June Blog

FISHING

As I hoped I did manage to get a final session in on the lake I had been targeting for the elusive double figure bream (see my last blog for info).

I arrived at the lake in the late afternoon and as in my previous sessions I kicked off with the method feeder with artificial corn and caster which was cast to a silt clearing just in front of a weed bed. As in previous sessions the fish didn’t want to co-operate in the hours of darkness but at dusk and dawn I did put half a dozen fish on the bank between 5lb 1oz and 7lb 10oz but with nothing anywhere near the elusive double I decided it was time for a rethink. The 14lb bream that had come out of the lake weeks previously was caught by a carp angler, so off came the method feeders and on went scaled down carp bolt rigs with snowman set ups on them both. I created a spod mix of hemp, corn, pellets and boilies and put 25 spods in before leaving the swim to rest for an hour. An hour later out went both rods and within minutes I had my biggest fish of the day at 9lb on the nose.

9lb 12oz

A little while later I was in again and getting closer to that hard to come by double, falling short by only 4oz, my next fish went 9lb 12oz. I did manage to catch another 4 fish between 7lb 9oz and 8lb 13oz before it was time to make my way home. I was pretty gutted at getting so close to cracking a double from this water and not quite doing it but changing my approach had produced bigger fish, so a lesson learned for my next visit, after all it would be rude not to get back again soon wouldn’t it now I’m getting this close?

This season on the river is going to be different for me, I have decided to not renew any of my memberships to clubs I was with previously and have joined a club that is new to me for a change of scenery and a challenge, therefore I will be fishing pegs that I haven’t fished for donkeys years or that I have never fished before. It’s the afternoon of Friday 14^th June and I’m on the banks of the Trent waiting for the glorious 16^th.  I get my ‘base camp’ all sorted and over the next 30 hours or so start prebaiting. During this time in goes 2 and a half gallons of mixed pellets that I had flavoured and coloured a few days previously with both Barbel Proactive A-tract flavour & Oil that I am field testing for the Hook Bait Company, 3 gallons of hemp and 3 tins of corn accompany the pellet onto the river bed and over the next day and a half I spend my time fish spotting between the periods of excitement and giddiness.

At midnight on the Saturday evening I say a quick prayer to the barbel gods, toast the river with a tipple of beer and make my first cast. Thirty minutes or so later I have my first ‘Prince of the River’, not a huge fish, in fact only a baby at 5lb 1oz but being the first fish of the season makes it special, no matter the size.

10lb 2oz Barbel & 5lb 1oz Chub

Over the next few hours It’s really quiet then just before day break my first double of the season is resting in the landing net, tipping the scales at 10lb 2oz and then just after daybreak I get my first chub of the season, a lovely fish at 5lb 1oz. By mid-morning all I have added is a bream around 6lb so I decide to get my head down and get some sleep. Over the next 36 hours or so (not all spent fishing) I add another 4 barbel between 7-8lb and a bream between 5-6lb before wrapping up the session and heading home. Not a fantastic start to the season but considering I’m fishing a peg that’s new to me on a stretch I’ve not fished for years I’m pretty happy seeing as though the next best catch from the other 2-3 anglers on the stretch is 2 barbel.

Later that week I’m back on the same stretch for a quick overnighter with Bob Beal. I fish a different peg and it turns out that I just have a ‘mare’.  It begins with me losing my bait dropper in a snag, followed by 3 feeders and 4 leads. By now I’m pretty miffed and after a few bite less hours  and having a ‘head like a shed’ I decide I need to move swims in order to get my head right and be able to concentrate and hopefully catch a fish or two.

4lb 14oz

The Trent At Dusk

 

 

 

 

 

 

I trundle off to the peg I had my season opener on and as the sun begins to set I have my first fish, a chub of 4lb 14oz. During the night I bank 2 small barbel around 6lb apiece before calling it a day.

The following week I’m back again, this time for 2 nights and I will be joined for 1 of the days by my dad for his first river session of the season. I know I’m a bit crazy at times and a glutton for punishment, but with determined mind I get in the peg I had a ‘mare’ in the previous week because now I know where the snags are and I have the mind-set of ‘this peg won’t beat me, where there are snags there’s fish!’ . By late afternoon I’m having my first cast and by the time my dad arrived the following morning I had landed 3 barbel around 7lb apiece, 4 bream to just over 7lb and a small chub of around 3lb. See this peg wasn’t going to beat me! But there was more action to come in both in terms of catching fish and a bizarre incident.

During the day I catch another 6 bream to 8lb 2oz and a 7lb 8oz barbel  and my dad has a barbel around 6lb and 8-9 bream but while he is packing up I hear shouts of “Jon quick!!”. I wonder what the hell is going on before seeing a large narrow boat drifting down river sideways! The boat is long, it’s stern just a rod length or two from our bank and its bow almost halfway across the river. Either it has managed to break free of its moorings by accident or someone doing it deliberately or someone has had an accident or died on it. Luckily the bailiff is on hand and throws a rock at the boat to see if anyone stirs and to our amazement this bloke staggers up from below deck. He is asked in no polite terms “what the hell are you doing?”  Or words to that affect before slurring out in an inebriated state “I’m tired and have a bad hip”. This guy is pissed as a fart and has decided to sleep it off while letting his boat drift downriver sideways, not only endangering his own life but those of other river users too! If a boat had come around the corner no way would it have been able to stop, especially one of the large gravel loaders that navigate the Trent. Not only this but where we woke him was not far from the top of a weir! He is given a stiff talking to by us all before firing his engine up (right in the middle of where I had been fishing) and taking off downriver, however the bailiff called the lock master at the location where the idiot is heading too and is informed he will be picked up when he arrives there and dealt with accordingly.

8lb 6oz

Anyway back to the fishing. After my dad has left I settle back down to try and catch a few more and from dusk until dawn I land another 13 fish consisting of 5 barbel to 8lb 6oz, 7 bream between 6-7lb and a 4lb 12oz chub and I decide to pack up before the forecast rain arrives as there’s nothing worse than doing it in the rain and having to dry all your gear out at home. So a great session in a difficult peg with a total of 9 barbel, 17 bream and a couple of chub.

8lb 1oz

On the last day of the month i manage to sneak in a quick overnight session on the tidal with Bob Beal, once again on a peg I’ve not fished before.

To say it was slow was an understatement, I started fishing at midday and didn’t get my first bite until 1.30am that was a lovely 8lb 1oz barbel. Just after day break before the sun rose over the horizon in a mad 30-45 minute spell I had 3 more, nothing big with all being 6-7lb and that was it for the session. A short while later a hot sun rose and killed the sport, so home I went.

 

So 2 weeks into the season after 4 sessions my fish count currently stands at:
21 x Barbel to 10lb 2oz
19 x Bream to 8lb 2oz
4 x Chub to 5lb 1oz

Rig Evolvement

So I thought I would add something different this month and talk about the rigs I use, well more specifically the very end of them and how they have evolved over time and the reasons for it. Now what I am about to write is just my opinion, it’s not the gospel or be all and end all of barbel rigs and what you must do in order to catch fish, it’s just how I feel about rigs and why I have evolved them over time. I might be wrong on 1-2 things but I believe that confidence is a massive factor in fishing, if you are confident in your rigs and bait then that is half the battle won and you tend to fish a lot better.

1. Number 1 in the picture is the standard mono rig that I imaging the vast majority of barbel anglers begin with when they first start fishing for them. Simplicity at its best and does catch fish, however there can be the odd problem with it such as tangles and kinking, especially when using it in long hook lengths.
2. In number 2 the rig has evolved onto fluorocarbon hook lengths. There are 2 reasons for this, the first been fluorocarbons ‘invisible’ properties in the water and the second is that the stiffer fluorocarbon kicks the hook bait out and away from the lead or feeder creating less tangles. Even though the stiffness is great for doing the above I felt it did have a downside, I felt it was too stiff at the business end near the hook and fish could sense that something wasn’t quite right, so my rig evolved again after just a couple of sessions of using this.
3. The bog standard combi rig was my next choice as seen in number 3. This did everything I wanted as it had the stiffness and invisibility of the fluorocarbon and the suppleness of the Supanova braid that the hook and bait were on. With all 3 rigs I had used I did suffer a similar problem, I would occasionally get bites from a few taps on the rod tip to whack a rounds that resulted in nothing. All I could put this down to was fish ejecting the bait before the hook took hold, so the next evolvement of my rig took place.
4. Now with rig number 4 you can see a few changes in the rig. Firstly the change of braid, gone was the Supanova to be replaced with a more natural looking finer braid. The most important evolvements were the introduction of shrink tube on the hook and rig putty on the knot. If you look at the pictures and the angle of how the hooks sit against the line you will see that in numbers 1-3 the angle of the point of the hook is a lot more acute than in numbers 4-6 and my gut feeling was that fish could eject the bait before the hook point even got near the lip of the fish due to this angle. Now with the shrink tube the angle is a lot less meaning the point of the hook doesn’t have to travel or turn as much before hitting home. At the top of the eye of the hook the shrink tube kicks off at an angle for a reason. This angle means the rig putty makes it act in the same way as say a mini bolt rig if you like, where the fish would suck in the bait and the weight of the putty would mean the hook point would bring the hook down in turn pricking the fishes bottom lip resulting in less bait ejection and the fish just bolting off after feeling the hook take hold. The fact that 95%+ of the bites I now got were 1-tone screaming runs in my opinion backs this up.
5. Why would I want to change from number 4? You might ask. Well 2 reasons, the first being practicality and cost and the second being more flexibility and movement in the rig. I keep all my rigs ready tied up on korum rig boards and tubes. This meant if I needed to change a rig then the whole lot got binned right up to the lead/feeder as they are all tied up ready. Now with me being a Yorkshireman I thought to myself “I’m throwing money down the drain here and wasting fluorocarbon when there is no need to, what can I do to change that?” The solution was simple, introduce a micro swivel so all you have to tie up ready now are the braid segments of the rigs tied to swivels which are then stored on boards etc. Not only does this give you more flexibility as you can use any length of fluorocarbon you want before tying it to the swivel on the hook section but also means the hook section has more movement and can turn freely to aid hooking fish even more. Rig putty is still used but I don’t cover the eye nearest the hook as not to impair the movement.
6. Finally onto number 6, my current rig. The problem I had with #5 was the rig putty. It was prone to occasionally lifting away from the swivel or fluorocarbon after the swivel and on occasion even came off. This problem was solved unknowingly to him by Bob Beal very recently. Bob uses normal combi rigs like #3 on the picture but was using tungsten tubing to cover the joint on the Albright knot. On seeing this I asked him for a piece to try and it worked a treat. To me this just looks like a bit of stick or twig in the water and doesn’t seem effect catch rates at all. The tubing was something I had never thought of using until seeing bobs rig so as I have said many a time before ‘always observe and listen to others because no matter how much you think you know you are always learning’

The Hook Bait Company

Hopefully next week I will be on the river Wye for a day and be doing some photographs showing my bait preparation both for feed and as hook baits using the barbel Proactive range for an article for the company’s website. Speaking of the website the old one will be defunct to be replaced by a fantastic new one very soon (in the next week or two) that is more user friendly, informative and have all the companies products available to buy. Even the new products such as Barbel Proactive & Worm Krill will be available to buy for the first time after testing on the new site when it goes live.

I’m chuffed to bits to be on board with them as a tester because the future for them is very promising indeed with some of the new products becoming available (Pike & Predator ranges as well as new additions to the flavour range) as well as some other things that I can’t say anything about at the moment. I personally think that these things along with the quality of the baits they currently produce and some of the names associated with them such as Iain Nairn, Lee Swords & Terry Theobald mean that they will grow and go from strength to strength.

Yorkshire Specimen Group

It’s been a stunning start to the river campaign for some of the lads. Lee Swords had an amazing start to his river campaign with the following from the Trent so far:  13lb+ barbel, 12lb+ barbel, 11lb x 2 barbel, 10lb barbel, Bream 10lb 3oz, Bream 10lb 10oz, Chub 6lb 9oz, Chub 5lb 10oz with about 100lb of backup smaller barbel bream and chub. With a catch like that I was gutted for him not even receiving a Drennan weekly award which was more than merited for his achievement.

Wayne Glossop smashed his personal best Barbel with a stunning 14lb 1oz fish from the Tidal Trent during a 4-5 day session.

Jason McAdam had a superb session on the river near Nottingham few days ago landing 12 Barbel with the largest nudging  12lb….. On the float!

In November the group will be having an ‘Anglers Evening’ with the proceeds going towards buying IT beds for Sheffield Children’s Hospital. These beds enable the kids to do schoolwork, homework and play games on etc., basically a computer bed. There are 2 very well-known guest speakers doing talks that I can’t announce at the moment but 1 is a Carp specialist and the other covers all species of specimen hunting but mainly targets rivers. Both are regular contributors to the national angling press and hopefully their talks will attract a lot of people to the event. There will also be a raffle with some amazing prizes; the raffle will be run both online and with tickets sold at the event so even those that can’t attend have the opportunity for winning some unique and special prizes. More details will be announced nearer the time both on my blog and the both the YSG Facebook page and website (See links on the right of this page to both of them).

