Time to Catch Up
It has been a while since I have put pen to paper (actually finger to keyboard) so I thought I had better as the last 3 months since my last blog has flown by and I have much to report. So much actually, that I will have to skim through them rather than go into any real detail of each session. I will start of my exploits with a sum up of my trip to France at the end of April.
Myself and seven other lads booked Etang De Brigueuil as an exclusive sometime last year and as April of this year came round the excitement was building. We left Plymouth docks on the Thursday with an 11 hour overnight crossing ahead of us. The usual banter and side bets for most and biggest fish incurred on the crossing and after a few bears we all got our heads down ready for the morning docking and the seven and half hour drive on the French side. We arrived late Friday afternoon at the fishery and after a warm welcome from Andy and Tracey we had a quick look around the lake so we had an idea of where we would like to fish if we got a favourable draw on the Saturday morning.
The pegs most people wanted were 8 and 11 up in the shallows near the biggest feature in the lake the lily pads. I came out 6th in the draw and ended choosing peg 9 which is the other end from the shallows but as the those swims were already taken I felt it my best chance of nicking one or two from the deeper water where the old river bed runs through and exits near the chalet swim. I set abou finding some areas and once I had I spread about 4 kilos of the Velocity P-Nut+ with the throwing stick over the 3 rods. I don’t usually use a bait boat but I had borrowed one for this trip as in my research of the lake I found the most successful rods had used them. With the boat I sent out two full hoppers of hemp, maize, tigers, whole boilie and crumb. The three hook baits were all different to try and work out what they were favouring to pick up. One was a P-Nut boilie with a white pop up, the other the similar but a washed out pink and the third was critically balanced tiger nuts. 
It was soon clear that the fish were favouring either the white tipped boilie or the tigers so this became my main attack for the rest of the week. I had a great week with the lads and managed 10 fish into the forty bracket with some stunning originals and two of only 5 of the grass carp in there. Bob up in peg 8 won most and biggest fish the biggest being a belting 50+ common.
My next session was on the Godney Syndicate which is run by Shane Alway who is one of the co-owners of Velocity Baits. Shane kindly offered me a guest session on this stunning syndicate in Somerset and who was I to say no. In reality I was chomping at the bit to have a go and was over the moon when I was offered a chance to fish this tricky little water. 
As I said this is a tricky little water but has some absolute gems to go at so I arranged to come up and see the lads at velocity and then go over to the syndicate for the night. Whilst I was at Velocity Shane showed me the new test bait called Re-Akt and I liked the looks of it straight away and decided that I would take this to Godney with me. I arrived at Godney and had a look around and decided to fish the left hand lake of the two and I set up ¾ of the way up the middle arm. I put all three rods across to the far tree margin with 360 rigs and the new Re-Akt pop ups and proceeded to put out 3 kilos of the new test bet. It sometimes isn’t easy putting all your faith in a test bait that you haven’t used before but I needn’t have worried as by the morning I had put 9 on the bank including two belting original twenty commons. This was a great result for Godney and an even better result in the fact it showed the new bait is going to be a winner.
My next outing wasn’t really a session as such but it was an outing to Oxford for the Linear Open Day where I was invited to come and represent the Catch and Release team and Tales Media. This was a great day meeting some lovely people and having a good laugh in general. After the event was finished we were offered to have a night on Brasenose one so off we went to set up. As usual we turned it into a little match and it ended up as Cornwall (me) versus Wales (John and Ethan). It was a hectic affair for twenty minutes the next morning. Lol In this period both John and I managed to bag one and lose one each with some great ghillie skills from Ethan and then the rods went quiet again. As you can see the picture quality is amazing as it was taken by our on hand cameraman with both eyes shut. Lol
Next I will recall a couple of mental sessions in June down at Milemead Fisheries. Even though I have caught most of the wanted fish and a few more from Milemead I keep going back, one because it is a lovely place to fish and two because my nemesis, a fish called Yogi is still determined not to have a photo with me.
Milemead magic
My consolation prize for this (and what a consolation) was to catch my first Devon thirty and a new lake record on one of my sessions along with some absolute belting others. The fish in the specimen lake have really got on the P-Nut+ so this was my main attack with a few of them falling for the Scopex Strawberry Lime pop ups.
On one of my trips to Velocity HQ I was in the office and Miles was talking to Wayne Fearon on the phone. Wayne and Miles had entered the Eric’s carp championships together but there was now a problem as Wayne’s boy Liam had only gone and got himself picked to represent England in the coming world championships. Great news for Liam and Wayne but the England match and the Eric’s qualifiers were on the same weekend. In a flash I had now found myself entering the Eric’s with Miles and the qualifier was only weeks away.
