Go Fishing With Cadbury Angling Reaches First Birthday

Dan with one of Cadbury Angling's many Wye barbel

After fifty posts and well over three thousand page views, our blog reaches its first birthday. Its been a busy year in the shop but we've all found time to do plenty of fishing. From local venues, such as Acorn Fishery and Plantations Lakes, to some world famous destinations, including Rutland Water and the River Ebro, we've all tried to mix things up a bit and sample some of the many different types of fishing available. Coarse, sea, game and some foreign fishing, we've been busy boys. So, what have been our highlights? Fly fishing has taken up a lot of Dan's time, whether it be on rivers and reservoirs here at home, or in Cuba for the bonefish, he has enjoyed some great catches and has been doing very well in competitions as well. Dan rates his trip to Rutland Water and his holiday in Cayo Coco as the most memorable of the last twelve months. 2011 saw Toby move his focus from carp fishing to match fishing and he has continued to practise regularly. Local stillwaters have produced big nets of bream, carp and tench for Toby and he has had some great results to show for all his hard work. Toby took a holiday in Cuba this year too and although he didn't land that tarpon he wanted he did do battle with a giant grouper and catch some barracuda. A pretty successful year! November last year saw me achieve my target of catching all major species of British coarse fish from UK waters. I had slowly but surely been ticking off some of the more unusual species such as zander and grass carp and so when the River Kennet produced a grayling for me it was mission accomplished! My trip to Spain has to be my highlight though. How I will ever better what happened on the second night of my week long holiday in Mequinenza I do not know! A monster 245lb wels catfish, the biggest ever caught by a Brit and a CatMaster Tours record was banked, earning me my fifteen minutes of fame in the national press and a free return trip to try for an even bigger one! The one thing Dan, Toby and I all enjoy though, is a trip to the River Wye and last season saw us all catch some cracking barbel and chub. This river is by far my favourite place to spend a day fishing and if I was limited to just one venue and one species it would be here in search of its many barbel. So, a brilliant year for all three of us and we're all hoping that the next twelve months will bring more of the same good fortune.

Toby and Andy with a winning weight

Will I better this in the next twelve months?
Probably not!

Oh, This Year I'm off to Sunny Spain! Fishing With CatMaster Tours

The famous Mequinenza town stretch

Not long now until I return to Spain for a week of catfishing with CatMaster Tours on the River's Ebro and Segre at Mequinenza. During my last week out there I was lucky enough to land the CatMaster Tours record wels catfish at an enormous weight of 245lb and given the opportunity to return for free to try for an even bigger one! So, with my holiday just weeks away I thought I would tell you a bit about what CatMaster Tours offer during one of their fishing holidays. Guaranteed to catch is a confident claim but they do just that and very, very few people go home without that all important trophy photo. If you are unlucky enough not to catch you are treated to a free return trip. Fish of over 100lb are caught nearly every day and monsters of 200lb plus are banked every year! All tackle is supplied and during your holiday you will be fishing with two rods under the watchful eye of one of CatMaster's excellent guides. The guides put you in the best swims, row out your baits, glove and weigh your catch and even deliver hot food and drink to the bank for you. Fantastic service! Halibut pellets are CatMaster's bait of choice and these are fished on hair rigs made up of size 8/0 hooks and 200lb braided hooklengths. No messing about! When you're not on the bank you stay in the company's excellent accommodation. Fully furnished houses with everything you could need, a home away from home. Airport pick-up/drop-off and all transfers are included in the very reasonable price, your flights to and from Barcelona airport are all you pay for on top. Carp and zander fishing is also available and some very big examples of these two species have been taken by CatMaster Tours clients. So, if having your arm pulled off by monster catfish starts to get tiring you do have other options. Far more information can be found on their website, www.catmastertours.com Check out the photos and give them a call, I can't recommend them highly enough. A full trip report with photos (hopefully!) will be posted here upon my return.

All tackle is supplied

A big fish like this 78lb cat for Dave, is considered
small in Mequinenza!

Spombs Away! Barbel and Chub at Courtfield, River Wye

This week saw the River Wye at normal summer level for the first time in a couple of months and so I settled in to the wooded stretch of the Courtfield beat at Lower Lydbrook. This part of the river has been unfishable since June 16th due to the floodwater conditions of recent weeks and I've been itching to get back in to one of my favourite swims to try for the barbel and chub. So, with the low water but high hopes I set about tackling up. For a change I opted to fish a small banded pellet over a big bed of small particles, no particular reason for this, other than wanting to fish a little differently to my usual large pellet and boilie approach. Would it pay off? Time would tell. First job was to get the bed of bait down so a mini Spomb was used to introduce a kilo of pellet, two big tins of hemp and two tins of sweetcorn, casting upstream of where I intended to place my hookbait, to allow for the current, the bait was soon in position and half an hour later I was ready to cast the fishing rod. I didn't have to wait long before the rod arched over and the first fish of the day was hooked, a barbel of about 5lb was soon in the net. A small chub followed, then a bigger one and then another barbel, this one was about 6lb. I kept the bait going in, the Spomb regularly topping up the swim. More fish obliged all day and I packed up at dark having landed barbel to over 8lb and chub to over 4lb. Success for my slight change of approach. More information about the River Wye at Lower Lydbrook can be found at www.lowerwyefishing.co.uk

This 6lb barbel won the award for hardest fighting fish of the day!

Answers on a Postcard. Fishing at Hope's Nose

Hope's Nose - A Devon hot spot!

