Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 3659 i Angling Times

THIS WEEK TALES of ‘the one that got away’ usually remain a mystery, but at one water, the fish responsible has been found… in the shape of this 110lb catfish! The Match Lake at Kent’s Hawkhurst Fish Farm produced 600lb bags a decade ago, but since then weights strangely dropped. The cause remained a mystery until the summer of 2022, when anglers reported hooking a catfish that they simply couldn’t land. The lake was recently netted, which gave manager Tony Garnham-Wilkinson the chance to locate the culprit. “The match-sized carp would’ve been the perfect snack, hence the catfish’s incredible weight,” he said. “We can only assume that an angler moved it from the Main Lake, not realising the impact it would have.” The catfish has now been rehomed in the…

MEADOWLANDS Fishery has been in fine fettle all winter, with no shortage of bites on offer, but the action has kicked on to new levels as the temperatures have started to creep up in recent weeks. The West Midlands complex is home to two large lakes that can accommodate more than 100 anglers at a time, so whether you’re on the hunt for a handful of big carp, or fancy a bite every chuck from quality silverfish, both Lambsdown and Warren Pools will produce the goods. While the lakes are relatively featureless at first glance, there’s a maze of underwater features and depths to target, particularly on Lambsdown. Parking areas are dotted around to make your walk from the car to your swim a short one, and a small on-site…

TIME FOR A RETHINK IN RECENT years I’ve come round to thinking that the closed season needs reviewing and potentially changing. Last summer, on my local river, several stretches were so low and weedy that they were pretty much unfishable. The autumn was good, and I managed several enjoyable sessions, catching a range of species including chub, perch and roach. Then winter hit, and since the New Year I’ve barely been able to get a rod in the water due to the river being flooded almost every other week! Out of the nine months the rivers are open to coarse anglers, in only a fraction of that time have I been able to actually fish. If wet and mild winters are now the norm, then I see this becoming a…

IN AN ERA when river matches ruled, few anglers could hold a candle to the great John Dean, a true river fishing giant. Look at this match report from the Angling Times/Ladbrokes’ Supermatch. A forerunner of the Evesham festivals, notably the John Smith’s, this was an invitation-only event of the highest calibre. John Dean took the honours, using his favourite stick float method, with Tom Pickering, the reigning champion, Dave Thomas and Oundle’s ‘King of the Nene’ Pete Lee completing the frame. “John could work out exactly how the fish wanted the bait presented” The whole field was a genuine ‘who’s who’ of match fishing, but no-one would have been surprised that the quiet, unassuming Trentman took home the trophy and a cool £1,000 first prize. John Dean’s record was…

FAULT FIXERS Expert help to give your match fishing the edge THE TUTOR Hadrian Whittle Wye Championships winner, Wye Festival champion, catching 1,000 bleak in a match – there’s not much this king of running water hasn’t done! THE LESSON 1 DON’T STICK TO ONE FLOAT! Too many anglers pick one size of waggler and stick to it right through their session, trying to make it work, but I carry sizes from 3AAA up to 5SSG, so I can match them to the pace of the river. Use the lightest float possible, while keeping full control and not letting the current drag the float out of place. A float adaptor enables you to switch wagglers easily. 2 GET A SMOOTH TROT A 14ft rod helps you stay in control of…

THIS WEEK EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW FROM THE WORLD OF FISHING FACED with declining fish stocks, anglers in Berkshire have taken the bold step of creating their very own hatchery to revive the River Kennet. A genuine first of its kind, the new Kennet Hatchery on the Englefield Estate is the biggest such operation outside the EA’s Calverton operation. With spawning conditions increasingly difficult for fish, Reading and District AA spearheaded a group of interested parties including Newbury AA, Kennet Valley Fisheries Association and CALPAC to create the new hatchery. “Once you hit a point where the primary species in a river is invasive crayfish and not indigenous species, you have a problem” said Reading DAA’s Martin Salter, who added that even after extensive habitat improvements and gravel jetting,…

“I HOOKED WHAT FELT LIKE A PASSING BOAT!” Terry Findlay – 39lb pike “MY brother and I were last in the queue for the boats at Chew Valley Lake’s Woodford Lodge, as usual! “Eventually we got out on the water and headed to an area we’d caught fish from in the past. After four hours without a sniff, we moved to a shallower area, where I soon hooked what felt like a passing boat! “I knew instantly that it was a large fish, as it made a series of dives for the anchor chain. Fortunately, I was able to avoid calamity, and my brother skilfully netted a pike that was just massive. Weighing 39lb, it’s a new personal best!” “THE FIGHT WAS A BIT SCARY!” Paul Rogers – 8lb chub…

OUR MAN ON THE BANK DES TAYLOR EVERY now and then I get a crazy idea in my head, and this week was one of those times. I just fancied making a ‘carp off the top in winter’ film for my Nature and Fishing YouTube channel so, with my cameraman Ross Birnie, I set off on a chilly, wet and rainy February day to see if we could spot signs of feeding carp. We picked my mate Steve Greenway’s venue near Wolverhampton, mainly because of its really good head of carp that hopefully would feed well even in the cold. Now, I don’t generally fish such waters, but the weather has been very unkind to river anglers and I’m a great believer in not hitting your head against a…

