tilapia

May 2026 Part 3 – will I catch?

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So Monday sees us back at the grass carp lake and this time we went on the far side bank of the first “lake” as the pegs we fished before were occupied, in fact the whole place was busy as it was the May Day holiday.

We collected a couple of boxes ourselves and set up in the same way with one notable exception – Gareth had now acquired a 7m whip that had been delivered to the apartment within 24hrs of ordering! We struggled to get a bite and there were no signs of bubbles like the last visit, the guy fishing where we had been last time had a few fish and when he packed up we decided to move into the area. I fished the same peg as last time and Gareth went to my left, away from the corner. Still no bites and then the son of the owner came around making his rounds on his electric cart and asked if we had any luck. On hearing we had nothing he got Gareth to show him the rig and he then proceeded to take the hook length off and put one of his own on which had significantly larger hooks. He said the pellets were right but use them for feed – he then got a bag of paste from his cart and made up a big ball of paste for us to use. He then attacked the rigs by shallowing up and reducing the weight until the float settled with two paste hook baits in place. He then put the depth back so the bottom ball of paste was just touching bottom. After this he did the same for my rig and used our pellets to put a couple of big handfuls out. Casting- we had been swinging out underarm but he said to cast overarm. The paste was soft but firm and stayed on the hook remarkably well, with the float rising when the paste came off. Now that is real customer service! As a consequence in the hour or so we had left I managed to miss a glorious bite, Gareth missed two but finally connected with a good fish that turned out not to be a grass carp but a black carp weighing 5-03 or 2.345kg which saw Gareth get 20 yuan back.

So Tuesday, my last day for fishing, arrives and I am on a two day blank streak! Back to Nanlan we went and although I missed two bites early on and Gareth four it was clear that the heavy rain had cooled the water as there were no cruising fish in sight. Gareth then managed to hook something that doubled his rod over (his was longer and more powerful than the one I was using) and ripped line from the clutch before pulling out. Apparently there are grouper over 100lb present! Heavy rain then started and it got busy as new fish were stocked and that usually meant a load of anglers rushing to the places where the fish went in.

Some grouper in the 4-5lb range were getting caught by sticking the rod under the walkways, releasing the line and withdrawing the rod then feeling the line for the shrimp being taken. Most were using light drop-shot style rods with multipliers so when they hooked a grouper the rods were bent double! The heavy rain continued and we were not getting any action so we decided to return back home.

After having lunch delivered to the door! Gareth took me back to the river where the visit started but this time you could see the bottom clearly. Fishing the same whip but this time without the isotope I had 90 minutes of fishing, 75 of them in the rain! It was interesting to see large circular craters in the river bed which Gareth informed me were tilapia nests. Indeed you could see larger tilapia in one or two, I managed to hook one of the bigger ones but it dropped back as Gareth was trying to hand line it up the wall! In the end I managed 27 small tilapia but saw several larger fish including carp just out of range. With the rain not easing we waited for a slight break in the weather and packed up.

Next morning (Wednesday) I was picked up by the taxi at 5am (10pm Tuesday UK time) to start the journey back home, 25 hours later after a transfer in Beijing I stepped through the front door-knackered! The traveling to and from China accounted for 12 806 miles while travel within to the venues took the total to a minimum of 13 000miles. Was it worth it – you bet! Putting the obvious family visit aside the opportunity to fish in a different environment using different tackle and tactics for new species will always be worth it. The blanks, well it is called fishing not catching and even blanking you gain a lot of experience and memories.

Now need to get back to catching some fish over here but I have brought back some paste I will try!

May 2026 Part 1 – Something different

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Before I left for China I managed a couple of outings, the first sees me return to the same peg at Rowde fishing the 5m whip from 9:45 to 11:45. Plenty of action with 17 roach, 28 skimmers,2 rudd, 2 gudgeon and a perch making up a net of 5-02. Double maggot accounted for speedy bites but small pieces of worm provided better samples but longer between bites.

My second visit was to high Penn fishing 10-11:45 on the first peg on the East bank. Tackle was the 15 ft (4.5m) waggler with a 4AAA insert waggler with a no 6 and two no8 droppers in the 10feet+ of water. Hook-length was 0.10mm Shogun line to an 18 hook and double maggot. I fed two balls of groundbait to start and 1 further top up after an hour with loose fed maggots every 4-5 minutes. This approach resulted in 19 roach, 21 rudd and 15 perch for a 5-04 total the rudd were small being 2 or to the ounce.

Wednesday 29th (morning) sees me catch the bus to Chippenham to get a coach to Heathrow, from there a flight to Wuhan transferring to a further flight on to Shenzhen. Then a prearranged taxi ride to Zhongshan to be met at my son’s apartment at 10pm Thursday. A lift up to the 11th floor of the 34 storey block to drop my luggage off, a quick change of clothes and we are off for a quick hour session on the local river!