What Makes Us Go Fishing?

At the recent Barbel Society show Bob Roberts & Stu Walker did a presentation on the ‘Caught in the Act’ series of DVD’s which to be honest blew me away. They are the closest thing to A Passion for Angling I have seen and are a must purchase for all fishermen in my opinion. Anyway they showed a small video entitled ‘What makes us go fishing’ that I think is tremendous, so I thought I would share it with you.

 

FOOTBALL

Well it’s all a bit quite on the Rovers front apart from the odd rumour here and there, however we have signed a Spaniard who played for Real Madrid!!!

Welcome to Doncaster Rovers Marc De Val Fernandez

I got told he’s one that the ladies in the crowd might be all gaga over but personally for me I wouldn’t mind a seat next to his girlfriend!

Apparently we have also signed Harry Forrester, Dean Furman & Jean-Yves M’voto and all 3 are to confirmed later this week. Also 1-2 more permanent signings are expected and we will also be looking to bring in a few players from premier league clubs on loan.

All I hope is that we start to play the attractive football we were renowned for before Dean ‘hoofball and soundbite’ Saunders arrived and I have a gut feeling we will under Paul Dickov.

Last night we had our first pre-season friendly just down the road at Frickley Athletic. I was going to go until I was told they wanted £8 to get in! I mean come on it’s a pre-season friendly with unlimited substitutions, missing first teamers, youth players and trialists! Anyway we won 4-0 with Chris Brown grabbing a brace between goals from Paul Keegan & David Syers.

Hopefully I will have a lot more to report on the rovers front in my next blog.

 

So that’s it for me this month. Next month hopefully I will be telling you about a session on the River Wye and will also do a piece on bait for your reading pleasure. Until then tight lines and wet nets,

Jon

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April & May Blog

Twelve days and a little over twelve hours to go at the time I start to write this!!!!!

To what you might ask? The glorious 16^th and the mighty River Trent opening its banks to the lovers of its magnificence once more, and I for one can’t wait!

So what have I been up to for the past couple of months? Well I have been chasing Bream & Catfish and watching the mighty Doncaster Rovers gain promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt, as Champions!

FISHING

April & May Sessions

At the start of April and in bitterly cold weather I paid a visit to a well-known still water in North Lincolnshire and kicked off my out of season campaign with a bit fat blank. Not an ideal start and all I could muster were 2 runs that resulted in nothing. Only 3 other people were brave enough to be on the bank and between the 4 of us we managed to put a total of absolutely nothing on the bank, that’s how bad it was. So the following day I paid a visit to Bank End on the old East Lake to try and put a few fish in the net and have a bit of a confidence booster. Again it was bitterly cold with bright clear skies and once more it was a struggle, however I did manage to put a few ‘skimmers’ in the net for around 20lb in total on a small method feeder while others on the lake struggled.

Two weeks later and I decided to open my Bream account on a Nottinghamshire gravel pit. Not only was it was my first time fishing this massive body of water but it was also the first time I had ever set eyes on it and I knew it was going a steep learning curve. I decided to fish into the wind which at this point was nothing more than a breeze and on throwing out the marker rod I found a bar 60-70 yards out with a thin covering of silt that I decided would be the spot I fished at and put out quite a few spods of bait to try and bring the fish in.

Spod Mix

After spodding I wanted to leave it an hour or so before making my first cast, so I spent this time setting the rods up and getting everything else prepared. By now the wind was starting to get up and I started wondering if I had made the right decision regarding where I was fishing because if it got up too badly it wasn’t going to be fun chucking a feeder or lead 70 yards out into it. I started off with a method feeder on both rods with short braid hook lengths with a hair rigged boilie tipped with a piece of buoyant artificial corn on one and hair rigged 2 pieces of sinking artificial corn tipped with a buoyant artificial caster on the other. Within minutes of casting in a saw a fin break the surface under the tips of my rods and to my amazement a Pike well into double figures was basking there for a moment before carrying on to the right patrolling the margins looking for a meal, damn I had left the pike gear at home!!!!

By now the wind had really picked up and was ‘blowing a hooly’ as they say with gusts up to 60mph.

Blowing a Hooly

I put a 20lb Fluorocarbon shock leader onto each rod to enable me to punch the feeder out the distance I needed to in this wind and settled down again but it was tough going. I had 2-3 anglers walk around to me telling me nobody had caught anything and my heart was beginning to sink but then my left hand rod screamed off and I was soon slipping the net under a 6lb 7oz bream. I stuck it out until an hour after dusk but sadly this was to be my only fish of the session which turned out to be hard work.

6lb 7oz

A few days later and I was back on the pit as dawn broke. I had a walk around and this time decided on the other side of the complex in a corner as I saw Bream rolling over there. Weather conditions were awful for the Bream, it was bright and the pit looked like a sheet of glass as there wasn’t even a breath of wind.

Dawn on the pit

My peg

This time I found no features or change on the bottom with the marker rod so settled for fishing at a comfortable 40-50 yard chuck where I saw the fish rolling earlier. The same as my previous visit I fished with method feeders. The action was non-existent but the wildlife was beautiful and I decided to test out my new camera on the birds and even got a shot of a bee on the blossom in a tree to my right.

The birds…..

and the bees

After a few bite less hours I decided to make some changes. Off came the method feeders to be replaced with a scaled down naked chod rig with 2oz leads and 2-3” 7lb fluorocarbon hook lengths with buoyant artificial baits and within 30 minutes I had been rewarded with a bream tipping the scales at 6lb 14oz

6lb 14oz

Again not a big fish but a reward to ringing the changes in order to get a bite and once again the only fish caught.

Moving into may and I really felt like getting my hands on some ‘pussy’, so myself and 4 friends spent the first weekend of the month at Manor House Farm in Hertfordshire in search of Wels Catfish.

To be honest I shouldn’t have really gone as I was ill with a Chest infection, tonsillitis & flu combination. I was that bad I spent most of the weekend laid out on my bed chair feeling sorry for myself, however the scenery was stunning.

Dawn catfish hunting

The lake is small and there are only 5 pegs on it and all the ‘pussy’ apart from 1 were caught at the top end in the shallower water from pegs 1 & 5, in fact those 2 pegs produced over a dozen fish in the 2 nights we were there while everyone else struggled for even a sign of fish life. I drew peg 2 and started off with 30mm halibut pellets hair rigged onto size 2 Korda Curve shanks on 1 rod and a quarter of a tin of luncheon meat hair rigged onto the other. I never had a bite on either so half way through the weekend switched the pellet rig to a suspended lobworm rig. This involved fishing a large bunch of lobworms anything from 6 inches to 3-4 feet below the surface with them being suspended from tubing with a foam pop up ball at either end with my main line going through the centre of it. I did mange 2 runs on this rig but struck into nothing so they were probably another species of fish grabbing the bait and not taking it properly instead of the catfish they were intended for.

Gaz captured the largest ‘moggy’ of the weekend taken on a large chunk of garlic sausage.

First glimps of Gaz’s moggy

Revealing a little more ‘pussy

And his reward, 53lb 13oz of pristine, hard fighting Wels Catfish.

53lb 13oz

I can’t wait to go back down later in the year for another go when I’m not ill and can think more about what I am doing and being in a fit state of mind to react to things that are happening instead of just chucking the rods in and crawling onto my bed chair to sleep all weekend.

The final morning was stunning with mist rising from the water and the sun breaking over the trees in front of me.

Mist at dawn on the final morning

The weekend did however have its bizarre moments with the most bizarre being the sounds you woke up to. Chris said to me on the Friday “watch out for the lions” and I was like “yeah right” but at dawn I was awoken with what can only be described as an African Dawn Chorus!! I didn’t know that a couple of hundred yards from the lake there was a wildlife park and zoo and instead of being woken by the songs of birds it was the calling of lions, tigers and monkeys which even though bizarre was absolutely amazing and something really different.

On arriving home I had heard that the pit I had been fishing for Bream in April wasn’t producing anything of note so decided to switch venues to a natural lake, still in Nottinghamshire. The venue does hold double figure Bream but not in huge numbers but a fish over 14lb had come out recently. Even though I had fished this water before it was around 25 years ago so I had a lot to learn about the place.

My first session was an overnighter in the 2^nd week of the month and I arrived at the venue mid-afternoon and fished a peg facing into a slight breeze. I get the bivvy and everything sorted and decided to start on the scaled down naked chod rigs. I did get a couple of fish but felt a change may result in better results so switched to helicopter rigs with 1oz grip mesh feeders and 8” long braid hook lengths. I fished both rods with hair rigged baits of 2 pieces of sinking artificial corn tipped with a piece of buoyant corn to balance the bait and hook perfectly. It did produce a couple of fish at dusk so I settled down for the night ahead. Strangely the hours of darkness produced nothing, the odd liner but that was it but as soon as dawn started to break the Bream were back on the feed and 3 more were soon in the net. Not massive fish but with most averaging between 6 and a half and 7 and a half pounds it was lovely sport.  By mid-morning the bites had stopped so it was time for another change to try and winkle out another fish or 2, so off came the braid hook lengths to be replaced by longer 14” fluorocarbon hook lengths and once again making that change worked and it produced another 3 fish including the largest of the session at 8lb 6oz.

8lb 6oz

At lunch time I decided to call it a day by which time I had finished with 10 Bream and a really enjoyable session.

The following week I was back for another overnighter and decided to fish the same peg and carry on with the helicopter rigs that had worked the week previously. However I did want to make changes and decided the change would be in the amount of feed I introduced into the swim, after all I was learning the water and wanted to make changes and experiment to see what would work. I had brought with me Vitalin, molasses, pellets (micro, 4mm & 6mm), hemp & casters. The night before I had made up the vitalin with boiling water in order to release the oils in it and on the day added the rest of the bait. I made up 30 tangerine sized balls and catapulted them into the swim and gave it an hour to settle before making my first cast. I had a few fish and the at dusk had 2 over the 8lb mark, one weighing 8lb 4oz that I pictured on the mat as I had forgotten to set my tripod up and the second tipped the scales at 8lb 1oz.

8lb 4oz

8lb 1oz

Like my previous session I was bite less through the night, again something I found strange on a water containing Bream, but just before dawn I put another 25 balls into the swim to try and kick it off for the morning and as daylight broke I started to get indications. Bream were rolling over my bait and I was getting indications on my alarms and it wasn’t long before my first bream was in the net. I landed a few more fish and once again at lunch time called it a day. This session had seen a slight improvement in results with 13 Bream caught in total with 2 of them going over the 8lb mark with the rest as before all going between 6 and a half and 7 and a half pounds.

My final trip of the month to the venue was last week for 3 nights. I was going to fish from Wednesday until Saturday and be joined by fellow Yorkshire Specimen Group member Bob Beal on the Thursday until Saturday. I arrived at the venue on Wednesday afternoon and it was hammering it down with rain. Mick the venue bailiff was there in his car waiting for the rain to abate before setting up as he was stopping until Saturday too but by the time it got to almost 3pm we said we would give it another 30 minutes and if the rain hadn’t eased would go home and come back in the morning. Another angler (John) turned up in his camper van so Mick & myself decided to let him get organised and then we would nip around for a cuppa. So we gave John 20 minutes before driving around the lake to him only for the rain to stop, now was the window of opportunity to get set up so of I rushed to a peg on the other side of the lake from my previous 2 visits and I started setting up my basecamp for the next 3 nights.

I got the bivvy, bed chair, bivvy table, stove, pod and rods all set up, got all my gear into the bivvy and bait sorted and started plumbing about with the marker rod. I found a weed bed 25-30 yards out with clear silt in front of it so decided to fish just in front of the weed hoping the bream would patrol this point. In went 30 balls of bait and I went for a chat and a brew with Mick to give it time to settle before making my first cast at 8pm. By 10pm I had banked 4 fish up to 8lb 5oz and then the heavens opened.

8lb 5oz

I got soaked and checked the weather forecast and it said the rain was here for the night, so I stripped off, put my wet weather gear on and my wet clothes hung up with the heater blowing away to dry them out and get some sleep for a dawn start.

Just before dawn broke in went 25 balls and at first light out went the baited rods and it was only minutes before I was into Bream number 1. Over the next few hours it went crackers with fish after fish gracing my landing net and by late afternoon I had caught 17 bream before landing a surprise 8lb 5oz common carp. I don’t know what happened then but after the carp the bites started to dry up, I sensed that it and possibly 1-2 more had pushed the Bream out of the swim and I only had 1 more fish before nightfall.

Like the other 2 nights I had spent on the venue not one fish was caught through the hours of darkness, I really do find this strange and I need to work out why.