TIPS & TACTICS ALMOST every lake in the country will have an underwater ledge, a point where the shallow water close-in drops away to the main depth, yet it’s a feature many anglers shy away from fishing. They’ll think that no fish will feed in this shallower area and that they’ll be better off concentrating on the deeps. This can be true but, as March arrives, water temperatures are on the rise and there’s a transition among silverfish especially. More and more, they’ll want to be in warmer, shallower water. A ledge is a textbook patrolling area for fish on lakes, and they’re often not that far away from it, knowing that in windy weather, natural food drops off this shelf into the deeper water. It’s basically a tabletop for…

CARPSKILLS BAIT ATTACHMENT RIG SWIVEL This method of attachment has become incredibly popular in recent years. It can be used with both pop-up/wafter or bottom bait hookbaits because it creates some separation between the hook and the hookbait, which is essential for bottom baits. The swivel also provides more movement than a standard rig ring. “It creates some separation between the hook and the hookbait” HOW TO ATTACH A RIG SWIVEL Attach hook with a knotless knot and trim off the tag end. Thread rig swivel on the hook. Trap the rig swivel in place by pushing a rubber hook bead on to the hook. Complete the rig by steaming a short section of shrink tubing over the eye of the hook. BLOW-BACK RIG WITH TUBING This system can…

SET YOURSELF ATARGET THE AMOUNT of groundbait you feed at the start of a session can be make or break. Too much and the swim will quickly fizzle out, too little and you’ll not catch steadily. How much to put in can be decided by how good you think the fishing is going to be, in other words, how many fish you catch and what sort of final weight will be in the net. On big, prolific rivers, this could be 10 big balls, while on harder waters, where 10lb will be a good catch, three or four balls will be ample. MAKE TOP-UPS SMALL THERE will come a time when more groundbait needs adding to the peg, often when bites tail off. Feeding a few larger balls, as you…

THIS WEEK AFTER Southern Water pumped untreated wastewater directly from sewage systems into the River Test, angling and conservation groups – including Fish Legal, Activist Anglers and the Test and Itchen Association – are demanding urgent answers from Defra, the Environment Agency, and the water company itself. The alliance wants to know how sewage dumping was ever permitted on the iconic English chalk stream. From social media to broadsheet newspapers, anglers have spread public condemnation over the pollution of this famous river. “Anglers and river keepers are hands down the strongest voices for our rivers,” said Jim Murray, actor and founder of Activist Anglers. “Southern Water’s recent plans to pollute the Test were halted by their collective power. It’s imperative such networks continue if we are to save our rivers.”…

TACKLE GUIDE HOW WE TEST OUR GEAR Our team of tackle experts use their years of angling experience to test new gear to its limits. Tony Grigorjevs, Tackle Tester IT’S FAIR to say that competition among the biggest manufacturers in angling is pretty robust. They’re all looking for ways to gain an edge over their rivals. That’s good news for us. First, the quality of tackle is constantly improving – the technology used to create rods, poles, reels and just about every other essential item you can think of is improved upon, year after year. Incredibly, though, prices remain reasonably stable. Going back a decade, a rod costing £30-£40 would hardly have set the world alight. But nowadays, all the big manufacturers produce rods in that price bracket, and they…

DON’T be fooled into thinking that the more gear you carry, the easier it’ll be to fool a fish. Often it can be quite the opposite. Tread lightly and be stealthy, because if your quarry doesn’t know you're there, that’s more than half the battle. That’s why, for me, it was a joy to be heading to the Wye Valley to spend a few hours’ fishing with Adam Fisher. All I’d be taking to the water would be a rod, a landing net and a small rucksack packed with essentials. I had no bait, but this would be sorted at the shop I needed to pass, where I’d pick up a medium white sliced loaf and a packet of sandwiches for me. Most anglers head to this river for its…

RAIN and coloured water might mean game over for those looking to catch roach on rivers. But if bream are your target, these are the ideal conditions for a net of slabs – and these final few weeks of the season are when these fish feed with a vengeance! There aren’t many rivers that don’t have shoals of bream in them, but some are more notable than others and, on each venue, there will be hotspots. These are swims or areas that have produced nets of bream year after year. Why not go straight for goal, then, and head for one of these bream havens? We’ve compiled a list of the most noted venues on these pages – rivers where, once you’ve located the fish, a great day is on…

BAIT CLINIC Honest advice to help you to catch more fish on every trip, without breaking the bank DID YOU know that carp spend a surprising amount of time nowhere near the bottom? In fact, in deeper venues they can often be hard to tempt on bottom baits. There are two main reasons for this. First, especially in autumn and winter, the lakebed can become quite anoxic, as leaves and waste break down. Second, the faint rays of winter sunlight can warm the back of a fish when it is quite close to the surface. Both of these factors come into play when the air pressure is high – think bright, still days, with little or no wind. The fish might not be right on the surface, because the upper-water…

LAST CAST WITH DOM AFTER a pretty mediocre 2023 for match fishing, this year has started on a far more positive note. Genuine ‘pinch yourself’ territory, no less, with two maximum scores putting me top of the league with the Tiverton faithful. How on Earth has this happened, given that I didn’t manage to win a single match last year? Well, if part of the formula is better fortune at the draw bag, I also have my mate ‘Jack’ to thank for that winning feeling. By which I mean pike! I know what some of you are already thinking – pike in matches? What on earth is that about? Some of the Tiverton lads would agree with you on this unusual rule. But I like it, and not purely because…