Fishing from a wall about 10 feet off the water with a 4m whip and a BGT float with an isotope set at about a foot deep baiting with worm I soon had 3 tilapia coming to hand plus a Nile tilapia. I also managed a new species both for me and Gareth – what the Chinese call a big mouth carp.As we packed up we shone a light into the base of the wall to see a large carp- unfortunately or perhaps fortunately it ignored the bait!

Friday morning comes and I don’t yet feel the effects of the journey which was just as well as we were heading off to Zhuhai to fish a tilapia commercial. Now when I say it was different from ours it really was- firstly you pay the equivalent of £30 for 4 hours but you get a refund for each fish you catch, needing I think 8 fish to break even. You “draw” via a random number generator two pegs and you choose which one you fish. Given that situation Gareth had spent some time creating two sets of tackle as we could be at opposite ends of the lake, as luck would have it we ending up drawing numbers that let us fish next to each other. The rules were strict in the sense of maximum whip size was 4.5m, no braid or elastic and two hook system with paste the only bait allowed, but you could feed pellet. I was fishing a new 3m medium heavy whip with a 8lb main line to a two hook 4lb hook-length that was attached via a rubber O ring to a swivel on the main line. Gareth had prepared two types of paste in preparation, the darker one was allegedly for tilapia, the other was made from ground down pellets, both had additives .

The pellet paste mix
The tilapia paste

You start straight away as you are timed from the point you pay. Now the fish were to be kept in a 1m square net anchored to the side of your platform which had it’s own umbrella. It was a real experience watching the Chinese anglers fish but one thing that was universal was that if someone lost a fish the banter would start – “why don’t you go home, you won’t catch”, “Oh what a shame” you get the idea! The guy on my right managed to land two but lost about four, the one on Gareth’s left landed one and lost six! But they are tilapia I here you say they are small- oh no … average size is 6lb they don’t stock anything less than 4lb!

So how did we do? Well Gareth landed two and lost two I had 1 and lost one when the swivel opened up after which I dispensed with the O ring. The one I did land only just managed to get it in the net- an 8lber on 3m whip- yes it was exciting! Photos are difficult to take as my fish only just fitted in the net and they have spines and sharp gill covers and teeth! I just wanted to get mine safely into the “keepnet”.

Gareth's 6lber
My 8lber

At the end of the session they come around and lift the net to see how many fish and record it on their app. Payment is all done via phone apps and by the time we got to the lane out Gareth had been refunded for the fish caught. It had fished poorly compared to normal as the weather was cold for the time of year although it was mid 20s! The results of sessions are posted on Wechat and the best on the day was 14 fish, a couple of days earlier the best was 64 for an estimated 650lb!!!! Apparently the same individuals are usually in the top 3 for the day- it is their way of making money as apart from being refund for the number of fish they also pay the top three in each session a prize! The following day our fish would have put us in the top 10!

Part 2 will follow a grass carp lake!

November 2025 part 1-no fireworks here!

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First outing is on the 4th when I took the Frenzee waggler to the Pondtail peg 1 and had a pleasant couple of hours fishing (9:45 to 11:45) double maggot and just loose feeding a few maggots at intervals. I set the homemade peacock waggler with the bulk around the float , a no. 6 about 2 feet from the hook and a no. 8 about six inches from the 18 hook, the result was 3-06 comprising of 36 roach and 4 perch.

Friday sees me wander down to peg 10 at Bowood, fishing 10-12. The pike rod with sardine went out to no avail and the lighter elastic and winter rig with a homemade body down float taking a bulk of 1g and 2 no 8 droppers to an 18 carried double maggot to start and later worm but no real size of fish came to this even with a bit of chopped work in the initial two balls of groundbait. 17 rudd, a roach, a microscopic perch, a hybrid and a skimmer managed to pull the scales round to 2-03.

Wednesday sees me back at Bowood but I changed plans as there was a car already parked up and I recognised it as an angler that in all likelihood would be on peg 10, no with the lake still holding vast amounts of weed the only peg worth fishing with known clear areas was 10 so I made the decision to leave the sardines in the car and fished the Pondtail on the pole for a change! Fishing 9:30 to 11:30 I started with 2 firmish balls of groundbait with some wheat and then loose fed wheat every few minutes, only topping up the groundbait with a ball every 40 mins or so. The weather was typical November- wet but this time quite warm at 14C. I set up with a lighter elastic than usual teamed with a BGT Blues taking 0.75g to a 0.10mm hooklength and an 18 with double maggot. Shotting was the usual bulk set about 3 feet from the hook with two no.8 droppers. Bites came steadily apart from a couple of blank periods when the flow changed, fifteen roach and two perch took the scales down to 1-10.

Friday was going to be my next outing but waking up to a dark oppressive gloom and rain I took the easy option and decided to write this instead! On the other side of the world Gareth had returned to the commercial he had visited previously- the one where you got money back for every fish you caught!

Fishing a whip he ended up with 3 large tilapia (4-5lb) and a carp fishing the traditional two hook method with a soft paste on the top hook and a firm paste on the bottom hook. All the fish came to the bottom hook with a paste made from the fishery provided pellets he was loose feeding.

