Time flies when you're fishing the fly!

I do like to try and keep on top of my blog and not let it get too far behind, but for this post I'm really playing catch up! This was meant to be about the fishing I managed before heading out to Holland for the Predator Tour, but it now also combines the fishing I've managed to fit in since returning.

Most of our fishing throughout May was on the fly, targeting a number of different species. At the beginning of the month we had a very warm, sunny spell - the first of the year, which brought the Carp up on top in my local Rib Valley lakes, and the conditions were perfect for targeting them on the surface.

Flyfishing for Carp is similar to stalking Bonefish and Permit on the flats - landing your fly exactly in the right place is so important, but the excitement of watching a fish come up and slurp your fly down is worth all the effort of chasing a big fish. Then all hell breaks loose with that initial first run that makes your reel scream!

Over the course of a few trips we landed quite a few Carp, most of which weighed 15lbs or more.

Two of those fish were quite special for me - the first of those was a 20lb Ghost Koi, which is a fairly recognisable fish when you look at its blunt-shaped head. I thought I recognised it, and after looking back at old photos, it turned out I'd caught it 10 years and 17 days before, aged 11, on popped up maggots!

The second of those special fish was a new P.B for me, weighing 25lb 9oz. It gave me a brilliant fight and I'm pleased to have caught it on the fly!

On one of the days we were flyfishing for the Carp, we spotted some huge shoals of Roach, and in amongst these were some big fish, which Dad and I were sure were over 2lb. Unfortunately, we only had our 8wts on us at the time - we did target them, and we did catch a few, but the 8wts were a bit overkill. We returned a few days later with a 5wt and some small nymphs and damsels and managed to stalk some of the bigger fish. Although they aren't as big as Carp, it was just as exciting to watch them take the fly, and over the course of a couple of hours fishing we had Roach of 1lb 4oz, 1lb 5oz, 1lb 6oz and 1lb 7oz.

What was interesting to watch was the Roach were being followed by some nice Perch, and Dad managed to catch a couple of these on small damsels.

The Roach were also being followed by four or five Pike, and one of those fish was pretty big - we managed to film it on my GoPro chasing a Roach my Dad hooked, and we both thought it was around 19-20lbs - which links in to my next story. Hopefully, by the next blog post I will have had some time to edit it and put together a video, along with the other fish we saw.

Throughout May, the Angling Trust set up a scheme called 'Get Back in to Angling', aimed at getting people who hadn't bought a rod licence for two years or more to try fishing again, and I organised a couple of sessions aimed at lure fishing. Rib Valley very kindly gave us special permission to lure fish the big lake, and we had two great sessions, firstly with Nathan Inns and the last session with John Cousins. John hadn't lure fished in 20 years, but it didn't take long for him to get back in to the swing of it and catch a Pike. We then went to the area where we'd seen the big Pike chasing the Roach, and sure enough, we watched it follow his lure right to the bank and take it at his feet! It was incredible to watch and we didn't actually realise how big it was until we got it in the net - it weighed 20lb 7oz and was a metre long!

Mid May marks the opening of flyfishing for predators on the midlands reservoirs and it's something I really look forward to after a few months of being closed for targeting Pike, Perch and Zander. The sport can be brilliant and there's always the chance of hooking in to something special, although the fishing seems to have been a bit harder this year so far on Grafham for us, which is the only reservoir we've fished so far. We have had some nice fish though - Dad's caught the biggest Zander at 10lb 10oz and we've had a few 8-9lber's too - hard fighting fish on the fly that I never tire of catching.

The Perch have been obliging though and some nice fish up to around the 3lb mark have fallen for our flies.

Whilst targeting the predators we've also picked up some nice Brownies, all of which have been over 5lbs.

I've also fished in a couple of loch style competitions for the Pitsford Pirates, in the Sportfish Championships and the Airflo International Midland Heat. Unfortunately, we just missed out on qualifying by what equated to just a couple of fish in the Sportfish heat, but thankfully our luck changed in the Airflo heat a few weeks later where we finished fourth and qualified for the next round. Fingers crossed we can qualify for the Airflo final on Rutland in the next heat!

A few months ago, Jonathan Fromant, who had been doing his work experience with Get Hooked on Fishing, invited me and my Dad fishing for Smoothound out of Bradwell from John Rawle's boat 'Daphne Carole'. It was an opportunity not to be missed and we quickly snapped up his offer, not just because if we were to catch a Smoothound, it would be a new species for me and my Dad, but also because the last time we'd seen John Rawle was when I was six, as my Dad and Grandad had many great trips fishing with him on the Florida Keys, whilst my Mum, Nan and I explored Islamorada.

We had action all day long, boating over 100 Smoothounds. To add to the fun, we occasionally had schools of Bass come close to the boat, which we caught on Sébile Koolie Minnows.

There was one crazy period where five of us were all hooked in to double figure fish, the biggest of which turned out to be Jonathan's new P.B, a fantastic fish of 22lb.

It was an awesome day all round and another species added to our lists - cheers Jonathan and John!

Five days later it was June 16th, and whilst we really wanted to fish the Thames on our boat, I couldn't afford the time, so we spent a few hours on my local rivers targeting Chub, Perch and Pike. It was actually quite a hard June 16th compared to other seasons for us, the hardest I think I've fished for four or five years, but we did catch a few fish, including some beautifully marked Brownies, Perch, Pike and a greedy Minnow which took a 1.5" Gulp! Hellgrammite, intended for Chub!

Dad had the biggest Chub of the day, weighing 5lb 3oz, which he watched slam his Havoc Pit Boss Jr!

This month will be a busy and exciting one for me - Fish'O'Mania, The Game Fair, BBC Countryfile Show and other Family Fishing days are coming up quickly, and hopefully, it won't be long before we can get back on the Thames - our boat is calling and I can't wait!

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!