A very fishy summer!

I'm not quite sure where this summer has gone so far - somehow, it feels like it's only just started but actually, we're just a week away from the August bank holiday weekend! The past few summers have been very busy ones for me as a Project Manager for Get Hooked on Fishing, with lots of coaching events and shows taking place, and this year has been especially busy. The first event was Fish'O'Mania back in mid-July, followed by a Family Fishing day at Suffolk Water Park, then over to Ragley Hall in Warwickshire for the new look Game Fair, and then, the packed out BBC Countryfile Live show at Blenheim Palace - by far the busiest event I've ever shown lure fishing at, with over 5000 signing in for the waterside activities!

At the Countryfile Live show, our lure tank was based so close to the river at Blenheim, that Dad and I couldn't help but have a few casts every now and then. The water was only inches deep - in fact, our lure tank was deeper! We caught around 40 Perch and a jack Pike over the course of the four show days, mainly on Berkley Shrug Minnows rigged on a 2.5g Rock Head. We also managed to squeeze in a couple of hours fishing after the second day of the show, on a small, picturesque estate lake a stone's throw away from where we were staying. Jonathan Fromant, a volunteer who has given up a lot of his spare time to help GHoF, Dad and I fished until it got dark and Dad caught four Pike, the biggest of which was probably getting on for 10lb, which he caught on a chatterbait, along with a nice Perch.

Most of my fishing over the past month took place before the Game Fair and Countryfile Live shows, on either Grafham, flyfishing, or on the Thames, lure fishing. I'd been looking forward to fishing the Thames for quite a few months, as we hadn't been down there since the winter, but we were a little concerned about the state our boat would be in after leaving it so long without visiting. Apart from a few cobwebs and spiders inside, it was surprisingly tidy!

My first fish of the season from the Thames turned out to be a lovely Perch, which took a white Berkley Havoc Rocket Craw, and a couple of weeks later ended up on the front cover of Angling Times!

The white Rocket Craw turned out to be our most successful lure on that trip, which stood out well in the coloured water we were fishing in and helped us catch plenty more Pike and Perch. Our next trip, about a week or so later, turned out to be even more action packed, especially when it came to Pike - at one point Dad caught four in four casts!

We fished through the night in the hope of Zander, and just before it got dark I managed to catch my first Thames Zander for quite a while, which took a Havoc Sick Fish Jr on a 10g 3/0 jighead.

It was great to catch the Zander under a full moon with a cloudless sky, and it never really got that dark - Dad took this photo of some houses as we were motoring downstream at 2.17am!

Hooking in to a fish on a lure in the dark under a full moon is a very eerie but exciting experience, not knowing whether you've hooked a Zander, Pike or even a Chub!

At around midnight, I shone my headtorch in to the water to see how the lure was swimming, and I spotted two elvers swimming just under the surface, which was interesting to watch. The river was a little less coloured and during the day, duller Rocket Craws and Pit Boss Jr's worked very well, helping us boat 26 Pike, 26 Perch, a Zander and a Chub.

On our most recent trip, Dad managed to catch two more Zander.

Whilst heading downstream, Dad and I spotted some fry scattering, thinking they were Perch. We cast our crankbaits to them and they turned out to be Chub!

This was the biggest of six we landed on 5cm Flicker Shads, and like me on the last trip, Dad managed to complete a Thames 'Super Slam' - Pike, Perch, Zander and Chub all in the same session!

Back to flyfishing, and I always enjoy flyfishing Grafham throughout the summer for Pike, Perch and Zander, and we had a couple of good trips towards the end of July, mainly targeting the Zander and Perch, although we have caught a couple of nice Pike recently, which have moved in to the slightly deeper water where we've been targeting the other species.

Dad's caught our biggest fly caught Zander this year so far - a chunky fish of 10lb 10oz caught on one of his 'Zander Lander' flies.

I also had a trip flyfishing for Trout practising for the Airflo International Midland Final - the trout team I fish for, the Pitsford Pirates, had qualified to fish this semi-final match. I fished with Bart Farmer and although it wasn't easy fishing, we found a method for the match day (which I couldn't make), and the team put in a brilliant performance and managed to finish second, qualifying for the final in October! Our captain Charlie Abrahams also won the match too! Well done to Charlie and the team!

The week before last, I fished some local gravel pits that are very shallow and weedy, targeting Pike on buzz baits with Mark Parker for a feature for Improve Your Coarse Fishing. They're one of my favourite surface lures and a favourite summer lure to fish, and even though the fishing was hard, the takes alone were well worth the wait - watching a Pike bow-wave behind your lure and then slam it off the surface is such an exciting way of targeting them! This was the biggest of four fish caught on the day.

We're now preparing for two more Family Fishing days this weekend - one at Rib Valley on Saturday 27th, and one at the Ealing project on Monday 29th. The long range weather forecast looks very good so fingers crossed it stays the same!

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!