One of the tilipia had a tag which apparently made it count as 3 fish – only 100 fish in the whole lake were tagged and of course he had to get one! The most fish caught when he was there was 5 and the lowest 2 so he didn’t do too bad in the four hour session.

A pike from Bowood now becomes a target for the remainder of the month!

September 2025 Part 1 -World apart

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A bitty start to the month with various commitments like car MOT and service among others, anyway I got out on the 5th and settled o peg 10 at Bowood fishing 9:30 to 11:30 by which time I was pulling out what little hair I have left! The reason for my frustrations were the hundreds if not thousands of tiny rudd about 2 inches long constantly attacking the float and the corn, often preventing the corn from sinking by creating a ball around it as they tried to get it in their mouths! I had fished my usual rig with all the shot six inches fro the hook. By 11:30 i had managed to get 4 rudd on maggot, a roach and a rudd on corn and a roach on a Chinese honey jelly pellet! A total of 10oz.

Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th see me at the Glebe outside Hinckley for a two day invitational that I was running on behalf of Herbie. I had informed Herbie that this was likely to be my last MFS event. Money taken, nets dipped and draw made, the last peg left was mine and it was my usual area peg 24!. I set up a feeder with the intention of swapping to a straight lead later , a long pole rig with a 0.8g homemade long rugby ball float teamed up with 0.18mm line and a size 16, a short line with a similar float taking 0.6g and a 14 (my paste line!) and a rig for the margin 0.20mm to a 14.

It was slow I resisted the temptation to put the feeder up the bank and go on my long pole line that had been primed with 3 balls of groundbait initially and a pinch of 6mm pellets every couple of minutes, as it was evident it was a struggle for everyone. Ninety minutes in and I get my first bite, a small skimmer!, Ten minutes later the rod pulls round and I latch into a real lump that decided to run along the far bank and smash me in the reeds! The joys of fishing! I finally snared a carp of about 3lb on the feeder.The inside line proved empty despite regular feeding and efforts throughout the match, margin produced nothing and in the end I stayed on the 11.5m long line with 6mm pellet giving me 7 carp. At the weigh in I had 48-13 of carp and the skimmer of 0-04 for a 49-01 total. Annoyingly I had also lost a double figure carp that I had in the net twice and it swam out twice before I could lift the net, losing it eventually after a hook pull. One of my landed carp was in the 12-15lb range but this one was bigger!

Day 2 came and this time I was left with peg 8.

From yesterday I had gleaned that the people who had caught well were on the bomb about half way out, pinging pellet over the top. So I amended my approach to start on the bomb, also setting up the same rigs as the day before. Now peg 8 has a pole stuck in the water about 5m out and 6-7m down the peg, I have fished this peg before and have always been able to steer the carp around the pole without issue. The day went slow again with me getting 3 carp on the bomb and pulling out of 4 more, while the 11.5m line produced not a single bite! The 5m line towards the pole got me one skimmer and the right margin gave me 4 carp with 3 lost and 3 skimmers. Carp weighed 39-11 and a level 4-00 for the skimmers making a 43-11 substandard total!

Sunday sees me licking my wounds and going for a short session on the Pondtail before the rain and wind arrive! I set up on peg 1 although it was now getting overrun with plant life!

I opted for the 3m Chinese whip and a Chinese float set up with olivettes and a single no12 dropper to a 18 hook. I started with two plum sized balls of soft groundbait and fed wheat every few minutes during the session from 9:35 to 11:10. When I set up I realised that I had not got a landing net head in the net bag!

The set up – the distance from the hook to the olivettes is about 2 feet whereas the total depth is approx 5ft. Fishing double maggot alongside the furthest bunch of the two weed bunches I manged 32 roach and a solitary perch for about 3-3.5lb

Now fishing in China is different to say the least, Gareth sent me some pictures of a visit to a commercial he had heard about.

Only whips allowed, it was very busy, need to draw your peg before you start -you draw 2 pegs and choose which one you want to fish! 300 yuan (approx £30) to fish but they refund you 25 yuan (£2.50) for every fish you catch but you are on a timer, 300 yuan 4 hours, 600 yuan 8 hours. When he arrived the “regulars” were making comments unaware that he could understand a lot and Wendy, his wife, was also present and heard them say that he stood no chance of catching!

He used his own 4.5m whip, but they also supply if needed but maximum length allowed is 5.4m. They gave him pellets, paste, landing net and an umbrella. You can see every peg has its own permanent keepnet in the water. Next time the manager said she will give him a proper box to sit on she also said biggest fish is 20lbs and listed the species but no idea what they are as she only spoke Chinese, she said the smallest fish around 4lbs in there. The whips are powerful enough to get them out, 0.25mm to 12lbs braid with about a size 6 hook everyone using 2 hooks, 1 hook has big ball of sloppy paste on and other hook small piece of harder pace. Around 5pm everyone started feeding pellets in the margins and fishing close in (just like here!). He saw lots of lost fish , they are big and fight hard. So how did he do? Well the regulars making the remarks blanked and he caught two tilapia the one in the photo is 6lb (weighed) and he also had another of 7lb(weighed).