The guided trips season began in April and May with the first of the carp trips.  As usual, Weston park was a fantastic success. This stunning lake has a large head of twenty pound plus fish in it, including a lots of mid-twenty commons.

Six lads fished for three days including two nights bivvied up and I am pleased to report that everyone caught fish. Indeed everyone caught at least one twenty and that meant that several of the boys had personal bests.

Thankfully, the weather remained good if not a little on the cool side, a bonus as it turned out because I am sure that hot weather would have seen the fish spawning.

As usual, the spicy chicken boiles did the business  – in total the six anglers got 46 runs over the three days, resulting in 37 carp landed, most of whoich were over twenty with a number of beautiful commons.

One of my most loyal clients, Paul Mcassey had a one-to-one trip with me just prior to the group arriving and his reward was a brace of stunning mid-twenty commons - well done Paul!

This year we also had several trips to the exciting new Watermark fisheries in the Cotswolds. The main venue, Bradleys, a huge gravel pit of over 130 acres is somewhat daunting when you first see it but it does contain some mighty fish. Tench were the main target and several of the lads had PB tench with fish to over nine pounds cuaght during the sessions.

The Bradleys tench are stunning, averaging around six to seven pounds with individual fish going into double figures. It also contains a number of very big carp to over forty pounds, many of which have not been caught and the recent introduction (November 2006) of over 2000 single figure fish is bound to produce explosive sport in the future. Believe me, the fish willgrow very fast in this water and next year’s trips should produce some stunning carp as well as the tench.    

Additionally, several guests fished inside the main complex at the Watermark where there are a number of luxury holiday homes that surround some stunning lakes. One of the lakes, Isis, contains a very big head of ghost carp and they are willing surface feeders! Though not a pushover, Isis always seems to produce either off the surface or to feeder fishing tactics and we had some great sport there.

Thos of you whom are interested in booking a luxury fishing hoiday in the UK could do worse than contact the Watermark and enquire about hiring one of the houses – they are superb abd absoloutely perfect for wives and families. 

This year’s barbel trips took place in late Septemebr and ran into October. With the river low and very, very clear the fishing was tough. The Severn was in particularly bad form, carrying cold, deoxygenated water flushed out of the Clywedog dam. This made the fishing doubly difficult and I have never known the river so quiet as anglers struggled to catch.

Thankfully, we enjoyed some sport by using subtle tactics combined with liberal doses of patiience. All of my guests caught barbel and that is some achievement in the circumstances.

The predator fishing trips started slowly too but I ma pleased to report that all of my guests caught their first zander and we nailed some pike too. As the autumn began to wear on the fishing got better and better and by November, when young Sam Blackwell fished with me the fishing was really taking off. Sam nailed some pike, perch and very, very nice zander with several fish between four and eight and half pounds, all caught on lures. The biggest zandr caught by one of my guests on a trips so far is 13-8.  

Matt 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.