Dawn broke on the Friday morning and I had 2 fish before the sun started baking everything. It was red hot with not a breath of wind and of course the fishing just switched off. At midday I checked the thermometer on the car and it read 32 degrees in the sun trap where it was parked! I decided to relax and chill out in the shade of my bivvy because the chance of any fish being caught was zero to nothing in this heat and sun and there were fish crashing all over in the margins and reeds which meant the fish were going into spawning mode.

relaxing in the shade of the bivvy

By dusk the fish were in full spawning mode. The margins and vegetation in them was alive and there was no interest in any bait presented to them and once again the hours of darkness produced nothing.

Dawn on the Saturday and in went some more bait. I was hoping the odd fish had finished spawning and that the feed might bring them into my swim. I did manage to snag 4 Bream before the sun emerged again in all its glory and killed to sport and at lunch time I decided to bring the session to an end and pack up.

I finished the session with 24 Bream up to 8lb 5oz with the majority once again between 6 and a half and 7 and a half pounds and 1 carp of exactly the same weight 8lb 5oz. So in this session and my 2 other overnighters I have had 47 Bream and 1 Carp and I am yet to bank a double. I know they exist because as I said earlier a 14lb 2oz fish was caught earlier in the month but they are scarce and this is the challenge that appeals to me, hopefully I will beat it before the river season opens in a fortnight.

The Hook Bait Company

I’m very excited about the range of baits that I will be testing over the summer and autumn months for Darren McCann of the Hook Bait Company. I met Darren at the Yorkshire regional Barbel Society show and was blown away with a flavour he’s been developing that I had a sniff off as it is very similar to the flavour I had knocked up and was using last season with good success.

So after a chat I asked if he could make me some 10mm boilies up which he has that look and smell fantastic and since then after more conversations he has made me up a dense oil in the same flavour as well as a glug and a paste base mix, at the back end of the summer I will be getting some pink pop ups done too. What I have received so far is of the highest quality and I am sure that the results will speak for themselves over the upcoming months.

Check out their Facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/groups/hookbaits

And their soon to be updated website here – http://www.hookbaits.com/

Pre-Season

I really can’t wait for the Trent to open again, I mean I really really can’t!!!! After the fiasco of the weather and surgery last season I am looking forward to opening day this year more than I have done for years.

Over the close season I have been out a few times checking the river out and plumbing around with a bomb and I have been quite surprised how the bottom has changed in some areas due to the extra amount of water there was in the river last season.

I have my first session all planned and I feel like a kid at Christmas if I’m being honest.

All my gear has been stripped and cleaned, new braid sections for combi links tied up and put on rig boards and new braid put on the reels all ready for the off.

Next weekend I will be soaking 10kg of pellets in the flavour I’m testing for the Hook Bait Company and freezing them for 2-3 days before soaking them in the oil. I’ve got 2 gallons of hemp cooked and frozen and will be doing a few more gallon over the next few days.

Casters & Maggots have been ordered for collection so I think I am just about ready for the 16^th.

Yorkshire Specimen Group

An update as to what the rest of the lads in the group have been up to recently, taken from the groups Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yorkshire-Specimen-Group/315467525242018 (Please feel free to like the page and receive regular updates regarding the groups activity)

It’s all been quiet with the lads getting ready for the start of the river season in a couple of weeks.

Tim has been chasing an elusive double figure Yorkshire Tench with fish so far up to 8 and a half pounds, I’m sure it won’t be long before a double is gracing his net. He’s also been inundated with orders for his Tench & Bream rigs and that’s not surprising due to the number of big fish they produce, so get some for yourself from here: http://www.specialistanglinginnovations.webeden.co.uk/

Mark has got 4 nights planned chasing Tench at a Lincolnshire Stillwater in early July, maybe 1-2 other lads from the group will be joining him.

Lee & his fishing buddy Danny Johnson enjoyed a fantastic 24 hours on Marsh Farm banking over 60 Tench to 5lb and 15 crucians to 3lb between them. Read Lee’s review of March Farm here: http://www.leeswordsfishing.co.uk/fishery-review-marsh-farm/

Something that I can’t go too much into detail about at the moment is that the group are looking at having an event in October in South Yorkshire in order to raise money for the Sheffield Children’s Hospital. It will involve a couple of guest speakers, one that has said yes is a Y.S.G. member that is an all-round specimen hunter who is well known and respected and the other who we are wanting to get is a highly regarded carp angler who again is very well known in the world of angling. There will also be the usual trade stands and a fantastic raffle to boot, more information about the event will be published on the groups website and Facebook page nearer the time.

FOOTBALL

Rovers

Well what can I say apart from “Championees, championees, ole, ole ole!”

On Saturday 27^th April my son Nathan and I joined 1800 other Rovers supporters in the away end at Brentford’s Griffin Park and witnessed one of the most dramatic endings to a game of football ever.

Going into the game we needed a point to clinch promotion, however if Brentford beat us then they would be promoted in our place. At the same time Bournemouth were playing at Tranmere and only had to get a better result than us to be crowned champions. Well here is how the drama unfolded:

YES!!!!!!!!!!

We scored the winner with the last kick of the match and in Tranmere Bournemouth had only managed to get a point which meant the mighty Doncaster Rovers were returning to the Championship at the first attempt, as CHAMPIONS!

I could barely speak afterwards and this was the start of me being ill (See fishing blog when I was cat fishing) but it was worth it. The atmosphere was fantastic all the way through the match but when Brentford got the penalty I had my head in my hands and all I could think to myself was “same old rovers, we’ve f*cked up”, but I’ve never gone from the pits of despair to sheer joy and elation in such a short space of time at a game, ever. Eighteen seconds of so many emotions that you simply cannot put into words.

The funniest thing was that the Tranmere v Bournemouth game finished before ours and the Bournemouth fans were on the pitch demanding the trophy as league winners, especially after Brentford were awarded the penalty, how funny it was to see them pipe down and have their dreams shattered as we were rightly crowned champions as we had been league leaders for the final 2-3 months apart from the last week of the season. Here’s the video of the comedy gold ha-ha:

A few days later and the champions were presented with the trophy on a lovely evening at the Keepmoat Stadium:

Champions

Get in there!!!!!

For me our player of the season was our leader and inspiration both on and off the pitch, Rob Jones

“He’s Rob Jones…. Jones, always believe in Rob Jones, he’s got the power to score, he’s indestructible, always believe in!!!”

After the season finished and Brian Flynn moved back upstairs we were once again on the lookout for a new manager. Several names were thrown into the hat and being discussed o the various forums but the front runner with the bookies was always Paul Dickov, and so it proved to be when he was duly appointed.

At first I felt underwhelmed about it, I really hoped the club were going to appoint a manager with experience at this level, after all this was one of the conditions we were told that was needed but since his appointment PD has said the right things and with him attempting to bring one of my all-time favourite players to ever grace the red and white hoops back to the club in Richie Wellens then I will get behind him and give him time to see what he can do, I hope all Rovers fans do the same as we all need to be united now we are back in the Championship and the crap football we endured under Saunders is a thing of the past.

Also a couple of weeks ago the club announced their retained list:

The following players have been told the Rovers would like to retain their services and will meet the new manager as soon as possible to discuss the exact content of the contracts offered:-

Kyle Bennett

Chris Brown

Andy Griffin

Paul Keegan

Jon Maxted

Paul Quinn

Tommy Spurr

Neil Sullivan

Liam Wakefield

The following Players have been given free transfers:-

Jordan Ball

Patrick Mullen

Gary Woods

Martin Woods

Lee Fowler

I pretty much agree with that list but I suppose the biggest surprise was the release of Gary Woods who had been our first choice keeper for most of the season. Good luck anyway to the lads that have been released and I hope those offered new contracts put pen to paper soon.

It’s only a few weeks until the season kicks off again with it being moved forward with the world cup taking place next summer and the Championship is full of Yorkshire clubs, so there are plenty of mouth-watering derby matches to look forward to next season. In fact it’s been a good season overall for Yorkshire clubs with Hull gaining promotion to the Premier League, Wednesday, Huddersfield & Barnsley staying in the Championship and Rotherham & Bradford getting promotion from League 2. Have I missed anyone? Oh yes the poor Blades, once again destined for another season in League 1 and even having managers from Australia that nobody has heard of turning them down for the vacant managers job and calling the club Prehistoric, my heart bleeds ha-ha. I can see them appointing Gary Megson and there being another ‘shoes off’ protest in the car park at Bumhole Lane soon.

Anyway that’s enough from me for now, so until the end of June when I hopefully will have some Barbel to show you it’s tight lines and wet nets from me.

Jon

March Blog

FISHING

Well it’s been an eventful end of season for me. Since the river season ended I’ve taken a couple of weeks off to recharge the batteries and sort my gear out ready for sessions on the local lakes and canals and to drive out and ‘recce’ possible new venues which I have really enjoyed. So what have I been up to?

Canal Piking

Well with today being the last day of March I guess at the start of the month I had what has turned out to be my final Pike session of the season, well dead bait session anyway. I decided at the last minute to head out to one of the local canals and fished a short session starting at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon and fished until around 7.30pm. I had 3 takes from which a managed to put 2 fish on the bank and the other resulted in a drop. Not massive fish (estimated around 7-8lb) but enjoyable catching and as you can see from one of the pictures the weather was glorious.

Canal Pike

Canal Pike

 

Both fish fell to my usual Lamprey dead baits on low resistance running leger set ups. And yes I have remembered to do the video I have been promising for a couple of months showing how to make these link legers and you can watch that later in the blog.

 

Overnight Session With Bob Beal

In the first week of the month I also met up with fellow Yorkshire Specimen Group member Bob Beal for a 16 hour overnight session on the non-tidal Trent to see if we could put a few Barbel on the bank. The weather man had said temperatures would reach 14 degrees and the sun would clear any fog, and as per usual they got it wrong! The fog never lifted at all and the daytime temperature stayed at around 2 degrees. We fished on what could only be described as Blackpool Beach as the floods had dumped 2-3 tonnes at least of sand on the bank.

Blackpool Beach In The Fog or The River Trent?

8lb 2oz Barbel

 

This did appeal to me as obviously the river bed must have been channelled out a little so the must be deeper water around, and indeed there was. My plan during the day was to fish maggot feeder on the upstream rod and larger baits (Pellets, boilies, meat) on the downstream. I was first into a fish as the maggot rod screamed off which resulted in a lovely 8lb 2oz fish.

For some strange reason it all went quiet for me then while Bob banked 3 Barbel of 9lb 8oz, 8lb 9oz & 8lb 5oz. As darkness approached off came the maggot rig and on that rod went a pellet set up and on the downstream rod I started using some of my own flavoured and coloured meat. It was now my turn to catch and during the night I put another 4 on the bank including a new personal best Barbel. I’m not kidding, in the net it looked huge, I thought it might have even pushed 14+ but after weighing the fish and deducting the sling weight it came to 13lb 5oz and I was buzzing!

13lb 5oz Barbel

Along with this I had fish of 8lb 15oz, 8lb 5oz and a baby estimated around 6lb with the larger of the 3 all falling to the meat.

 

Facebook Page Social

A couple of days later it was back to the river for what turned out to be a bit of a social for a few members of the Trent Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/158851530918976/

Wayne’s Rod Station

Myself and Bob Beal had arranged to meet fellow Y.S.G. member Wayne ‘Barbel’ Glossop for an overnighter and a little later we were joined by Graham ‘applehead’ Appleyard before Justin Martin trundled past and fished a little further upstream. Wayne also brought along his girlfriend the lovely Emma and at the end of the session we found out why, but more of that a little later.

To be honest I did do more laughing and piss taking than I did fishing as it turned out and we all managed to ridicule Wayne and his ‘rod station’

If none of you know Wayne well he is becoming legendary in his own right, for keeping his tackle pristine like it has just left the shop! I’ve never seen so many black bin liners containing various items of luggage, yes luggage!!! In order to prevent any dirt getting on it. Bob and I didn’t know how to greet him, whether it should be a hand shake or whether we should roll out a red carpet so he kept his boots clean!

Through all the laughing and jovials we did manage to put a few fish on the bank but for some reason we were being pestered with smaller Barbel between 6-7lb but I did manage to landed the largest at 8lb 8oz on the nose.

8lb 8oz and a cheeky Mr Glossop

As you can see I have Wayne stood behind me but i had to Photoshop out the Thai ladyboy stood behind him performing acts that are too strong for this website, hence the look on his face ha-ha.

Anyway the session came to an end and it was time to pack up and at this point we discovered something so unbelievable that it has given those in attendance much amusement both then and since. I saw Wayne on the phone and could see Emma behind him doing something. Now remember Wayne keeps his gear like it has just come from the shop, so my jaw almost hit the floor when I saw he had Emma cleaning his Delkims while he was chatting on the phone!

Wayne likes emma to get her hands on his tackle and polish his rod!

All I can add is that you have a keeper there mate!

 

Bad End Of Season

Things couldn’t have gone any worse for me for my final session on the river. My idea was to fish on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday staying overnight on Tuesday & Wednesday.

