Half A Century Of Fish

Week one of the Osborne & Cragg LRF competition is done, just three more to go and the weather is turning quintessentially November-like. So how am I getting on?

The first morning of the competition was a bit of a failure to be honest. Although I did manage a goldsinny wrasse at West Hoe Pier, I was hoping for a garfish, but the tide was receding and so were the fish. There was a small highlight though, my first sand goby, an absolutely tiny fish but a new species, taking me up to forty nine and two in the LRF competition.

My next trip wasn't LRF related, instead I was joined by Robbie and Adam on Tiverton Canal in search of pike. The weather had turned very cold and the pike wouldn't play ball, the crystal clear waters making them easy to spot, yet difficult to tempt. We had to go really small in the end to catch. Fox Micro Fry doing the trick at last light, the perch and mini pike going on a half hour feeding spell, making the trip worthwhile in the end, with Robbie finally getting his first pike of the year

The next morning was back to competition business. The tides were better and weather was slightly more bearable. It didn't take me long to catch my first gar of the day, a small fish but an excellent fight as always. I had many more of these high flying acrobats in a fun filled hour, most of them shaking the hook by leaping into the air, I have to say I've really enjoyed fishing for them recently, they are quickly becoming a favourite of mine. A pollack even decided to crash the party, which I had half hoped was a mackerel, but it was another species ticked off. I then moved on to Millbay where I had a nice black goby and a shanny to take my total up to five. A modest haul before work.

With Monday as my day off and the sun blessing me with its presence, I made my way to Charlestown. This harbour is both stunningly Cornish and delightfully sandy, so different from the rockier, grimier marks I'm used to in Plymouth (not that I don't love my local fishing). I decided on a simple Carolina rig, with a five gram bullet weight and a size fourteen hook to hold the Power Isome. First cast onto the clean ground of this quaint harbour produced a fish! Not only that, but the fish I had came there to catch, a flounder. It wasn't a large one, but it was my fiftieth species of the year, my target at the beginning. I excitedly took it's picture and returned it, a few onlookers looking slightly bemused at my actions. (A small disclaimer - it could be a plaice, but I've gone with flounder now as that's what it most looked like to me, but I'll happily be told I am wrong)

I had plenty of bites as I cast around the harbour but most of these were from sand gobies, of which I caught quite a few. I did hook a better flatfish, a fish big enough to take line but it shook the barbless hook at the surface, a real shame. Another angler was baitfishing the other side of the harbour wall, having little luck, he was keeping himself busy by also casting out a lure. He had numerous follows from garfish but couldn't hook up. During this commotion, I noticed a shoal of silver fish just behind the waves hitting the beach. I lowered my lure to them and was rewarded very quickly with a sand smelt, another new species for the LRF competition.

I fished around the harbour but couldn't find any other new species, I definitely would like to try the harbour again but on an incoming tide, this time, time and tide were against me, so I moved on.
I tried both Par Sands and Fowey afterwards with little success, though Fowey just screams fish to me and has a fantastic reputation, definitely worth another try soon. With the sun rapidly setting and with other less fishy business to attend to, I headed home.

On a couple of short trips to Millbay and Mayflower Marina after work, I caught a tompot blenny taking my total to eight species in the competition, Ellie also managed her twenty sixth species of the year, a goldsinny wrasse.

Next up, I need to catch the two most common wrasse species, the ballan and corkwring. I also will be targeting bass, scad and topknot. Hopefully it's a productive week!


