking on 'A Reel Challenge' - trying to catch as many species as we could over the course of 28 days, raising money for the charity, Children with Cancer UK. Unfortunately, we didn't catch a Salmon then, but I did catch a Flounder on a spinner! Hopefully, this time, we could catch our target species - Pike and Perch!

Unfortunately, overnight rain had caused the river to rise by about 3ft and turn to the colour of chocolate, but we fished hard in the slack marginal eddies and after an hour or so, something whacked my Powerbait Slim Shad right at my feet, and shortly after we had my first River Wye Pike in the net, not far off double figures!

After another hour or so without any bites, James suggested we move upstream to Hereford, where hopefully the river would be clearer. Dad and I were amazed by the place - it's incredible how so many big fish of so many species get caught from one stretch! There were silverfish topping everywhere and sure enough, it was full of Perch too, which were suicidal for drop-shotted Floating Mice Tails and Twitchtail Minnows! It was a complete contrast to how our local rivers had been fishing for Perch!

James suggested we have another move right at the end of the day to another stretch downstream of Hereford for another attempt at a big River Wye Pike. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to cover the stretch, but Dad managed to bank his first Wye Pike, as well as a greedy Trout that took his chatterbait!

Dad and I really enjoyed fishing the Wye, and we're both already looking forward to hopefully spending some time fishing it next season.

It was then back to our local rivers for the last fortnight of the season, which, as I've already mentioned, were fishing really hard. We tried a number of different lure fishing tactics, but jigged or Texas rigged soft baits seemed to catch most of our fish. One particular soft bait saved us from a few blanks and has also caught most of our biggest Perch this year so far. The Berkley Havoc Sick Fish Jr., designed by Skeet Reese, has been brought over to the UK from the US for 2016, and we've been very impressed by both its unique action and fish-catching ability. The Havoc Pit Boss Jr. has also been very effective for Pike, Perch and Chub.

Not long after giving the Sick Fish Jr. a swim for the first time, we banked a few fish with it, including a 3lb 9oz Perch for my Dad.

However, when we returned home from fishing after my Dad had caught his 3lb 9oz stripey, he unfortunately came down with the flu. A couple of days later, conditions looked good for a big Perch so I said to him that I was going fishing for the last couple of hours before dark. He said he still wasn't feeling too good and he wouldn't fish, but instead he'd have a wander along the river to get some fresh air and then sit in the car. About half an hour before dark he turned up and asked me how I was getting on. I told him I'd only caught a small jack and lost one too. He then asked if he could have a cast with my new Abu Garcia Villain rod and Revo STX 20 reel to see how it felt with a 10g jighead and the Sick Fish Jr., so I gave it to him. What a mistake that was! On his one and only cast, he hooked and landed a fantastic looking Perch weighing 3lb 13oz. I couldn't believe it! He even had the nerve to ask to borrow my cap for a photo, before wandering back to the car!

A couple of days later, Dad started to get a bit better and he manage to drum up enough energy to fish for a few hours with me. This time we fished another stretch of river, and out of the six fish we banked, he caught the only Perch, and amazingly, it was another, different Perch weighing 3lb 13oz, this time on a smelt coloured Ripple Shad!

We all have bad patches and I certainly seemed to be on one - thankfully though, I did manage to catch a few nice fish before the season ended.

During the last week of the season, we did pick up a couple of nice Chub too on the Havoc Pit Boss Jr.

As always, the last weekend of the season came up really quickly, and we fished hard, covering around 10 miles of bankside along our local rivers on the last couple of days. I managed to bank a nice Chub, which took a Texas rigged twintail, and we also caught a good number of Pike and Perch.

Our biggest fish of the weekend came on the last day, but it wasn't any of the species I've listed above. About 18 months ago I caught a Carp on a jigged Rocket Craw, and on the last day of the season this year, Dad managed to catch the same fish on a Smelt coloured Ripple Shad, about three quarters of a mile downstream from where I caught it! It weighed 18lb 1oz and was a lovely looking fish!

March is normally a very busy month for Get Hooked on Fishing - not only do we have the first Family Fishing days of the year coming up in the next few days (the first is taking place at Rib Valley this Saturday), but it's also a time when there are quite a few shows, such as The Big One, where the charity hold fishing-related activities at the 'Get Hooked on Fishing Funfair'. These include casting games, a fish fighting machine, tombola, and also the lure pool, where I'm normally based, showing people a variety of lure fishing techniques. I've been to the Glasgow Angling Centre Spring Open Weekend and The Big One recently and both have been very busy - it's fantastic to see so many people having a go! We're very lucky to have a great group of volunteers that, without their help, it would be very difficult to run these events, so a massive thank you to them!

Whilst I was in Glasgow it was my Dad's birthday. Normally we fish together but unfortunately, it wasn't possible this time, but he did manage to get out for a few hours and catch a few nice 2lb+ Perch.

A couple of weeks ago we also had our first group session at our project at the Walthamstow Academy. I was a bit concerned what the weather would be like, but we were very lucky as it turned out to be one of the warmest days of the year so far. Although the fishing wasn't easy, and the smaller silverfish weren't showing, there were some very nice fish caught - the first fish of the day was the biggest Bream I've seen caught from the academy so far, and the sixth formers from Tottenham UTC also caught quite a few nice Tench, as well as a pretty looking Mirror Carp, to round off a very enjoyable day!

I've looked at the weather forecast and, unfortunately, it looks like we may not be so lucky with the weather for this weekend's Family Fishing day at Rib Valley, but I'm sure there will be a few nice fish caught!