I should have known I was going to be jinxed with the first sign, we had a shed load of snow starting in the early hours on Sunday before turning into sleet and rain on the Monday, which in turn melted a lot of it and put all that snow melt into the river.

I had arranged to fish with young Robert (the lad with autism I am teaching) from Tuesday and fish overnight with him to go home on Wednesday morning. Then fellow YSG member Chris Axon was meant to be coming on Wednesday morning until Thursday afternoon and we were to be joined by Bob Beal on Thursday morning.

Because I was staying on the river for 3 days Robert had to travel down with his parents as my car was fully loaded. He asked if they could follow me down as they weren’t sure how to get there and if we could go later in the morning, so I told him to be ready for 11 on the dot.  On Monday evening Roberts dad asked me if we could make it 12 o’clock which was fine but we had to be leaving no later. Now the second sign of that things were going to go wrong was when I arrived at Roberts at noon and nobody was ready and the car wasn’t packed. At 1pm when we were finally ready to leave Robert told me he had to go and buy gas for his stove etc. which in turn meant we left Doncaster at 1.45pm. As you can imagine by this time I wasn’t a happy bunny as he had known about this trip for a few days and should have been prepared. With Robert suffering with autism it’s imperative that he feels safe when he is fishing so peg choice is vital and I had planned to take him to the pegs myself and Bob had fished the week earlier with good success but on arrival there were 2 people in them. It turns out they had only been there 20 minutes and were setting up, so after the almost 2 hour delay in setting off this didn’t go down to well with me because conditions on the banks were bad and not only for fishing but getting to a lot of venues was nigh on impossible. Added to this every peg I fancied was met with a look of caution by Roberts parents so we ended up on a section I knew we would struggle on but where he was safe.

Not in the best of moods at getting to the river late and missing out on the pegs i wanted by 20 minutes

Needless to say we struggled and both blanked, not the best start for the session but with it now being Wednesday morning and Robert going home I packed up as I would be able to fish elsewhere with Chris when he arrived.

This was the time for the third sign, I was texting and calling Chris for almost and hour but to no avail and then I got a text from him telling me he was feeling ill and wasn’t going to make it. What more could go wrong? I decided enough was enough and I would go home and come back down tomorrow and meet up with Bob for the final day, so I called in at a local fast food joint to get a coffee and call Bob to let him know. Anyway it turns out Bob’s plans had changed too and he could now fish today and tomorrow and fish overnight, so we met up and then the snow started hammering down again. On arrival at our first stretch the access road was closed (here we go again), when we got to our second chosen stretch the snow was now coming down really heavily and the access to the river looked awful and rutted and apparently around a dozen people had been stuck there over the last couple of days so it wasn’t worth the risk as I didn’t fancy lining the farmers pocket to haul us out. Eventually at approaching 4pm we found somewhere to fish with the cars behind us and quickly set up. I wasn’t even going to bother with the bivvy and sleeping set up as the snow was falling and I didn’t fancy assembling it all, instead I quickly put up my overnight/day shelter next to the car and got my chair and stove set up under it leaving the rest of my gear in the car and if I needed something I just needed to left the boot. If it did get too cold I could jump into the car and put the heater on. By 6pm my unhooking mat and landing net were solid as the temperature started to plummet to what would eventually be the coldest conditions I have ever fished in. At around 9pm one of the rod tips slammed round but there was nothing there, however the Boilie was missing which gave me a little encouragement in the bitter cold. By now it was minus 3 and everything was starting to freeze and ice up. My day shelter was solid like wood, my rods, reels and pod were white with frost and it was getting colder. By 3am the cold was unbearable, I had never experienced feeling this cold on the bank before and enough was enough for me. The gear got packed up and put into the car and I saw something I have never seen on the Trent in over 30 years, Ice forming in the margins. When I had loaded the car I got in and took a look at the thermometer and it read -7!! Time to fire the engine up and get the heating on.

When dawn broke Bob and I had a chat and due to the weather and temperature we decided that if we had any chance of catching we needed to try and find some slower and deeper water. So off we set and after a couple of hours and navigating some dodgy access roads we found somewhere. I think other anglers must have had the same idea because by 10am there were 8-9 other vehicles on the stretch but once again it was a struggle. I was now fishing with really light tackle and maggots but couldn’t buy a bite and by mid-afternoon mine and bobs cars were the only cars still there. By 4pm I was done and we decided to pack up and call the season to a halt, and we timed it to perfection because as we started to leave the heavens opened so at least we avoided a soaking. So thanks to the weather the end of the season was ruined, I hadn’t seen anybody catch a thing in 3 days and speaking to other lads on the phone and social media networks only 2-3 people out of over 30 had caught anything at all. Let’s just hope next season is an improvement in terms of the weather and hopefully the EA are guarding the rivers from our Eastern European residents, but I doubt it.

At the start of the season I set myself a target of 200 Barbel including 20 doubles and considering I didn’t fish for 2 months of the season due to surgery I am very happy with my final return of 173 barbel including 11 doubles up to 13lb 5oz.

 

Yorkshire Specimen Group

The YSG is a couple of months old now and i have had the privilege to meet most of the members and I am looking forward to plenty of sessions on the bank with them in the future. The group has some great anglers with great reputations and are currently looking for 1-2 highly reputable carp anglers, 1-2 predator anglers and maybe an all-rounder to join their ranks.

Please check out their website here http://yorkshiresg.wordpress.com/

And please feel free to ‘Like’ and follow their social media page on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yorkshire-Specimen-Group/315467525242018

 

Help A Good Cause

I have to post about this fantastic fishing fund raiser 3 members of the Barbel Society are doing to raise funds for the Army Benevolent Fund….

Three members of the Barbel Society are currently planning for a task to take place over 14 days in which they will attempt to capture 14 double figure barbel from 14 English rivers, one from each river. Jerry Gleeson, Baz Fisher and Paul Floyd aim to fish from August 8th 2013 from some of the following rivers, the list will change nearer the time. Swale, Trent, Dove, Derwent, Ribble, Goyt, Sow, Severn, Anker, Teme, Kennet, Lodden, Kentish Stour, Rother, Medway, Sussex Ouse, Hampshire Avon. The aim is to get sponsors for the team based on the number of double figure barbel caught in or on the event as a whole. So donations are needed from friends, anglers, tackle manufactures, bait companies, retailers, and please give generously. Cheques or postal orders can be made out to “The Army Benevolent Fund” and should be sent to Jerry Gleeson, 42 Freemantle Street, Edgeley, Stockport SK3 9LF PayPal donations to Jerry-gleeson1@hotmail.com or our just giving page www.justgiving.com/jerry-gleeson — with Paul Floyd and Baz Angler.

Please help and support these guys and the cause and if you can help them on any of the rivers then please do so in order to achieve their goal of 14 doubles from 14 rivers. Myself and other members of the YSG will be giving as much advice as we can regarding rivers we know, especially the Trent & Jerry is coming over for a session on the river in the summer with us. If anybody can offer the same then please get in touch with Jerry as I am sure all the help they get will be greatly appreciated.

No more cold backside for me

 

The Shit Shack

Well you’re probably wondering what the hell this is all about. Well for me gone are the days of crapping in a hole behind a bush and filling it in or a bucket with a black bin liner in it, I’m getting too old for that crap (pardon the pun). From now on when I’m doing multiple day sessions I will be doing it in comfort after purchasing a Porta-Potti 165.

This will take pride of place in an old one man bivvy that I have christened the ‘shit shack’.

 

 

My New Toy

New Camera

 

For a while now I have wanted a new camera so I can take better quality images for the website/blog. Also now I’m in the YSG having better quality pictures is a must but as I am on a budget I can’t really justify going out and spending hundreds of pounds on photographic equipment. So after searching around I have bought a Fuji S4530 and so far it does everything I ask of it.

So hopefully it will get plenty of action stills and it also records 1200p HD video too which will also benefit and improve the quality of things I make for the site.

 

 

ROVERS

It’s been a mixed bag of results for the lads since my last blog. We have played 7 matches and have won 4, drawn 1 and lost 2. Having said that 5 of those 7 games have been away from home so considering that I suppose 13 points from a possible 21 isn’t too bad and more Importantly we are still top of the league.

My Church

Fridays defeat at Coventry was a sickener. We were completely dominated and overrun in midfield for most of the first half until Brian Flynn dropped Iain Hume back into midfield but by this time we were already 1-0 down. At half time Dean Furman was brought on from the bench and it made for a vast improvement and we battered them for the second 45 minutes and deserved at least 1 if not all 3 points. The fact that most other results went against us means that in my opinion Mondays game at home against Swindon is a must win fixture if we have any aspirations of finishing in an automatic promotion spot and avoiding the lottery of the play offs or even worse falling short of them. The gap we have at the top has now been reduced to 2 points and there are teams with games in hand, yes they have to win them but there is the possibility they will.

Top of the league and having a laugh

Four of our final six matches are at home and for me all 4 of these are must win games along with our away fixture at Crewe before the final game of the season away at fellow promotion hopefuls Brentford. I’d like to go into that game with promotion in the bag if possible and just needing a result there to go up as champions.

Rovers Till I Die

 

Anyway that’s enough from me for now and hopefully by the time I write my next blog I can write about some cracking still water captures as well as celebrating a Rovers return the Championship. So until then tight lines, wet nets & 3 points in the bag,

Jon

February Blog

FISHING

Well February has been a strange month for me. I have been out on the bank a few times but not as many as usual due to my mum being taken into hospital on Friday the 1^st in order to have an emergency Tracheostomy due to the Tracheal Stenosis she has been suffering from getting to the point where she really was struggling to breathe. Thankfully her recovery is going well and she was finally discharged from hospital yesterday (25^th Feb.).

Also I’ve become a member of a new specimen group that I will talk more about later in the blog as well as having a rant about a particular bait company and the chap who runs it as what he has done over the past few weeks has upset a lot of people in the Barbel world. On top of that there is any other news and I will be finishing the blog with my usual piece on the Rovers and how things have gone down the pan this month, so enjoy. By the way I haven’t forgotten about the promised video regarding making the pike/zander link leger rig but as you can understand with what’s happened to my mum I just haven’t had time but I will definitely be posting it on my next blog.

Anyway I’ve managed to get out 4 or 5 times this month and here is how it went…..

My first outing of the month was again to the local club pond that contains those big Perch.

Waiting for a big ‘Stripey’

One of my red breasted companions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My plan of attack was 2-fold, 1 rod with maggot and the other rod with prawns. On the maggot rod I had a small block end feeder full of grubs and on the hook I hair rigged 2 buoyant artificial maggots and put a live one on the hook. The reason for this was to pop the bait up off the leaves on the bottom and the live maggot counter balances it slightly so it is just off the bottom and also has the added benefit of attraction due to its movement. On the other rod I alternated between whole prawns and prawn tails and cramming the feeder with chopped up prawn and other fishy goodies.

I did have company by the pond but not another human was to be seen. Instead my companions were a pair of robins that took turns in taking the maggots I tossed onto the floor for them. Fishing wise I never had any of the Perch I was targeting, not a single bite on the prawn. I did manage 7-8 small skimmers and a couple of small crucians on the maggot.

My next trip was to the river Trent in search of Pike and the elusive Zander. I arrived at the river at dawn and was greeted to a beautiful daybreak, I just hope the fishing was going to be as amazing.

Winter Dawn On The Trent

A 2 rod approach again was used. On one rod which was mainly targeting Pike I had a lamprey section mounted on 2 size 6 semi barbless trebles. The other rod which I was targeting Zander was baited with half a small roach mounted on a size 6 single hook(through the lip) and size 8 semi barbless treble (through the body). I’m now using braid mainline for all my Pike & Zander fishing so both reels were loaded with 53lb PowerPro. Why so heavy? Well there is little or no difference between this and 15lb mono diameter wise and if I get snagged I have a hell of a lot better chance of getting that baited trace out of the river so no fish will be damaged or at worse killed, the safety of the fish is the main priority after all. As an example I got snagged on this day and had to pull hard to retrieve the tackle. If I was using 15lb mono I would have broken off and left a trace in the river, however due to using stronger braid I retrieved everything and all I had was a straightened point on one of the trebles, so remember use you head and think fish safety.

An hour or so after my first cast i had a really tentative take on the roach. Two quick bleeps on the alarm and the swinger rose an inch so I held the line between my fingers to see if I could feel anything, and I did. I struck into what felt a decent fish and as it was on the roach and the bite was so tentative I was thinking “surely it’s a Zander”.  After a minute or 2 I got the fish to the surface for netting and it turned out to be lovely Pike of 10lb 2oz and my only fish of the day.

10lb 2oz Trent Pike

I was intending to go back onto the river a week or so later but once again the countries rivers went ‘flood bank high’ after some heavy snow followed by torrential rain pushed them towards bursting point once more, so I decided to head out to the canal piking which resulted in a big fat blank. What was equally strange was the fact I never saw 1 silver fish ‘top’ all day and bearing in mind this was on a stretch that’s alive with them at this time of year was very confusing. Maybe they are starting to move up the canal earlier this year? Who knows?

