Month: October 2026

October 2026 – Suffering!

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Well since my return from China the fates have conspired against me! First I was laid low with a nasty cold (not man flu!), then I had a list of things to organise for a new shed that was coming in December, so electrician booked, storage booked, old shed sorted and rubbish taken to tip… You get the idea. Then when I may have had an opportunity to go fishing the weather decided I wasn’t unless I wanted to go out in horizontal rain and wind! To top it all off once the weather cleared the road that I would need to use to get to the canal had road works starting for 6 weeks! I spent 25 minutes traveling just a few hundred yards coming back from an errand, the alternatives were equally unappealing with circuitous routes that again gave a good chance of being stuck in traffic – so no canal!

Eventually I managed to get to Crookwood and set up on peg 61 which sounds as if it should be on the far bank but is in fact next to peg 1 on the near bank with a bank of lilies to the left and clear water in front.

A view of a tranquil pond with lily pads and surrounding greenery, featuring a fishing device labeled 'OCTBOX' positioned at the water's edge.

I set up with a chianti style homemade float taking 5 x no 8 and 2x no 11 with a 0.16mm mainline to a 0.12mm hooklength and a 16 barbless. I settled on two areas , the first in the curve you can see at edge of the lilies at approx 8m and the second in clear water at 10m in front of me. A ball of groundbait went on both lines with about 20-30 4mm pellets. Being stubborn I wanted to see if I could get paste to work now the weather was getting autumnal but after a biteless 20 minutes on both lines I succumbed and put double maggot on, this produced a small roach from the lilies but nothing in the clear water. I went back on the paste and concentrated on the lilies while having the odd look at the clear water which I topped up every 20-30 minutes. Feeding the lilies with a few 4mm each put in via a toss pot I finally got a bite that turned out to be a skimmer about 1-08. Encouraged I carried on with the paste and had another two similar sized skimmers but towards the end the float lifted and a strike found a different prospect- a solid weight that slowly came away from the lilies before slowly moving towards the far side. My initial thought was it felt like the pike at Bowood but it came to the top about 20m out and it was a double figure carp, then five seconds later the hook pulled! At which point I had 2 more casts then packed up! The skimmers and roach weighed in at 4-01.

A fishing net containing several caught fish, resting on grass with fallen leaves around.

So that was my only trip this month after returning from China and today I have stayed in to receive my pole section, now repaired, from the courier. I have a match at Meadowlands on the 7th that I am running but will go up before that to settle on the pegging.

I have shown you some of the paste I use but I have brought back some new ones to try also, along with a different variant on the jellyfish powder!

Assorted packaging of fishing bait products, including various flavors and types, displayed on a yellow background.

The total cost of the above was less than a tenner!

October 2026 – China still.

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Sunday 4th sees 31C and a trip to Zhuhai to fish the tilapia lake. I drew peg 7 in their automated peg allocation which seemed a good peg with Gareth on the opposite bank next to the bridge.

Things started well as Gareth had a 7-8 pounder second put in. Now just to clarify the rules are max 4.5m whip, two hooks, no braid and paste as bait but you feed pellet. It costs 330 yuan (approx £35) to fish for 4 hours but you get back 25 yuan (approx £3) for each fish in your net at the end. There are also some tagged fish, one which is yet to be caught is worth 1000 yuan to the captor. Now I was set up with a 3m whip that some locals prefer as it gives more control over the tilapia, line is Tornado 0.20mm and the hooks are about a size 6! Four hours later I was thinking of taking up golf! Not one bite despite following the feeding pattern of the locals next to me who caught 21 and 15 fish respectively. The only difference I could see was that they were on 4.5m whips and fishing further out. After Gareth’s start he lost a tilapia to a pull, had both hooks bitten off on another and missed two bites.

That evening we went to the main Shiqi river but only managed 30 minutes on feeders before a thunderstorm with spectacular lightning descended. In that time I had 5 casts, 3 bites and a silver bream on pieces of worm. While Gareth had 3 silver bream.

Monday 5th We returned to the Shiqi in the morning while it was under 30C. This time I managed 2 silver bream, 2 tilapia and a red belly tilapia in the short session. Gareth had double plus a small asp as you can see above. The afternoon sees us head into the hills to meet up with some of their friends at a mountain stream. What an eye opener with picnic tables set up in the middle of the water with families eating, barbecuing all the while others around them were trying to catch mini species with slightly larger nets than you see kids with at the seaside. Gareth had put in a 3m light whip and we found a slightly deeper area a little way downstream (you could still walk across the stream!) and I managed to get4 small tilapia by an outlet pipe, before moving well up stream and sneaking out 3 larger tilapia and losing a possible white trout that was too big to swing up the wall.

