Went to the BIG-ONE exhibition show to examine the quality of what was on display . It was a brilliant show and well organised with a dominance of CARP and SPECIMEN TACKLE on show.
The food tents and toilets were excellent and the beer tent was popular !
The food and drink area …….Huge ! …..must have been 10,000 people that day !
The Boys bought me a present …… nice touch , thanks guys !
Think this bloke had something to do with it , including Ben me thinks .
Half the team were out with me for this one.
Food was BIG !
Met with Alex Clements …..great bloke , beat us all on the 2 matches i last fished with him at Gwinear.
Our Junior is Ben Scott already an icon of the club with his good local results and soon to fish at National level …..he's quite a star and got his picture taken with the best in show.
Decided to fish for the first time in 2014 and plumbed for the Ashpole Spinney . There i met Richard and Bryan who camped out on pegs 7 and 8 .
The day was a cold start yet the sun came out to warm that early chill however bites were hard to come by , if any ! were at a premium.
Bryan had 2 nice chub in the last part of the day
Richard did the landing as Bryan had put his net away
Bryan and Richards latest mechanised trolley for those long walks !
Vince Callaghan, soon (announcement March 15th) to be Director of Products and Distribution of MIDLANDS ANGLING SUPPLIES LTD is on location with another of our Top-rods Ian Chadburn at the match venue where the TEAM-MAS have been fishing the winter league over the last few months .
Today and tomorrow the boys with guests are creating an article on methodology of the Thorne venue so all will be revealed in the coming weeks.
After 9 days with the flu and no activity in the gym or with fishing i decided to get out for my last time in Sweden before my move on January 7th.
I met up with club member Jimmy Kungsman and we decided to fish opposite the Bohmans Hotel where the water was slack as the flow of the canal was the fastest i had ever seen it due to the recent rain deluge we received in the last week.
I sat on mooring no.2 and Jimmy sat about no.5 We both made up a kilo of ground bait and fished a light float on the pole to about 1.8m depth. I also set up a 7m whip in case it got frantic.
A milky warmth came through the horizon clouds just to make it a little more bearable in our 2 degrees.
To my left the town.
In front my target area is the posts at 13metres .
All set up and ready , car behind , good pole peg and a beautiful winters day.
19 Good roach from Jimmy for about 3 kilos
Only skimmers for me for about 1.5 kilos
It was strange day when there was indication all the time but we struggled to get a proper bite. We fished light floats down to the tips and the float was up and down all the time and you would only catch once in every 5 strikes on average. In fact there was that many fish we both caught half our fish 'foul-hooked' ! Wish we had bloodworm/joker as i think you could have caught 10 times as much but we did rather well on old pinkies.
Still a fitting end to my time in Sweden , have enjoyed it immensely .Next stop UK .
A very cold morning greeted the 4 of us at TROSA. If Trosa was evaluated to say football , then the fishing standard would be Champions league ! :-))
We drew and peg1 was yours truly , peg 2 was Christer , peg 3 was Tom and peg 4 was Kent 'end peg ' Adell .
The first milky sunshine rays warmed us as we prepared the kit ready for the roach-fest.
My 3 pole rigs or 3 2.5 and 2.0 gram on 0.15/0.13 to 14/16's
Battle station ready looking into the town.
The match started strangely with no fish in 20 minutes and the signs were not good when i was first to take a fish , a perch , not a good sign . Then 5 minutes later Christer took 3 roach on the bounce , they are here ! Then my peg came alive as i started to take several roach on the 10m pole line . Christer kept catching but sadly Tom and Kent had no indications , surely a matter of time before the fish came their way ?
I started to take some quite large specimens and then changed to whipping with the 6m then shortly started the 5m whip , closer the better . I even started to feed close ready for the 3m whip .
Then the sun started to disappear as the clouds came in followed by wind that really dropped the temperature down and we all felt the extra cold , especially the hands ! Tom started to catch after an hour but Kent still had not caught and Christer and i must have been 7-10 kilos ahead already.
At 12:00 i took a walk (call of nature) and spoke with Kent and he still did not have a fish but as i left he caught , then did not stop. Christer started to catch heavily at 5 metres and so did Tom . My line started to slow and it was hard to get consistent fish so i stuck to the 3m whip line as i started to hibernate into my clothing as the cold started to bite . My hot coffee was a life saver and gave me new vigour to get back into the fishing but Christer was still catching well and Tom and Kent were really bagging hard .
After 4 freezing cold hours the proceedings were brought to a close and i immediately ran around the field for 10 minutes to try and get warmed up ! Jeez ! it was dam cold !
PEG 4 THE END PEG ADELL WITH AN INCREDIBLE 24 KILOS IN 2 HOURS !
TOM BLAZED 28 KILOS FROM PEG 3
THEN THE CHRISTER ON PEG 2 , WE NEEDED 3 SEPERATE WEIGH-INS !
TOP ROD ON THE DAY WHO CAUGHT MANY ROACH FOR A WINNING WEIGHT OF 35 KILOS
PEG 1 AND MY COLD FACE SAID IT ALL , GREAT 26 KILOS BUT MY GOD IT WAS COLD !
Wednesday 27th November and a chance to fish the famous match length at Trosa that in recent weeks has given many weights of 20 kilos plus in matches . The recent cold snap had made it uncomfortable to fish so when i heard the weather was going to be 5-7 degrees i decided to head to the town for some therapeutic Dog Roach fishing.
I was met by a glorious start to the day with a warm sun through the wispy clouds.
There is a 10m/sec wind about but the boat year in front is deflecting most of it.
I set up 3 whips of 3 , 5 and 6m with quite bold tackle (0.18 main line /0.15 bottom line to 14s long shank Tubertini) Also set up a 9m pole with a top 4 of 0.15/0.12 a 16's Colmic on a 2gr pole float.
Started on the pole and took several fish then decided to get them in quicker on the 6m whip that soon changed to the 5m whip and after an hour went bagging on the 3m whip . Made a huge mistake forgetting my maggots but had the sense to keep several tins of corn in the box , when i realised the maggots had been forgotten i just set up a whip and dropped it in baited with corn hoping that the corn will be okay , it was as within 10 seconds the float buried and a 14oz roach came in.
Quality Roach on the corn
Some of the roach had battle scars from their close encounters with the local Pike and Zander population.
It was all roach until my first Bjorkna arrived
Rutilus-rutilus Dogius Roachius of approx 1-8 lb
Bonus Ide towards the end of the day
117 fish counted of which 5 were Bjorkna , 4 were skimmer and 1 Ide
Best catch of Roach ever for me , the sheer size of the stamp of roach averaging 12oz to 1-6oz
Magnificent catch , not proper fishing , more of a mugging session really but it does make great photos.
We have a match this coming Saturday on the same length and i think we will see equal weights to this with the class of angler expected to turn up. ……. watch this space !