I finally managed to get out onto the Trent the other day and my timing could not have been worse, seriously if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have none at all. A few days previously the weather had been mild and the river had been fining off and had a lovely colour but more importantly had been fishing well. By the time I managed to get there it was timed with sub-zero freezing temperatures and frost. Oh well never mind I was determined to have an overnighter  anyway so I set the bivvy and the winter skin up, got my bedchair and sleeping gear in and set up the Coleman on an old aluminium platform just inside and got my ‘tea’ of sausages and coffee on the go.

Sausages & Coffee on the go

It was a real grueller and I was chopping and changing rigs and baits in order to get any bites at all. I tried pellets, boilies, maggots, meat, meatballs, corn & worms and various points through the session and I ended up getting 2 bites all night that resulted in a Bream of around 3lb and a Chub of around 2lb. So at least I never blanked like the 4 chaps upstream of me who crashed in their bivvies sleeping all night and not making any changes. That’s something I don’t understand about people that ‘night fish’, what’s the point if you’re not fishing? I usually sleep midday for a few hours and fish at prime times, especially in the warmer months. I know in winter it can be different but seeing as the only 2 fish on the stretch came in darkness as the river was clear just emphasises my point.

Anyway my final session was on Sunday, again on the canal but on a different section of it and once again after Pike. I had 2 takes during the session, 1 which was a pick up and drop and the other that resulted in this 11lb exactly fish taken on my favourite lamprey section dead bait.

As I write this there are only 16 days left of the river season and I’m hoping to get a number of days in before the bell tolls at midnight on the evening on the 14^th of March. Thankfully the weather is looking very promising so I will hopefully be putting a few barbel on the bank and reporting on it in next month’s blog.

Also later this week I’m spending a day doing more ‘reccy’ sessions for next season with fellow specimen group member and friend Wayne Glossop and on Thursday evening both us along with fellow member Lee Swords (I think Lee is going anyway) will be going to give moral support to yet another member of the group Tim Ridge at his first ever talk at the Yorkshire Regional Barbel Society meeting at Wetherby. For anybody else interested in attending here are the details:

Yorkshire Regional Meeting

Thursday 28th February
Wetherby Social Club
Sandbeck way
Wetherby
LS22 7DN

Guest speakers are two of Yorkshires
all round specialist anglers

Tim Ridge & Dave Tipping

Doors open at 7pm for an 8pm start
members £3 non-members £5
Oap’s and juniors free

There will be the usual raffle with great prizes to be had but if anybody has any tackle etc. they would like to donate to the raffle then that would be appreciated.

FFF Feeders will be there on the night.

YORKSHIRE SPECIMEN GROUP

I’m delighted and excited to be part of the newly founded Yorkshire Specimen Group. The group consists of lads that are either from Yorkshire, that live in Yorkshire or fish Yorkshire waters and those of the surrounding areas such as the Trent etc. One of the main things I like about the group is the fact there is no hierarchy or committee nonsense and decisions are made by everyone as a group.

You can find the groups website and read about it here: http://yorkshiresg.wordpress.com/

I know there isn’t much on there at the moment content wise but it will grow as the group does over time and I know forums are going to be added for public interaction very soon as well as public pages in the social media network.

Here’s a little about us:

The Yorkshire Specimen Group was formed in 2013 to provide it’s like minded members the opportunity to pool their knowledge and experience in order to help each other improve as anglers and to improve our success on the bank.

Our aim is to bring back the traditional specimen group ethos and atmosphere where there are no secrets and our members get together on a regular basis to fish and socialise, sharing stories with each other and others.

Our members enjoy catching all manner of species on all methods and all types of venues and in the future hope to hold various events such as coaching days for kids, fish-ins and other social activities for members and non-members.

Joining the group is by invite only by either recommendation of a member or your exploits on the bank. We will be opening a public section on the website and forums for non-members to post their stories and pictures and regular contributors that show ability have a chance of an invite to the group.

SAD LOSSES

Don Slaymaker

Terry Lampard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This month we lost 2 greats from the world of angling, both highly regarded and respected in their fields of the sport.

Terry Lampard was without doubt one of if not the greatest specimen angler of any generation. An inspiration to all specimen fishermen due to the wide variety of huge fish he caught as well as being one of the nicest gentlemen you would ever wish to meet.

Don Slaymaker was an icon of Trent match scene of the 70′s & 80′s and was widely regarded as being one of the best river anglers of his generation. A onetime member of the Trentmen, and famous Shakespeare Superteam squads, Don was regarded as one of the country’s finest anglers.

A RANT!! – 3 FOOT TWONKS

Now this is something i would normally never do, but i feel that i can’t bite my tongue any longer!

3FT is a bait company set up by a certain Richard Easom last year. When I first stumbled across him 3FT didn’t exist and he was just a bloke from Scotland that fished the Trent 2-3 times a year and came across as a very genuine fella, and I did have some very good and friendly conversations with him. For those that don’t know I’m a moderator on a certain page in the social media about Barbel fishing on the Trent and alarm bells started ringing when people were warning me about him and telling me not to give him any information regarding my fishing as he will pass it on to others as his own etc. He also took a fair bit of stick from others and he used to message myself and other mods upset at being bullied, which I then defended him about on there and removed anything bad etc.

Over the next 12 months he formed 3FT which I wished him all the best with and even told him I would help with any field testing etc. All the time I was hearing and reading things that didn’t quite sit right and that I didn’t like. In the things I was reading he came across as very arrogant and opinionated and that he was right and everybody else was wrong with their opinions (including some fantastic and well respected Trent anglers like John Frisby) and he would not listen to anybody else’s arguments without attacking them.

Anyway I paid for and received some of his ‘Dubby’ boilies to test (poorly packed in a freezer bag popped into a jiffy bag so a number had gotten crushed or crumbled in the post) and i compared them to a batch he had sent somebody else, now even though they were meant to be the same they were completely different in smell and texture, in fact in 1 batch a number of the boilies crumbled when you tried to thread them on a hair. Also they just never worked, I know the odd Trent fish has been caught on them but nothing in numbers. I even tried them when I was bagging on other baits and never caught and as soon as I switched again I was into fish once more. He basically turned around and said it was me failing and not the bait which gave me constant amusement as I was catching on everything else but I said nothing, instead I distanced myself away from him and 3FT and kept to the more reputable suppliers. After this there were constant flare ups between himself and other people but I kept out of them and kept my opinions to myself.

Then a few weeks ago Teme Severn Baits sadly announced they were closing with a major factor being the ill health of Dave Mason. T7 were a fantastic and highly respected company whose baits spoke for themselves in terms of the catches they produced especially their Lamprey range and pellets for Barbel. I was gobsmacked to read within 2 hours of T7 announcing this that 3FT were going to sell their own lamprey pellets due to the closure of T7. I found this bang out of order and very disrespectful but again kept my opinion to myself, unlike others. Richard had angered a large number of anglers with what he was doing and some even put it into print at the time such as well-respected angler and angling journalist Lee Swords on his blog here: http://www.leeswordsfishing.co.uk/late-january-blog/ and here: http://www.leeswordsfishing.co.uk/february-blog-part-iv/

Anyway the story continues. Last night there was a debate regarding the above on the social network and after reading some of the rubbish I couldn’t keep quiet any longer and had my say as follows:

For me it’s about 2 things, respect & quality.
The fact 3FT announced they were going to sell lamprey pellets within a few hours of T7 announcing they were closing due to the ill health of Dave Mason stunk of someone riding the crest of a wave of someone else’s idea’s in order to make a quick buck. 3FT may not realise it but doing that has lost them a hell of a lot of respect and potential custom in the barbel world, especially the anglers that were loyal T7 users. Obviously the 3FT ‘brigade’ will say differently but over the last few weeks I’ve only seen the same handful of people defending 3FT (usually the same 2-3 testers) whereas the numbers pulling the company down seems to be getting larger and larger. Richard doesn’t seem to use his head very well when it comes to business, showing Dave and the rest of T7 some respect and maybe even contacting them with regards to continuing the T7 range (even if they were told no) would have been the classy thing to do and could have even got him a lot of business but jumping straight in that quickly when T7 were closing as Dave is not a well man was a bad business sense and showed a complete lack of class and respect. Other things like publically calling a customer a liar and slating him in the social media network is terrible business sense and says to me that 3FT may be here in the short term but in the long term I think it will just be supplying a very small number of its current loyal followers.
Last year I looked at and compared 2 different batches of ‘dubbys’ and both had completely different smells and textures but what do you expect when quality control isn’t going to be the best when they are all produced by a guy who’s new to bait making in his shed. Personally speaking I will be sticking to established and reputable suppliers. Not only do I feel they are better quality but they are also cheaper. As for lamprey pellets, I’ll stick to making my own as I can knock up 10kg myself that work great for £20.

I was immediately jumped on by Richard Easom and his band of testers after posting this and Richard himself started to insult me on there. Now not forgetting I’m somebody who listened to this bloke cry about being bullied and had defended him when he was last year, I was now getting abuse from him and his cronies for posting my opinion? According to Richard I have no life or job and have an agenda. Seriously? The bloke and his band of merry men are delusional and for me he isn’t worth a turd I stand in anymore. Anyway after making him and his ‘cronies’ look like the idiots they are for an hour I was unsurprisingly banned from the page, guess who by? One of his bum lickers, as they are all moderators on there, yet Richard Easom who is the one that came out with the personal insults remained. I guess he wasn’t kicked because one of his testers was hoping for a free sample of bait instead of the 10% discount for the expensive rubbish they usually get.

It’s surprising how many people that have defended him in the past now feel the same as me, just because you might disagree with him over something or have a different opinion he starts attacking you and gets his ‘cronies’ involved, no wonder he is probably the most despised and disliked person in the barbel world at the moment.

As for his bait……

If you want to pay for poor quality bait at an extortionate price then feel free to be an idiot and buy from a condescending arrogant arsehole that makes them alone in his garden shed aka 3 Foot Twitch. If you want to buy quality bait that has a reputation for putting fish on the bank in big numbers from all waters and not just the river Wye (The commercial fishery of the barbell world) then buy elsewhere from a respected and reputable company.

ROVERS

What the hell is going on at my club? The honeymoon period is well and truly over for Brian Flynn, big time.

We’ve gone from joint top of the league, 6 points clear of 3^rd place with a game in hand to 4^th in the table!!!

I know we’ve had some injuries but some of the football has been shocking, dare I say worse than it was under Saunders. For a team that is meant to be pushing for promotion then 3 points from 15 and no wins in 5 matches simply is not good enough, it’s relegation form. It’s not like we can keep the bad performances under wraps as it was seen by hundreds of thousands on live television last week just how badly we are playing. I don’t think the things Brian Flynn has been saying helps, things like “we’re the best team in the league” may come back to haunt him because the amount of times he’s said it seems to be making the players take their feet off the gas.

Like I said we have had injuries and we are told money is available, so why oh why weren’t loan players brought in sooner? Another calamitous mistake that could cost us.

Thankfully on Saturday against Yeovil there were signs that things might change.  Yeovil came into the game on the back of 8 straight wins so I feared the worst. Things got worse when Madden put them in front after 6 minutes after Gary Woods flapped at a cross and made a howling error. Up to this season Woodsy has taken a lot of stick and to be honest he has made some real howlers, however he has improved tenfold this season and has made some cracking saves, definitely our most improved players. However he is still prone to the occasional flap at crosses and on Saturday he gifted Yeovil the lead. After that for a long period of the game we were poor then all of a sudden things started to click. Having that Billy Paynter missed his usual sitter that my deceased gran would have scored before bulleting a header into the corner of the net from a David Cotterill corner. The second half was virtually 1 way traffic and we got even better when Iain Hume returning from injury came on from the bench. Once again we were blessed with a referee that wasn’t fit to grace the local junior league and turned down a stonewall penalty claim from us that would have given us the 3 points we deserved.

Anyway hopefully now it’s onwards and upwards for us until the end of the season now starting tonight at Shrewsbury.

R.T.I.D.  COYR

Until next month tight lines & goals aplenty for your team

Jon

January Blog

SORRY FOR MY ABSENCE

Well where have I been and why haven’t I blogged since June?

The simple answer is ‘Surgery’

I have been waiting to have Bariatric surgery for a while now and knew that it would take place in the second half of 2012 and in July I was told I could get called in for it at any time. With this knowledge along with the worry that was now going on in my head unfortunately my blog had to take a back seat as I wasn’t in the right place in my head to do it. Due to the seriousness of the upcoming surgery I wanted to spend my time doing other things such as spending as much time as possible with my family and being on the river bank when possible.

So sorry to anybody that has missed reading updates but from now I will be posting again on a regular basis now that my surgery is complete and I am fully healed.

Anyway as I have quite a bit to catch up on then this blog will probably be a long one but hopefully well worth the read, so here goes……..