Tuesday 6th sees me visit a tackle shop and replenish my paste stocks! Temperature now down to 26C and we headed off in the afternoon to Zhuhai in an attempt for me to get a big tilapia. The owners to be fair must have taken pity on me as they put me on a favored peg and provided the tackle, set it up, provided the bait and pellets and showed me the area to fish, even setting up a purple floodlight when it got dark for me. I did far better this time and had one tilapia of about 8lb but lost 2 and missed 9 bites!

Final day and 6 hours at the Grass carp lake with 2 missed bites. Plenty of fish cruising but very wary and spook at the slightest thing. Next day sees a 24 hour journey home! May not have caught a tremendous amount but did I enjoy the experience – you bet I did!

September 2 and October 1 2026 – A visiting I will go!

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Returning from Torquay I managed to get out once before leaving for China, armed with a spare no 6 section(I have several old poles of the same make so I have spares!)I revisited Crookwood descending on peg 21. Once more I took just pellets and paste – a red and yellow mix with the jellyfish powder. The idea was to fish until the paste ran out- about 3hours. It was hard but I managed to sneak out 5 skimmers, best 2-10, 2 carp a tench and a solitary roach for around 10lb. Tackle was as previous visits.

Monday 28th morning sees me catch a bus to Chippenham, hop on a coach to Heathrow, take a flight to Beijing, have a couple of hours before taking plane to Shenzhen to be met by Gareth and then a taxi ride to Zhongshan arriving at approx 10pm Tuesday!

Wednesday sees Gareth in work so Wendy looked after me and dropped me off with some tackle to go fishing on the river near the apartment while she went to a yoga class for an hour. I was directed by Gareth to fish the high wall in the trees at the back of the sports court that we had fished before.

Now fishing from a 10 foot drop with a 3m whip is not ideal but the overhanging trees ,made anything else difficult but the shade was welcome in the 35C heat. Worm on the hook, depth approx one foot I missed the first bite but then had a small tilapia.

The hour passed quickly with 13 tilapia coming to hand but a larger tilapia was hooked but couldn’t be lifted by the whip, so hand lining up the wall it flipped and came off the barbless hook. While there a guy came along with a reel strapped to his wrist and went past a couple of meters and cast out a heavy spinner, only to hook a white trout of about 8oz that he gave to me but I returned it. Looking at the area close to the bridge there was a large shoal of I am assuming trout cruising around about 20m out. Oh for waggler I thought!

Thursday 1st October, start of the national holiday, Gareth takes me down to the river at 6:30am before it got too hot, to a new area upstream from the apartment. Again fishing 3m whips the depth was about 3 feet so more water to search!I had a climbing perch and 2 bleak with Gareth getting a climbing perch and a bleak, he spent time fishing the margins where bubbles were appearing but no joy!

Yes the bleak are big!!

That afternoon we went to the grass carp lake for about 3.5 hours. I was fishing a 7m whip, Gareth an 8.2m I had plenty of bobs but no definite bites. Gareth however had two grass carp by the end which were weighed in as 4 jin (1jin=500g), this was important as the fisheries here allow you to take the fish away but will buy back any fish caught by weight. Most anglers seem to take this route and get money back on the day ticket. It should be said that we used some interesting electronic floats that changed colour to red when a fish was touching the bait – we could not work out how they worked but they did!Also interesting was the use of old tyres as a rest for the whip, simply put the butt of the whip inside the tyre and rest the whip on the top.

Friday 2nd sees thunderstorms hit Zhongshan so Gareth takes me to an indoor fishery that had shrimp fishing in one area and tilapia fishing in another concrete pound. Given a 1.5m very light whip with the standard two hook rig but with a string of polyfloats as indicator. Very weird but interesting, sounds like hook a duck but trust me it was anything but. In the time allotted I managed 3 tilapia including a rainbow variety and lost 5 to hook pulls as they were not docile fish by any stretch of the imagination. Weight was approx 4lb in total.

That evening we returned to the grass carp lake fishing 7:30 to 11:30pm which produced 13 “red” indications and one missed bite! Was very humid 30c but felt like 36C according to the weather app.

Saturday 3rd Severe thunderstorms again with most lakes closed and very hot and humid. We headed off to Nanlan where I had never caught a fish despite numerous bites, however this time we were going to fish a freshwater lake at the end of the complex- lake 3 in the picture.

Now it has to be said that there were 30 anglers on the lake but only 3 proper fish caught, we did scratch to avoid a blank and by fishing in the margin with worm and slowly lifting the bait I broke my duck with a tilapia and Gareth snared two.

Four days left for fishing before returning will I catch a decent fish?