ouchthathurt

I know exactly what you mean mate, when a water gets under your skin, you just gotta fish it out of your system! There’s one or two waters I’d be on now if I hadn’t moved back to Sussex, I haven’t been able to find their like on the waters around here

the boy’s Christmas present going for their maiden outing

Also I’m very sorely tempted by a set of fox horizon x3-s 12ft rods… 🙄

Recent purchases include 3x fox warrior 12ft 2.75tc rods, 3x shimano 1000 bait runners, 3x stow basix bobbins, 1x fox mini micron alarm, 3x unbranded but grips, 1 rod bag and 3 rod sleeves. It’s time my boy upgraded his lil £30 9ft rods, so this will be his Xmas present

Rods out at the end of an overnighter, taken yesterday morning the boys rods out

No no no you’re doing it all wrong! No camou tape on the rod butts, no dinky 3 rod buzz bars, where if you get a take on the middle rod, you can’t strike it without knocking off the other two, no folded reel handles… barely even trying also, 12ft rods?? That’s so 1990s… where’s the 6ft sawn offs and bread bombs? 🙄

my result 🙄

22lb common caught at 8am this morning

100% agree - I’ve got 4 of them, and absolutely love them.

Not to be out done, I had it last month…

I think it probably did! The take was rather pathetic, it pulled the bobbin to the blank and just stopped. When my boy hit it, it didn’t take a single centimetre of line, just swam serenely straight to the net and didn’t twitch during the pics or weighing (to quote spug redfern in his book) short of telling us how much he weighed, he couldn’t have been more helpful! bite to net approx 1min!

It is one huge gut! He is still buzzing and I couldn’t be happier for him! Better than catching it myself it’s just my mobile camera mate, and the morning sun shining on it.

boys rods out my set up on last nights overnighter

19lb 14oz

38lb new personal best!

22lb 21lb a couple from last night, my boy did rather better…

Rods out on my first session of my new campaign water. it appeared on my club book, no one knows what’s really in here. No one really fishes it and it was stocked 20yrs ago with 50 or so carp. I saw a 26lb on the bank and that was me sold! Just down for a few hours today to get the eye on the water and the first session ticked off.

The boy got in on the act 11lb mutant 12lb mirror, one of only half a dozen in the pond

A few from last night 26lb 2oz 23lb 5oz 23lb on the nose

A couple of pics of last nights overnighter

Other memorable session would be last year when I was unable to get any time in for night sessions, I had a little girl at home and had returned to the ambulance service, so time was at a premium so a few quick day sessions were all I managed. my dad was float fishing at my local club water and wifey suggested I join him and do a quick overnighter, so I dragged the gear out the shed and headed down. I set up and cast out, not really putting any thought into it, just 3 rods with pva bags on a known spot with a few kg of hemp over the top, I sat and chatted to the old man for a few hours until he headed home, gifting me a few pints of maggots. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so just filled the pva bags with maggots and put them back out. it then lashed it down and I retired to bed, at about 1am, the middle rod tore off! After a 30min battle, I netted a lovely common… at over 40lb, it was a right result

I’ve several memorable sessions, one of my favourites being when I blanked! my son wanted to catch his first pike, but the rain was biblical and everywhere was flooded and the consistency of paint. Still, the boy was keen, so we headed out to a little known and fished section of the royal military canal (basically where it first begins) the rain was torrential and we were both head to toe in gortex, the water level was very high and the water was like hot chocolate and my confidence was rock bottom. My boy, with all youthful confidence was up for it, so we took a light lure rod each and went for a wander. It was a wet, windy day and every other cast ended up snagged so I ended up spending most of my session pulling his spinner free from streamer weed for the boy. after several miles of soggy slogging, I gave up and turned around to head for home. I stopped to talk to an old country gent who was in the process of telling me how mad we were and how hopeless pike fishing was in the conditions (as if I needed reminding) when my son snagged again. He called me for help, I told him to wind down, point the rod straight at the snag and walk backwards until the spinner cut through the weed. This the boy did, only the snag pulled back! He had hooked a pike! thinking it was only a small jack, I wandered down to give him a hand, this fish was running strongly downstream, so I told him to walk off after it. Once he got over the top of it, he brought it to the surface where an absolute unit appeared! I soiled my pants and told him to give it line, set the net up and generally went into a right old state of excited panic! My son gave me a withering look and told me to calm down! We eventually slipped it in the net where we were presented with my boys first pike…

I’ve been using slip d rigs for the last year or so, with esp claw hammer hooks and fox line aligners mate. They work well

When you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad!! 40kg a year? Some guys would do that in a week session! I’ve got to up my game!