SURGERY

As I said earlier I’ve now had my surgery and I have healed really well. I won’t lie, it was the most terrifying experience of my life, I don’t mean the surgery itself it’s the uncertainty of thinking ‘what if I don’t wake up?’ Like all major surgeries there is a risk that you might die during or after the procedure and being a single parent of 2 teenage kids this was my biggest worry, the thought that they might be left without a parent to look after them terrified me more than the surgery itself.

Hospital Wristband

I ended up having the surgery in November and the day itself was one of the longest and most surreal of my life. I arrived at the hospital at 7am and was sat around waiting until 4pm before I was operated on! The worst part was the walk to theatre, it felt like I was on death row and was walking to the electric chair. Everything seemed a daze as I climbed onto the operating table and an oxygen mask was placed on my face before I was given the injection to knock me out. What a horrible feeling it was, it felt like I had a 10 tonne weight on my chest and that I couldn’t breathe, I even shouted “I can’t breathe!” to which the anaesthetist calmly said “you’re doing fine” and the next thing I remember was waking up in recovery as high as a kite on morphine and babbling nonsensical bollocks to the nurse but all I could think of was what a relief it was to wake up and that I was alive.

Later that night I saw my kids and parent’s which cheered me up no end and then it was time for the road to recovery and a new life, the only downside being I couldn’t fish or do anything else until after the new year.

FISHING

Trent

To start with this section of my blog will be not too in depth and not talk about many sessions as there are too many as I haven’t blogged for 6-7 months, so i just want to give a general idea on how my fishing went during that time. I will go more in depth with what I have been up to from my sessions since the New Year later on.

Well what a bizarre season we have had so far on the river Trent, for most of the time it has been well above normal levels and also spent quite a bit of that time in flood. The picture below is taken above the A46 at Newark-on-Trent in late November and shows just how bad things were.

River Trent in flood around Newark

Bright sunshine and gale force winds one minute and torrential rain the next.

Having said that I’m having a great season up to press catching, a lot of barbel along the way. Up to today my barbel count stands at:

165 out of a target of 200

11 doubles out of a target of 20

So with 6 and a half weeks of the season to go I still have a quite a few fish to go, especially doubles to the targets I set myself. Having said that due to me being out of action for 7 weeks because of the surgery and the fact that the river has been difficult to fish due to the condition it has been for a lot of the time I’m very happy with how my season has gone so far.

Even though I have had good results it has been tough going and the main reasons I have had a good year are 35 years knowledge of the river along with using all the watercraft skills I have picked up over that time. As I have said in previous blogs a lot of my work is done before the season even starts checking out stretches and pegs and chucking a lead out to learn depths of swims and how the bottom can change from gravel to silt etc. Also write EVERYTHING down, not only what you catch but on what methods, baits, the date, weather, river conditions, moon phase etc. as all this information you collect over time will be your essential ‘knowledge base’ for reference and future catches.

I did have trio of memorable short 6-7 hour sessions in the space of a week on the river in October when I landed around 30 barbel which included 4 doubles up to 11lb 8oz and 7 fish over 9lb that did include this ‘double header’ of fish that weighed in at 9lb 4oz & 9lb 1oz.

9lb 4oz & 9lb 1oz ‘Double Header’

Just after the turn of the New Year and after weeks of being out of action I was desperate to get back on the river. After checking the EA’s river level website I saw the river was only a couple of feet up on the middle river and 3-4 on the tidal but I was told the problem would be getting down to the river itself due to floodwater still being in the fields and blocking access roads but this didn’t really bother me as surely I would get on the river somewhere? How wrong could I be? I checked out at least a dozen places on both the middle and tidal reaches and couldn’t get anywhere near the river. Check out the pictures and video below to see what I mean.

Collingham. The foodwater was above the fence you can see here a few days previously.

Between North & South Clifton. The river is actually on the other side of the floodbank where the line is, past the 2 lakes the floodwater had formed in front of it.

So with heavy heart I was left with no option but to head back home.

A week later I decided to get back on the river as access should now be possible on some stretches but after weeks of mild weather when I woke up I was greeted to the first severe frost of the winter and an air temperature of -4 and freezing fog. It didn’t put me off as I just wanted to fish the Trent, so off I set to the middle river. I knew it would be hard and I wasn’t wrong. No matter what method or bait I tried I couldn’t buy a bite. I even put out a deadbait for Pike or Zander as well as my Barbel rods and nothing. Not the first session on the river since my operation that I wanted, oh well it beats sitting indoors and the stretch I fished is one of the most picturesque on the river and i even had a Robin visit me eating maggots I tossed onto the grass a couple of yards to my right.

With the cold weather and sub-zero temperatures here to stay for a couple of weeks at least, I decided to put the Barbel gear away and get the Pike gear out because in these conditions if the Barbel aren’t playing then by changing your target species means at least you can get out and have a better chance of putting fish on the bank. With this in mind 3 days after my blank I was Trent bound again after Pike and Zander. During the night we had a little light snow which I didn’t mind but while I was on the river the snow got heavier and heavier. Anyway I had 2 rods set up, 1 with a 20lb 7 strand trace along with a size 6 single and size 8 semi barbless treble with a 2 inch roach head deadbait aimed mainly for the Zander and the other was made up with a 28lb green coated 7 strand trace along with 2 size 6 semi barbless trebles and lamprey section aiming mainly for the Pike. The day went very slowly however thankfully I didn’t blank and i managed to catch a small jack of around 4lb, I didn’t care about the size because what pleased me more was it was my first snow pike and I worked hard to get it.

Baby snow Pike

Three days later and I’m back on the middle river with a friend Chris after the ‘crocs n zeds’ again. We settle into our swims only to find they are both full of unexpected snags that I can only imagine are here due to the severity of the river level for long periods over the previous months. So after losing a few leads it’s decided to move stretches and head to the tidal river. Just like my previous session I’m using 1 rod aimed at Zander and the other at Pike and I’m fish a lovely looking peg. An hour or so later I’m into a fish on the zander rod, now at this point I have to say that even though I’ve had a few Pike up to just under double figures over the years that I’ve never caught a Zander and after hitting into this fish I see a flash of light olive green under the surface and like a giddy kid I’m saying to Chris “it’s a zander!” and he’s also thinking the same when we see a flash of olive green under the surface again, however my joy was short lived when the net slips under a small jack Pike around 3lb….. Bugger!

The Reel Rod race

After Perch & Crucians, and what a view!

I along with around half a dozen other guys are testing a new competition format this calendar year (2013) that hopefully will be a regional if not national competition either next year or in 2015. There is a lot of playing around with the rules and concept to be done as well as phone apps, pc tools and an interactive friendly website to be finished.

Anyway to cut a long story short without going too much into detail the aim is to catch the heaviest fish you can of as many different species of freshwater fish you can with points being awarded for various different aspects.

With this in mind and the Trent being unfishable at the turn of the year I decided to have a short session on a small Stillwater I know that contains Crucian Carp approaching 4lb and Perch to 3lb 8oz. I don’t hold out much hope of catching any Crucians as it’s cold so I concentrate on targeting the Perch.

I set up 2 rods, one with a small blockend feeder containing maggots with single and double maggot on a size 18 B611 hook. The other has a small blockend containing chopped worms with either a dendrobaena worm tail or small red worm on a 14 B611. The fishing is hard and I only get 3 bites which produced 3 fish, a 2lb 7oz Perch along with a surprise (due to the cold temperature) Brown Goldfish of 1lb 7oz and a 1lb 1oz Crucian.

A couple of days later 4 of us from the competition (myself, Chris, Marko & Garry) are on the canal Pike fishing. It’s very slow and by 12.30pm only Marko has had a run which resulted in a small jack so we decide to move onto some nearby drains to try our luck. I’m fishing a smelt deadbait on one rod and half a mackerel on the other and manage to land a ‘croc’ of 9lb 15oz less than 30 minutes after arriving. I was gutted that it was an ounce shy of being a double and Chris kept reminding me for the rest of the day that it “wasn’t a double” Grrrrrr. However even if it wasn’t a double I did get some revenge, as it was the biggest fish of the day.

A couple of weeks later and in the snow I’m back on the canal to try and improve on the 9lb 15oz Pike that is my largest so far in the competition. This time I decide to solely use lamprey deadbaits and it turns out to be a wise choice and ends up being a great session. I arrived on the towpath at midday and my plan is to fish for 5-6 hours so I get the afternoon, dusk and an hour or 2 of darkness. I have 1 bait in the boat channel and the other just on the edge of the near shelf which is where I’ve had countless Pike grab silver fish I have been landing over the years in matches and pleasure sessions. All is quiet until around 2.30 when the bite alarm of the boat channel bait starts to beep and the drop off indicator rises slowly and I’m into the first Pike of the session and after a short scrap I unhook and weigh a lovely fish of 11lb 1oz. Around half an hour later the other rod goes off and this fish puts up a great fight and I eventually slip the net under a new personal best Pike of 13lb 2oz. I’m smiling like a Cheshire cat and it’s not long before the same bite alarm sounds again and I’m in once more but this time it’s just a small Pike of 6lb 10oz. with no more baits coming I pack up at just gone 5pm and end a pleasing session with a new personal best Pike that I can put into the competition.

So what are my plans for the rest of the competition for targeting different species?

Well a lot of fish of specimen size can be caught on my beloved Trent but I will also be visiting a few still waters and canals during the close season. That’s another thing that really riles me, the close season. I’ve always abided by the law and never fished a river during this period unlike Bob James but isn’t it time that rivers were brought into line with stillwaters and canals and the close season for coarse fish is abolished totally? For 3 months a year our rivers are left with no fishermen on the bank and they are left ‘unguarded’ for the Eastern European immigrants to rape and pillage them. Not only that but our ecosystem and weather is so screwed up nowadays that fish aren’t spawning in the close season anyway! Anyway back on topic, during the close season I’m heading down to Sywell Reservoir in the 2^nd half of March to target Pike & Perch and maybe the Tench if the weather is kind. After that I will be paying regular visits to a local still water after the Tench and Carp along with the specimen Roach & Rudd and I will be dusting off the match gear for a few pleasure sessions on the canal, Bank End & Hayfields. Then in May it’s back ‘darn sarf’ to Sywell for Tench for a couple of days before spending a weekend that has been booked on a Stillwater trying to tick Catfish off the list of species from a small lake well known for producing them to 60lb.

Pike/Zander Rigs & Their Handling/Unhooking

Pike and Zander can feel the slightest resistance when they take a bait and will almost inevitably drop any deadbait they pick up when they do. Because of this it is important that the rigs you use for them offer as little resistance as possible in order maximise the number of fish you put on the bank. Because of this the ledger rigs I use for deadbaits are free running and have as little resistance as possible and they incorporate a popped up large ledger ring on a short length of braid that is attached to your lead via a quick clip covered with a helicopter rig sleeve.

Low resistance Pike & Zander set up.

Because there is a pop up ball holding the large running ring off the bed of the river, lake or canal this reduces resistance considerably resulting in more positive runs and fish you will catch. Hopefully I will be able to make a short video for next months blog showing how these links are quick and easy to make.

I know there may also be a number of people who would love to give predator fishing a go but are worried about a few things (I know I used to be) such as getting and using the right gear, setting up and using the right rigs and the handling and unhooking of Pike. Well either next month or the following month I will also make a video showing how simple it is to make your own traces for Pike, Zander and wobbling deadbaits as well as simple float rigs with uptraces etc. As for the handling and unhooking of Pike I strongly advise to go with someone that has experience at this to teach you at first until you feel confident and are able to do it yourself. Also remember that having the right tools for the job is a MUST and these include forceps (long and short), long nosed pliers, trace cutters and side cutters.  Below is a very helpful video:

 

Fishing News

So it’s settled, fish do NOT feel pain and now I can shout even louder ‘Screw you PETA and all the other anti-angling groups’. The fact that that their biggest argument, one which they have banged on about for years that our sport is cruel because fish feel  pain is in tatters and I wait with baited breathe to laugh at what their next ‘line of attack’ on fishing will be. An article regarding these findings can be read here: http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/Section/News–Catches/General-News/Study-concludes-fish-dont-feel-pain/

Farson Digital Water Cams has teamed up with the Environment Agency to combine its network of webcams at some of the sport’s most popular rivers with information from almost 2,000 of the EA’s water gauging stations around the UK. So now as well as checking the EA website for river levels you can actually see them live on a number of rivers. I just hope they get some cameras up on the Trent soon because it’s a crying shame there are none!  http://www.farsondigitalwatercams.com

On Facebook last year on numerous Barbel & fishing pages/groups there was an advertisement for the British Barbel Angling Championship. Now this excited me a great deal and was something I was looking forward to ‘having a bash at’. Slowly over the next few months news on the event diminished and finally a couple of weeks ago it was revealed in the angling press that the event was now cancelled. A statement released by the organisers said: “Due to personal issues that have arisen we’re unable to facilitate this event.  We hope we can run this event and make it a great success in the future but at this point we’re unable to commit to something of this magnitude.” I just hope they iron out the problems soon and hopefully the first event will take place in 2014.

