tilapia

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?

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).