We turned up at Sandhurst the night before so we could get a good look around and an idea of what swims we fancied before the early draw in the morning. Well we came out 6th in the draw but still managed to get our first choice swim, happy days. Well after a very sleep deprived 48hrs we only went and came first and booked our place in the semi-finals at Shearwater.
sandhurst gold
Yet again we arrived the night before at Shearwater and decided on what swims we fancied in each section. As Shearwater was so large they split it into 4 sections and each winner from a section would proceed to the final. We came out 6 or 7th in the draw and went for a tactical choice and chose peg 10 in the third section. Unfortunately for us Billy Flowers and Jamie Londors had the same idea and when they came out of the hat next they chose the peg next to us. We tried our best but in the end we came second in section with first going to the well-seasoned match team that is Billy and Jamie.
Next was a little social session with Leon Fisher from Big Fish little Fish down at Oakside Fishery in Cornwall, a water I hadn’t fished in years. It was a very relaxed affair and after the rods were dispatched we sat and had a cup of tea (Leon’s in a Pot Noodle pot as he forgot his cup) and a yarn. Literally within minutes Leon was away and after a while a lovely little linear was in the folds of the net. I had put quite a bit of the Khaos (AK4R) in, hoping to draw a number of fish but it hadn’t worked as yet actually it didn’t work for the first 12/14 hrs. Eventually they were mooching over the top of my baited are and by the end of the day I managed to put 4 on the bank.
The next outing was to the Linear complex in Oxford to do some filming on Brasenose 2 for Catch and Release. This was to be in the format of a tactics match between Wales and England. John and Ethan (Wales) won the toss and went in the left hand swim of the point and Stephen and I (Engand) went in the right. I won’t go into the details as it will be released as a vlog in the future but what I will say is it was blooming hard going.
Once again I had a couple of sessions down at Milemead as I had the feeling Yogi (nemesis) was due out but yet again she failed to put in an appearance. I did however manage to put a couple of cracking ghost carp on the bank including the biggest in the lake and a few others to boot. Yet again these fish are still loving the P-Nut+.
My father recently retired to Norfolk so at the end of July my partner and I went up for a week’s holiday to catch up and have a look around. Me being me there was no way I was going all that way without taking the gear and trying to get a session on Airfield Lakes. Well it all worked out and I manage to wangle a 48hr session from the Monday until the Wednesday morning.
For this session I had brought 4 kilos of Contrast and two kilos of Khaos (AK4R) readymade dumbbells thinking this would be enough.
After having a chat with Rich and a walk around I chose to wait for the gentleman who was leaving peg 13 in half an hour or so and go in behind him. Once I was set up I had a lead around a found two spots I fancied and the third was a spot the gentleman leaving had told me about. During my chat with Rich he had commented that the fish were really on the feed so I decided to spread 3 kilos of the bait mixed up over the three rods. Nothing happened that day apart from a pike taking a liking to my Contrast pop up so I topped the areas up just after dark and settled in for the night. At around 02.30 in the morning my middle rod on the Contrast snowman was away and battle commenced. Well this fish new every trick in the book and after about 5 mins of beating me up the hook just let go of its hold, gutted wasn’t the word. I got the rod back out and topped up the spot and sat on my bed chair wondering if I would get another chance.
At about 07.30 in the morning my left hand rod, the one fishing the Khaos dumbbell tipped with half a Scopex Strawberry Lime pop up was away and after a mental fight I slipped the net under a lovely mid twenty common. Rich did the photos and I got the rod back out on the spot and topped it up with some more boilies. As I sat drinking my coffee I noticed some movement between the baited area on my right hand rod and the margin and after seeing it for the second time I decided to move the rod.
I tied a little solid bag rig and put my favourite 12mm P-Nut+ pop up on and dispatched it to the spot between my baited area and the margin. Well it turned out to be an inspired decision as no more than two hours later the rod was away and after an uneventful fight a new pb common of 32.08lb was in the folds of my net.
Norfolk big girl
This fish hadn’t been out in a year or so and I was buzzing so much I was struggling to hold the fish for the photos through excitement. I got the rod back out and put the last of my bait out on the spot. As I said earlier I thought 6 kilos would have been enough but as it turned out it wasn’t. I had run out of bait and I still had 22 hours to go and so I sat and waited but nothing else occurred, damn not bringing more bait as I am sure I would have had more if I had been able to keep topping up the spots.
Well that’s all I have for now but I am sure there will be more to report in the not too distant future as I have a session planned for my last trip on my syndicate before I join my new syndicate and I also have a France trip at the end of September. So I hope you enjoyed the catch up and until next time stay safe and remember to enjoy it all along the way.
Regards
Arron Fisher