I was going to write about ‘Keith the Seal’ but it’s been done to death by other bloggers and the angling press so I thought I would come at this topic from another angle and have a little rant. There is an organisation that had an opportunity to show the countries anglers that it is doing work on their behalf but once again the powers that be within it did nothing but sit on their backsides, yes I’m talking about the Environment Agency. The E.A. said that they would “not take any action as they believe the seal will naturally make her way back to the sea”. Can somebody please explain to me why we pay a licence fee to these muppets in order to fish when they don’t give a damn unless fish being killed or poached are salmon? If you see every day coarse fish being poached by our ‘Eastern European’ friends and report it to the E.A. nothing happens, the same people go back to the same spots time and time again taking all the coarse fish they want, whereas on the other hand if it was salmon they were poaching and you reported it to the E.A. then they would be there in a flash, why?  Thankfully the Angling Trust did do something about it and teamed up with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue service to relocate ‘Keith’ back to the sea. In an ideal world licence fees would go to an organisation that does a lot more for anglers which is the Angling Trust. Imagine the voice it would have if it did and all licence payers would automatically become members through their licence fee. Sadly this will never happen, oh well we can dream can’t we?

Well with all the snow melt water now in the rivers which has once again pushed them towards bursting point and days of heavy rain forecast it looks like any chance of getting on the Trent anytime soon has gone out of the window. I have never in all my years fishing known a river season like this, the Trent has been in flood more than it has been at normal levels. Looking at the forecast for the rest of the season it looks to be continuing in the same vain that it has since the turn of the year going from sub-zero temperatures and snow to wind and rain, oh well the joys of a river fisherman.

Lee Swords

Finally I would like to point people towards a fantastic new website belonging to the Trent Guru Lee Swords. It is a fantastic read and very informative and I even agree with a lot of what Lee says in regards to his political views that he occasionally writes about and even if you don’t then I think you would agree that they are a fascinating read and worth debating about. Anyway Lee’s site can be found here: http://www.leeswordsfishing.co.uk/

 

FOOTBALL

Rovers News

Well what a season we are having, and you know who to thank don’t you? ME!

Yes the reason we are doing so well and are level on points at the top of the league with a game in hand is all down to me and not being able to attend any matches for almost 2 months. Before then we were outside the play offs and had just lost 2 league matches at home on the bounce and the only reason we were anywhere near the play offs was due to some solid away form.

Up to this point watching matches at the Keepmoat was awful, not only in terms of the result but the standard of football. At seemed that for all the results we were getting on the road that Dean Saunders didn’t have a clue how to get us performing at home. In away games we sat deep, soaked up pressure with some excellent defending and beat teams either hitting them on the break or relying on set pieces. Now when we play away this is fine as our opponents being at home come at us and play into our hands, the problem was Saunders tried to play like this at home and because it didn’t work relied on a lot of pointless ‘hoofball’ that was boring, horrible and tedious to watch. The reason it didn’t work at home which was obvious for anyone with half a brain to see and understand but for some reason Saunders couldn’t was that teams played against us entirely differently at our place, they sat back more expecting us to do all the pressing which completely nullified our tactics and our manager didn’t have a clue what to do about it. After another home defeat I wrote this elsewhere “A few have told me they were ‘bored to death’ yesterday because we were as bad as they have seen since we got relegated out of the league 15 odd years ago. Maybe people have been spoiled as we’ve seen some cracking football over the last 12 years or so, but what I’ve seen this season in terms of performances reminds me of some of the crap i watched in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I don’t think people can justify £25-30 anymore just for the ‘result’ and they want to see plenty of excitement and entertainment. Let’s be honest what we see isn’t going to have the crowds flocking back in droves, a club just relegated from the championship and on the brink of the play offs to go straight back up and less then 6k home fans there.”

This picture says more than a thousand words.

Anyway while I’m out of action due to surgery we only have 3 home games where we beat 2 teams struggling at the wrong end of the table but get absolutely mullered by Coventry 4-1. On the road it’s a different story and we win 4 and draw 2 and all of a sudden we are in 3^rd place behind Tranmere & Sheffield United! However I said it then and I still say it now, I think our league position was more down to the players and especially our captain then the manager and we were so high in the table in spite of Dean Saunders not because of him.

Anyway by now I’m ready for my return and can’t contain my excitement as my first match back is a top of the table clash against Sheffield United at the Keepmoat on New Year’s Day. For 80 minutes we absolutely dominate the match in fact we a battering them and are leading 2-0, in all honesty they could have had no complaints if we were winning 5-0 but then with 10 minutes to go we get our usual standard of crap officiating. This useless excuse of a ref had been trying his best to help them get something out of the game since the first whistle and on 79 minutes one of their players fouls Andy Griffin and falls over and bizarrely this dumb official points to the spot and awards them a penalty, which they duly convert to make it 2-1. Then on 88 minutes the idiot decides it’s time we got reduced to 10 men and sends Billy Paynter off for a reason that everyone in the ground to this day still doesn’t know what for, and then we all know what’s coming next don’t we? Yes we concede and equaliser in added time and what made it worse wasn’t the fact that it came at the end of what seemed like a game of pinball but the fact it was scored by that ginger t*sser (excuse my French) Dave ‘I really am a tw*t’ Kitson!

The following Saturday we are at home again against Colchester, a game that was abysmal to watch and even though we won after the game I wrote “Yes I’ve been away because of surgery and whether it’s due to the lack of seeing us play along with results away from home i was starting to warm to Dean Saunders and even more so after a the  performance on Tuesday against the blades. Wow was i brought back down to earth today, apart from 1 piece of brilliance from Cotterill the whole performance was total dogshit, the likes i haven’t witnessed in many a year. There were 3 lads in their 20’s sat behind me and the only reason they were there was due to the performance on Tuesday and even though we won today all 3 said “I won’t be wasting 20 quid to come and watch that crap again” and i can’t blame them. A better side would have given us a real pasting today, we can think ourselves lucky that we were up against one of the worst sides in the division.”

Bye Bye Deano.

So as you can tell I’m pretty annoyed but as the night goes on there is breaking news. It seems the mighty Wolverhampton Wanderers are strangely after Saunders as their next manager. Now unlike just over 12 months ago when I was gutted we sacked Sean O’Driscoll I think I was one of the very few that was not panicking, in fact I would have driven Dean Saunders to Molineux for his interview after the number of dire performances I had witnessed over the previous 14/15 months. As usual the word coming from the club is that ‘no official approach has been made……… but we have been told to expect one”. Now I understand the first part of that statement but the second? Ok who told them to expect one? The Easter Bunny? Anyway less than 48 hours later everything is agreed and Saunders is on his way, with no tears of sorrow from me may I say.

My only concern at this point is that we fetch somebody in that can kick us on from where we are in the league and lead us to promotion. Someone who not only can sustain us picking up points away from home but who can turn around the dire home performances too. By some strange coincidence of fate there is a fans forum on the evening that Saunders has left and in attendance will be all 3 owners along with our CEO Gavin Baldwin. As expected there was to be no questions answered regarding names of our possible next manager or the compensation received from Wolves but what we are told is we have received 50+ applications and 10 are of the highest quality. As for the rest of the evening, well for me there were plenty of positives and only a couple of negatives. The positives were fixed price season tickets for next season which is fantastic news along with the spread payments option. Also how the ‘In Rovers We Trust’ program is coming along (read here to learn more about this http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=232795.0 ). Also if the pizza’s and soup that were available on the night become available to buy on match days then the club is definitely onto a winner there and I was also really pleased about the initiative regarding signing for deaf people.

My biggest disappointment and something i didn’t want to hear but was expecting was that there will be no money for whoever comes in as our new manager. So he’s got to deal with who is already at the club or sell in order to bring players in he wants. I was also disappointed that a question was completely ignored and unanswered in regards to the club doing more to attract fans from the Polish/Kosovan communities in the town because I’m sure there are a few hundred more bums on seats we could attract if this was looked into and done correctly.

Anyway Brian Flynn who is one of our scouts but who also has a lot of experience in management, especially international management is appointed as interim manager to be assisted by captain fantastic Rob Jones who John Ryan has gone on to describe as “our most important signing since Alick Jeffrey”. I know Rob has a big say in discussions and team talks in the dressing room as captain and is respected by his peers so I have no problem whatsoever with this appointment.

Our next match is away at Stevenage and it’s a massive one for the club as it could be a record breaker. The clubs record for avoiding defeat away from home came in the 1946/47 season that saw us avoid defeat in an 11 consecutive away games stretching from the start of the season until mid-January. The current team had equalled that record when we won 3-0 at Preston in our last game of 2012 and now had the chance to better it. Anyway to the game and in the 66^th minute we fall behind to a thunderbolt of a shot but with 10 minutes to go Iain Hume brings us level with a well taken goal. Now it’s all set up and you could say it was on the cards what was going to happen next. Four yes 4! Minutes into stoppage time we get a corner and up steps our inspirational leader of men, captain fantastic and interim assistant manager, the man mountain that is Rob Jones to head home the winner to confirm our 12^th away game on the bounce unbeaten and a new club record which can be seen below.

We had been told that the club were in no rush to appoint a manager as they wanted to get the right man for the job, however the following Thursday morning the word gets out that a new manager could be named very soon. Then after lunch it gets announced that the club could be unveiling their new manager this afternoon and it’s not long before the club is officially saying that the new manager will be announced at 4.15pm. Well speculation is rife and there are names being bandied about everywhere but the press seem to think it will be Brian Flynn. Come 4.15 and it’s confirmed, Brian Flynn to be assisted by Rob Jones will be our manager until the end of the season. The following is taken from the clubs official website…

Doncaster Rovers are delighted to confirm today that Brian Flynn has been appointed as manager of the club and will be assisted by Rob Jones, who will continue in his role as player coach.

Following a thorough and efficient search process and after receiving over 150 applications, the Doncaster Rovers owners have decided that as the club challenge for promotion back to the Championship, a key element of the promotion push has to be continuity and it is felt that Brian and Rob will be able to bring this as they aim to capitalise on a successful first half of the season.

Chairman, John Ryan, said “We are pleased to announce that Brian and Rob have taken up our offer to manage the team and are now fully focused on the game against Leyton Orient. Brian has a great history at the club and is being assisted by our current captain Rob Jones, who has earned the respect of his teammates and fans this season through his commanding leadership. 

 “We had an overwhelming number of applications for the position, including former International and Premiership managers, however after a detailed process we felt that our initial choice, Brian was the best person to put in charge and would allow a seamless transition.

 Brian Flynn: “I am delighted to have received the news from the Chairman and Board of Directors this afternoon. Continuity is key, I’ve been here six months and in-charge ten days and nothing is broken so nothing needs to change.

 “When you walk into a dressing room, you can tell there is success in the air, and that’s the feeling I got when I came down to the training Ground at Cantley Park. I could sense that the players were hungry for success.

“In the words of the Chairman, the aim for this season is not only promotion but going up as Champions as well – that positive attitude has come from the Chairman and the Board and we will try and carry that out.” 

The new gaffer Brian Flynn & his assistant captain fantastic Rob Jones, or footballs Little & Large.

Our new management teams next game is at home against an in form Orient side that had only lost 2 of their last 15, and what a performance we put in. We dominate the game totally and win 2-0 when we could quite easily have won 6 or 7-0. We had 68% possession and had 13 shots while restricting them to NONE, yes they didn’t have a single shot the entire match. By far our best home performance of the season and what is even better was the manner in which we played. Gone was the hoofball and negative tactics and instead we saw free flowing passing football and created some great chances. I know Brian Flynn said he was going to make a few ‘tweaks’ to how we played but this performance was better than I ever dreamed we would play in such a short time.

Anyway that was our final game for a while as we now have a 2 week break due to MK Franchise being involved in the cup so our next game is away at Bury in February but all I will add at this time is…

Keep Calm!

Other Football

It looks like it’s a 1 horse race for the Premier League title this season, I can’t see anyone catching Manchester United now even with 3-4 months to go. City have failed to kick on from last seasons success and look a pale imitation this season of what they were last. Chelsea & Arsenal both are a shambles and I can’t see Liverpool making a title challenge for years. The surprise package this season is Everton, having said that I do think David Moyes is a cracking manager and has put together his best team yet this season. Another that are doing well are Spurs and slowly AVB is turning his reputation around after his failings at Stamford Bridge, I feel they are only 3 players (striker, centre half and centre midfield) away from being serious challengers next season. Michael Laudrup has been a revelation at Swansea, not only guiding them to a league cup final but a so far comfortable top half finish while not only maintaining but improving the style of football they play. As for Aston Villa, all that can be said is ‘oh dear’ because they look relegation certainties to me and Newcastle or should I say ‘Le Toon’ due to all their team being French have gone on a serious slide down the table.