Ben - 50 Species - Perch, Roach, Gudgeon, Rudd, Bream/Roach hybrid, Mirror Carp, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Common Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Rock Goby, Common Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Pollock, Goldsinny Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Golden Orfe, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Crucian Carp, Sand Smelt, Giant Goby, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Bull Huss, European Eel, Topknot, Common Minnow, Three Spined Stickleback, Sea Bass, Mackerel, Bronze Bream, Whiting, Dragonet, Brown Trout, Koi Carp, Scad, Pouting, Couches Bream, Herring, Thick Lipped Mullet, Chub, Dace, Bleak, Garfish, Sand Goby & Flounder

Olly - 34 Species - Perch, Rainbow Trout, Pike, Rudd, Roach, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Pollock, Ballan Wrasse, Goldsinny Wrasse, Common Blenny, Shore Rockling, Corkwring Wrasse, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Golden Tench, Sea Bass, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Gudgeon, Crucian Carp, European Eel, Ghost Carp, Poor Cod, Mackerel, Scad, Couches Bream, Conger Eel, Rock Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Minnow, Bleak & Garfish

Ellie - 26 Species - Golden Rudd, Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Perch, Pike, Corkwring Wrasse, Pollock, Mirror Carp, Ghost Carp, Black Goby, Tompot Blenny, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Ballan Wrasse, Common Blenny, Golden Tench, Golden Orfe, Bronze Bream, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Giant Goby, Bull Huss, Three Spined Stickleback, Mackerel, Sea Bass & Goldsinny Wrasse

Shane - 17 Species - Rudd, Roach/Bream Hybrid, Crucian Carp, Pollock, Shore Rockling, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Roach, Bull Huss, Lesser-Spotted Dogfish, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Blenny, Mackerel, Giant Goby, Dace, Bleak & Minnow

Robbie - 15 Species - Perch, Mirror Carp, Roach, Rudd, Eel, Ballan Wrasse, Topknot, Crucian Carp, Common Carp, Golden Rudd, Blue Orfe, Pollock, Mackerel, Thick Lipped Mullet & Pike

Will - 14 Species - Rudd, Roach, Gudgeon, Pike, Tompot Blenny, Corkwring Wrasse, Common Carp, Mirror Carp, Common Goby, Ballan Wrasse, Dogfish, Golden Rudd, Golden Tench & Golden Orfe


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As always, thanks for reading

January Blues

Lets just say that so far January hasn't been great.

With the deaths of David Bowie & Alan Rickman, coupled with bizarre ever changing weather & the financial pinch you feel after Christmas, it has been a poor start to 2016 for me & that's without getting to the Fishing Challenge I have set myself & my friends!
I have only had a chance to have two full days fishing as I write this on the 20th January, both of those being either disappointing or straight up awful! I think its important I detail everything good and not so good on this fishing blog/diary though, half the addiction of fishing is fighting through those awful days when you should have stayed in bed, on the half chance the fish you have been dreaming of makes it appearance. So without further adieu...

My plan was to fish on the 7th January with my girlfriend Ellie (Im blessed with a girlfriend who mostly understands and endures my love for fishing), there is a small lake near Plymouth that holds Pike (my first target species) to around 10lb & I intended to use my new Shakespeare LRF Agility Rod & Reel I received at Christmas to catch some Jacks on light lures, I imagined it would be fantastic sport & a fish to tick off the Challenge. The weather had other ideas though. Due to torrential rain the normally crystal clear lake had been transformed into a muddy soup. Lure fishing would be a serious challenge but not impossible - forever the optimist! But then just after we had set up, icy rain poured down on us coupled with strong freezing winds. After the downpour had passed the wind swept my Fox Mini Fry lure into the nearest tree on my first cast! I turned around to look at a truly frozen Ellie & realised this had quickly turned from a nice day out into something more likely to make us ill than provide fish. We packed up & left as the heavens opened again.
My good friend Robbie Spencer is part of the Fishing Challenge & is one of the people who runs Bake Lakes near Liskeard in Cornwall. He had told me he was draining one of his stock ponds to transfer fish into the new Specimen Lake & I had had to have a look at some of the fish that are going into this fantastic new venture. Luckily Ellie agreed to go with me on the promise of keeping the heating on full blast in the car, something I was all too happy to provide! Thawed out, we got down there to see numerous double figure fish going into their new home, it was truly fascinating to see them weighed, photographed & swim away into the depths. I cant wait to fish it when it opens.

