Month: January 2026

January 2026 Part 2 – a start!

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So Sunday 18th I finally kick myself in to gear and get on the bank! The weather was not great, rivers up and flooding, Bowood chocolate, possible match on canal so I opted to go to Blacklands for a change. I paid my money at Reception and said I would fish peg 13 – my first mistake as they had re-pegged it! So instead of being near the overflow I was now on the opposite side of the island- the furthest point from the car!! As it happened I was the only one on the lake but I stuck with my choice and primed two areas both at 11m, the left hand swim with worm and caster and the right hand with micros. Groundbait is not allowed so loose feed was the order of the day, fishing with a 0.10mm hooklength to an 18 barbless under a 1g Paster.

Bites came straight away with a piece of worm about an inch long and despite a couple of slow periods when I was playing around with different shotting patterns and baits it was a pleasant few hours with 18 roach averaging 3-4 oz, the one in the picture is one of the smallest, 8 skimmers (best 1-04) and 3 perch(10oz best) for a total between 7 and 8lb.

Wasn’t until the following Sunday I got out again this time for the rearranged pike match at Peatmoor. I had missed the first one when everyone blanked as we were in Yorkshire.The plan was to fish two deadbait rods on floats (Bowood style) one with smelt the other with sardine. I fancied two pegs- peg 1 which was right in the top corner that had form in previous years and peg 13 which was on the corner of the bay. I ended up going to peg 1, blanked and only one pike caught – that’s right from peg 13 in the first 10 minutes!

No further visits this month as life got in the way! However on the other side of the world Gareth made is trip to Thailand to fish at AmazonBKK, a predator lake. The rules were lure fishing until midday then bait fishing, but after a couple of biteless hours the guide had a word with the owner and he allowed Gareth to bait fish. The results were over 30 runs, that produced 2 Arapaima (110kg and 30kg) 2 Alligator Gar (12kg and 7kg) 1 Red Tail Catfish (25kg), one snap off and several hook pulls. The alligator gar are notoriously difficult to hook due to their hard tooth beak of a mouth and that was the cause of the missed bites and pulls.

Even as I have been typing this he has been fishing the bass commercial he went to earlier this month and has sent me this!

February is likely to prove interesting as he arrives next week!

January 2026 Part 1- yet to start!

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As I write this at 11:15am on Wednesday 14th I have yet to go fishing this year! Life and weather have got in the way, closest I have got is this morning when I managed to load the unhooking mat and landing net in the car when I discover a rodent had eaten away my haversack seat! Combined with a temperature of -2C, a frozen bird bath again and no prospect of it getting above zero until after 10am along with month old maggots that did not look great I decided to cut my losses and instead sort some things out in the garage! First on the agenda was to replenish the rodent bait trap!

Working through the garage I have concluded I have too much kit! I found two rods that I didn’t remember having! Now the prompt for the tackle inspection was the impending visit from China of youngest son Gareth and family who had informed me that despite being number 518 in the queue for pike tickets at Chew had managed to get a ticket for a boat for two – so that was an additional prompt to check out what tackle I had suitable for the 20lb main line minimum and 40lb wire minimum!

So while I have been not on the bank Gareth has been busy starting by flying to Nanjing for an 8hour session on a predator lake after pike. The owner suggested he spent the first part of the day lure fishing on the bass lake before going on the specimen lake to deadbait for pike. When he arrived it was 3C, 17C lower than when he took off! The morning lure fishing went better than expected with 47 bass, 3 pike and a trout!

The afternoon session on the specimen lake went less well with a missed bite, possibly a liner and two taps but nothing else.

Back to Zhongshan and his next outing is on the river which has hard going with only one “fish” answers on a postcard for the species! (I think it is a type of loach)

He then gets an invite to go with one of Wendy’s friends husband, ironically to the very fishery he was considering trying himself, it turned out very busy with 200 on the predator lake and 15 on the non-predator one.. A few of the anglers were drop shotting on whips which sounds an interesting method while others were fishing 5m whips with whole shrimp or fish. Zachary was with them and had some success fishing close in with pieces of shrimp .

Some UK matchmen should fish here (LOL)- you catch a fish then immediately there are 4 people next to you fishing within inches of where you caught, totally different customs and regard for personal space! Zachary enjoyed it so much he didn’t want to go home!

Still not content Gareth is off on one of his flying visits to Thailand – fly out after work at midnight, arrive 3am, couple of hours sleep in hotel then days fishing back to hotel for nap and flight home at 1am. Oh to be young again!