I set off to Hope's Nose near Torquay with a couple of friends, Dave and Nick, last week. Whilst they opted to fish with feathers for the mackerel, I set up a pair of 2 hook flapper rigs baited with ragworm in an attempt to catch flatfish and wrasse. A couple of short 60 metre casts positioned my baits on a clean sandy area at the edge of the rocks. With both rods on the rest I set about tackling up a third rod, a spinning rod and reel loaded with braid and on to this I tied a Dexter bass wedge. Casting this around near the rocks to try and tempt a bass or pollock kept me amused but it wasn't long before one of the rods in the rest started to nod. A small fish was swung to hand and upon inspection it had us all baffled as to its identity. Internet research during the last few days has revealed it to be either some sort of bullhead or gurnard. I'm still uncertain so if you think you know, please get in touch! Back to the fishing and both Dave and Nick were catching plenty of mackerel. My two beach rods remained motionless for the rest of the day despite changing the bait and casting around several times. I did lure a couple of large mackerel on the Dexter though, which were great sport on light tackle. A quick visit to a Mexican restaurant in Torquay and it was back in the car to come home. Another trip is planned for later next month.

Keeping us guessing - The mystery fish

Targeting Silverfish at Plantations Lakes, Kingston Seymour

My friend Mark Bartlett and I set off for an early morning silverfish session on the Main Lake at Plantation Lakes, Kingston Seymour, with skimmer bream and bream our main target.
We got to the lake at 7am and lucky the lake was still quite empty, we saw a few fish moving so opted to fish pegs 4 and 5. I won the draw and picked number 4. To make our friendly match a bit more interesting, we set a rule that we could only fish with the top 6 sections of our poles!
With everything setup we started our 4 hour silverfish match. I plumbed a top 2 line in the margin and fished casters just off bottom trying to target the big perch which patrol the margins! I also plumbed a swim on my top 4 out in front of me which was going to be my main choice for the bream ans skimmers.
I mixed up a kilo of the new Sensas Lake and Sweet Fishmeal groundbait and introduced 3 medium sized balls on my top 4 line.
Down to my right, in the margin swim I started to flick in some casters and dead red maggots. I tackled up with a 4x12 Preston Chianti float, 0.13mm main line and 0.11mm hooklength with a size 18 Drennan Silverfish Maggot hook.
I was instantly getting bites from roach and rudd and soon had a few in the net. I kept the bait trickling in and was lifting and dropping the rig so my hookbait fell at the same rate as the free offerings. Mark was also straight into a good run of roach and we also had decided to fish a longer groundbait line as I had. This got him some early skimmers and he was soon into an early lead.
My margin line produced a 1lb rudd and a 1lb roach in successive bites but Mark's bream had him clearly in front at this stage.
I swapped to my longer line and setup with a 4x16 KC Belter float, with 0.13mm mainline and a 0.mm hooklength to which I tied a size 16 Drennan Silverfish Pellet hook and fished soft expander pellet over the groundbait and used a small Matrix Toss Pot to deliver a small amount of damp micro pellet with every put in.
I caught a few good skimmers and a bonus crucian carp and swapped between both the lines trying to keep up with Mark, who was also catching steadily.
I went back to my margin line and opted to fish on the deck, this produced a couple of very decent skimmers, just as Mark's swims had gone a bit quiet! I saw that I had been catching on my 6mm soft expanders which I prepare, so he hopped off his box and stole some, typical!!
As the final whistle sounded we both thought we had won, we hauled our keepnets out and looking at our bags of silvers if was hard to call! To keep things fair we called it a draw, between us we had caught nearly 80lb of silvers in 4 hours! Excellent sport and I'm sure it won't be long before we are back again to have a rematch!

Gone Fishin'

Just two of Toby's net full of slabs

Thursday saw all three of us getting some fishing in. Whilst Dan headed off for a bit of trout fishing, myself and Toby set about targeting carp and bream using both surface fishing and method feeder tactics. I managed half a dozen decent carp on floating crust, whilst Toby filled his keepnet with twenty eight good sized bream between 2lb and 4lb and a couple of large carp, the best, a fish of over 15lb. Yet more success for the new Dynamite Baits Red Krill Groundbait, that has proven very effective on all of our local lakes recently.

Dynamite Baits Red Krill Groundbait - Bream love it!

Major Clubs Competition. Fly Fishing on Rutland Water

Dream fish! A Rutland rainbow

It's always been a dream of mine to fish at Rutland Water. Famous the world over for its superb trout fishing, this Midlands reservoir covers a little over three thousand acres and it was here that the latest Major Clubs competition was to be held. The Bristol Reservoirs Fly Fishers Association team had asked me to fish for them and so I set off for what I hoped to be a successful trip and to realise a dream. I just hoped I wouldn't be disappointed, but I need not have worried. Arriving the day before the competition for a quick practise session, I was straight in to the fish. Orange Blobs tempted my first Rutland rainbows and so the next morning I woke up both excited and quietly confident. Six teams were taking part, thirty six anglers between eighteen boats and after some breakfast we all took to the water. The day passed quickly, exploring a new water and trying several different areas proved both equally enjoyable and daunting but I found fish and ended the day with five trout for 12lb 8oz. All taken on Rutland Buzzers. A pleasing days catch and made more so upon finding out that my contribution had helped our team to second place, finishing just behind the British Army's team who took the number one spot. A fantastic result and a really good couple of days. A long held dream realised in superb style! Information about Rutland Water and the fishing available, can be found at both www.rutlandwater.org.uk and www.anglianwater.co.uk

Rutland Buzzers fooled my fish