Here's Robbie with a beautiful fully scaled mirror that weighed in at 17lb & surely is gonna be a giant in years to come.

So it hadn't been a productive day fishing but I remained optimistic due to me & fellow Challengers Will Glassup & Phil Bassett (my Dad) going Pike fishing on Exeter Canal the following Sunday.
It turned out to be another interesting but frustrating day.
Our intentions were to fish Turf Locks first & work our way up to Lime Kilms with various Lures and see if any of us could get attached to one of Exeter's famous 20lb plus Fish (smaller fish also very welcome). We ran into trouble firstly due to the only road to the car park being completely flooded & impassable for Will's Vauxhall Astra. We decided to turn around and park near the Kilms entrance road. Walking down this road we found it again to be flooded but shallow enough to walk through with wellies - only Dad had been smart enough to wear wellingtons! Me and Will resigned to taking off our boots and socks and wading through the freezing floodwater barefoot.. Christ it was cold! Chilled to the bone we dried off and continued to the Canal. Upon reaching it it took me by surprise the sheer amount of Pike fishermen there, either fishing with static deadbaits or lure fishing like ourselves. We're quite used to being the odd ones Pike Fishing so this was surprise but also a challenge. How to fish better than everybody else? The word on the Canal was also that it was fishing poorly, a few Jacks were being caught but nothing substantial. me and my Dad tried many different lures and styles but it was in vain, I didnt see a single fish that day except for a jack pike being eaten by a greedy Cormorant! Will on the other hand had a more entertaining day, he managed to catch two rowing Skiffs, one being an 8 man which I believe is a specimen! He also lost a decent fish and had a truly colossal fish follow and miss his lure near the bank. Will is not one to over exaggerate and his description was of something in the Mid-Twenties, I was gutted for him as that would have been a fantastic start to 2016. Defeated we made the journey back down the A38.

The second full day fishing was the day it really went wrong for me.

My Autumn 11lb Lady I caught on my last visit to Tiverton Canal - I was hoping for similar results...

So to 'Tivvy' Canal, a water me and Robbie had serious confidence in as we set off in the early hours of Thursday Morning. The morning was warmer than expected & we felt optimistic. Speaking to the guy in Cullompton Tackle Shop it seemed we were making a mistake in not trying Exeter Canal again, it was fishing well apparently, not what I heard the Sunday before, typical! Still we went onto the spot that had given us success before and immediately saw signs of fish. The canal is very shallow and weedy even in winter, the Pike can be quite obvious at times if you know the signs - Swirls & scattering fish really give the predators away. we certainly saw swirls & a tiny Jack hit my Eel imitation lure very quickly. Unfortunately nothing else was interested, as we moved along spots we hadnt fished before we saw a couple of Pike to around 5lb but they were extremely spooky and not interested in our lures. On a positive note I will say we saw some fantastic examples of other species, Specimen Roach, 4lb plus Tench & a huge shoal of fry show how fantastically rich the Canal is. To come back with light float tackle in the summer would provide fantastic fishing I'm sure. The weather was not so fantastic though, we had everything from bright sunshine to sleet and biting winds. It was certainly off-putting & we fished many miles of the canal to no avail. We moved spots and drove a few miles down the road, I parked up & got the tackle out when disaster struck. I locked my keys in my car! I called every Auto-Locksmith in the area & the only company available involved parting with £150 & waiting 3 hours! Freezing cold we debated it and decided that smashing the rear side window was the cheapest efficient option - brilliant! So with a black bag for a window and dented pride we drove home defeated again. An expensive & frustrating day.

Lucky I am an optimist always and next up for me is a birthday present from Ellie, two days of fishing at Angler's Paradise in North Devon, one day on Valhalla - Their Pike Lake & a second on the various lakes they have that should really give me a chance to catch some different species...

Thank you for reading, I hope your January has been more successful than mine!