As for the Champions League, it’s been a disaster for Chelsea & City, in fact no it’s been an embarrassment for them. I can’t see Arsenal progressing past the next round against Bayern either. I can see United beating Madrid over 2 legs and Jose being shown the door at the Bernebeu and even though Celtic have been a revelation especially for beating Barca in the group stages I can’t see them getting past Juventus. I know Barca are the favourites to win it but I’ve got a sneaky feeling for Dortmund. Dortmund hold a special place in my heart and are my favourite team outside of the country and the way they dominated their group and remained unbeaten while playing fantastic football against City, Real & Ajax just shows how good they are and what a fantastic manager Jurgen Klopp is. The reason I like them so much goes back to when I was 11 years old and visited the pen pal I had back then who lived in one of the ‘posher’ suburb of the city called Castrop-Rauxel. His family were Dortmund mad and I went to 2-3 games at the fantastic Westfalenstadion and I was hooked on them from then on and they became my favourite non-English team.

Anyway that’s enough from me for now before this post starts to get too big and turns into a mini War & Peace, so…….

WHAT’S COMING IN MY NEXT BLOG?

I’m hoping that the Trent becomes fishable soon time soon and I can write up about my first barbel of 2013.

Reports of the sessions I have and the hopefully the video on how to make traces for Pike & Zander.

Hopefully more great news regarding the Rovers and other football chit chat.

Any other current events that crop up that I find interesting.

 

Until then tight lines & wet nets,

Jon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End Of June Blog

START OF ANOTHER SEASON

Well we are 2 weeks into the river season and it’s been pretty reasonable for me so far, apart from the weather. Our climate seems to going through a rapid change, as a kid I remember long hot balmy summers but in recent years they seem to have gone. We hardly get a ‘proper’ summer nowadays, take this year for example, we get 2-3 glorious days and then it rains for a week and when it rains it’s still warm and humid, then we are back to sunny and warm.

Waiting For A ‘Screamer’

I had planned to get on the banks of the river Trent over the first weekend of the season but due to the heavy rain, 60mph winds, river being 6 -7 feet up, dangerous banks and reports of 8oz not even holding bottom I decided to give it a miss. Instead I waited until the 19^thwhen the weather was better and the river was just a couple of feet up and dropping of nicely. I was fishing a stretch of river I had not fished for 15 -20 years where I can also park behind my peg which is vital so it is practically a case of only having to go a few feet from the car to my peg. I was excited at the prospect of using new bait I have been developing over the close season and as I’ve explained in previous blogs I have developed all my boilies, stick & sausage hookbaits, groundbait & liquid flavourings using the same ingredients and flavours so they all complement each other. First job was to make up the mix for my feeders, a 3kg mixture of 2 different types and sizes of pellets were put into a bucket along with 200ml of my flavouring and a couple of pints of river water to soften them and dampen them all down. I then added 3 pints of cooked hemp and a kilo of my home made 8mm boilies and gave it all a mix before finally adding 1-2kg of my groundbait to make the final mix. I baited the hooks on both rods with my sausage boilies that I had glugged in a mixture of oils and flavourings I had put together to match everything else and at 7.45am I make my first cast of the season.

30 minutes in and the downstream rod rips around and I’m into my first fish of the season. After a fantastic fight I am bringing the fish to the waiting landing net and it looks big, a good double, and disaster strikes. Just as I’m about to slip the net under it the fish rolls and pops the hook, to say I’m gutted is an understatement. After a wait of about 2 hours I’m in again and slip the net under my first barbel of the season, not a Trent monster but at 7lb 10oz it’s more than welcome. I do manage to put 2 more barbel on the bank weighing 9lb 2oz and 6lb 4oz before calling it a day at around 3pm. I had tried various baits on the hook and all 3 fish (plus the double I lost) had all fallen to the glugged sausage boilies which was pleasing, especially when 1-2 around me had struggled on pellets (I never had a bite on pellets either).

The following day I am back on the same stretch and there is a peg that I really want to fish, so today I set off early and I was on the bank at 5am and to my disbelief there’s an old chap in the peg I wanted. He was a really nice old fellow, but never shut up talking all the time I was there and I learned that he was 79, lived in Northampton, comes here once a month, was up at 1.30am this morning to get here early, had been fishing for almost 70 years and had fished countless nationals in the past, fished the Great Ouse regular and knew a lot of well known anglers from the past. The only downside was that I never got the chaps name, hopefully I will bump into him again because some of the stories he told were fascinating. Anyway due to me feeling ill and that my knee was very sore today this was only a short session where I fished from 5.30am until 9am, however I did put 4 barbel on the bank and again every one was on my glugged sausage boilies while the old chap in the peg I wanted to fish never had a bite on halibut pellet. The fish went 5lb, 6lb 9oz, 7lb 10oz & 7lb 14oz none were huge but I was pleased with putting 4 fish on the bank in a short space of time.

6lb 14oz

6lb 7oz

 

 

 

 

 

The following Tuesday I am back again, this time I’m determined to get the peg I want to have a go in, so I am up at stupid o’clock (2.45am) and on the bank at 4.15am and thankfully the peg is empty. There is just something appealing about this peg that I can’t put my finger on, maybe it’s just a hunch that it will produce? By 8.30am I already have 3 barbel on the bank and they went 6lb 14oz, 6lb 2oz, and 5lb 2oz. Are you seeing the pattern here too? Yes they are getting smaller, my hopes of landing my first double of the season seem to be going down the pan. A little later I get a really shy bite, no indication from the alarms just slight movement on the tip, so I lift into it. At first I think I’ve hit the bottom as it feels like a dead weight, then it starts to move slowly upstream before setting off like a train downstream. 5 minutes later an angry 11lb 6oz fish is recovering in the landing net and I’m over the moon with my first double of the season. An hour later and the alarm on my upstream rod is screaming and I’m in again and once more it feels like a good fish. I zero the Reuben Heaton digital scales out with the sling attached and pop the fish in, the scales read 10lb 5oz, FANTASTIC!!! 2 double figure fish in an hour and 10% of the way towards my goal of 20 double figure fish for the season.

I’m exhausted so decide to make myself a ‘cuppa’ and to warm up my lunch on the stove. Here’s a tip for those with a little portable stove. Instead of lugging milk around with you etc I have a one of those silver camping cups with the black closable lid on it. In this I put a teaspoon, a small freezer bag of ‘Typhoo QT’ and a small bag of sweeteners and this makes a good 7-8 cups of tea. In a small Tupperware tub I have 3 chopped up grilled sausages and mushroom rice in tamarind & barbeque sauce that I heat up and eat out of the pan.

Lunch

After lunch I settle back down to fish and land 1 more barbel at 6lb 7oz before deciding to call it a day at 2pm before tiredness sets in as I’m falling asleep in my chair and have to travel home yet. But I’m really happy with how the 3 sessions have gone so far and every fish I have caught have succumbed to my home made sausage boilies that I have glugged in a combination of flavours and oils that I put together to match the hook bait.

Did I mention weather at the start of this blog? Well on Thursday I was back on the river with my dad and we got caught up in horrendous thunderstorms. What made things worse was that I didn’t fish for long or properly due to the weather and lightning flying about overhead which resulted in no fish. And to top the day off I had to pack up during the storms to go and pick my mum up from hospital as she has had a fall and broken her ankle. So fishless, not much time spent fishing properly and soaked to the skin. A few hours I would rather forget!

MY BARBEL DIARY

I will be updating this on every blog I write when if I have been out on the river…..

To date – 4 sessions totalling around 21 hours fishing time resulting in 13 Barbel @ 1 fish every 1hr 35m

5-6lb fish = 2, 6-7lb fish = 5, 7-8lb fish = 3, 9-10lb fish = 1, 10-11lb fish = 1, 11-12lb fish = 1 @ 15.4% of fish caught are double figure fish.

Season Goals: 13lb 1oz PB beaten = No,  20x Double Figure Fish = 2/20

 

ROVERS

Well slowly but surely the squad is starting to take shape for next season. Six of least seasons successful cup winning youth team have now signed professional contracts with us (even though 1-2 were attracting interest from top premier league clubs) and we have also made another 2 signings. Welcome to Doncaster Rovers both Robbie Blake & David Cotterill. Cotterill is a quick and skilful winger who seems to have been around for years but he’s only 24, a Welsh international and has Premier League experience. Robbie Blake also seems to have been around for years and being 36 certainly has been. He brings with him lots of experience and I also feel another reason for him coming is to help develop the youngsters, after all Jordan Ball has just signed a pro contract with us after scoring a shed full of goals in the youth team last season. Apparently ‘Deano’ is also hoping to make 2 maybe 3 signings next week, in my opinion we need a couple of central defenders, a central midfielder, a striker and a keeper.

David Cotterill

Robbie Blake

Forum For The Future…..

Well all that fuss for basically a glorified rallying of the fans, nothing learned that was already known and a hell of a lot more questions left unanswered that the club need to answer…..
1. No clarification on the board situation in regards to any changes at boardroom level and how other directors felt about the return of the KM2.
2. No reason given for board resignation of TB last season and what has changed to make him all of a sudden become interested.
2. No reason for why DW & TB have returned and no clarification as to whether they have rejoined the board of directors as between them they control the club.
3. Nothing brought up about expansion and development on the site.

All we got was a 2 year business plan in place with no great detail gone into regarding it, JR quickly telling us the experiment was over and then moving onto the next topic, the unveiling of the new kits, new catering, and how every penny u spend at the ground now helps the club, the reason DS never came out with the players was because we shouldn’t do a lap of honour after being relegated which is rubbish as it was to show appreciation to the fans not a lap of honour and the evening came to a close with JR taking a snide pot shot at Sean O’Driscoll.

Also we have had the fixtures announced, and I am very disappointed to say the least, why? You may ask. When will the football league give us a home Boxing Day game? On top of that BOTH our first and last matches of the season are also away!!! Our biggest away derby fixture is at Sheffield United, now you would think after the above 3 things that the football league might get the derby right? Wrong!!! They make the trip to Bramall Lane on a Tuesday night!!!!! I think if they could the Football League would make all our 46 games away fixtures.

Is it a fix? I’m referring to the clubs ‘Season Ticket For Life’ competition here. Season Ticket holders who renewed their tickets for the upcoming season before June 8th were automatically entered into a prize draw to basically have their season ticket for free, for life. The winner was then chosen at random during the ‘Forum for the Future’ event. The cynic in me that had a little smile when the winner turned to be an OAP It was odds on that it would be and everybody thought the same when the competition was announced.

THE EURO’S

Well the dream for us is finally over with a whimper after being knocked out in the quarter finals on penalties (as usual) by Italy. To be fair the best team won on the night and we have been riding our luck a lot, in fact I would say the only game we may have deserved to win was against Sweden, and even then in the 2^nd half we struggled at times against what was a poor Swedish side.

We can’t keep giving our opponents 60-70% possession and a stream of chances and expect to go far, especially when we hardly create anything in front of goal. Let’s take a look at the stats:

v France – Result 1-1

Possession: England 35% – 65% France

Shots: England 3 (1 on target) – 9 (7 on target) France

v Sweden – Result 3-2

Possession: England 52% – 48% Sweden

Shots: England 15 (8 on target) – 12 (9 on target) Sweden

v France – Ukraine 1-0

Possession: England 43% – 57% Ukraine

Shots: England 10 (3 on target) – 16 (3 on target) Ukraine

v Italy – Result 0-0 (Lost on penalties)

Possession: England 32% – 68% Italy

Shots: England 9 (1 on target) – 36 (8 on target) Italy

Against France we were on the back foot and somehow clung on to a draw, they had all the possession and 7 attempts on target compared to our 1 when we scored. Against a bad Swedish side it was even and it looked like we were going to lose after collapsing in the 2^nd half but came back really well to scrape a win, we edged possession and they edged shots on target. How lucky we were against Ukraine? They had more of the ball and more shots and had a legitimate goal disallowed when the ball had gone a foot over the line. Then we come to Italy, 36 shots with 8 on target and they fail to score, and they had almost 70% of the ball. To be honest we had a 10-15 minute spell early in the first half when we got at them and we were playing well, but then we went back into our shell, put no pressure on them when they had the ball, dropped deeper and were happy just defending. We gave Andrea Pirlo an open invitation to run the show, and he took it with both hands and made our so called ‘superstars’ look mediocre.

Sorry Wayne but you’re not in the same league as Pirlo

Now let’s take a look at our squad and their individual performances. Our entire defence was immense apart from the game against the Swedes. For me John Terry had his best ever tournament for England and alongside him Joleon Lescott was outstanding. Behind them Joe Hart was as solid as ever and some of the faces he pulled in the penalty shootout against the Italians were hilarious. Ashley Cole was his dependable self, and even though he was ok I think Glen Johnson was the weakest link as he does get caught out of position and we looked weakest when teams attacked us down our right.  In the middle of the park I thought Gerrard was fantastic, some of the balls he played were out of this world and he worked his socks off. Alongside him Scott Parker also worked tirelessly and did his best to break things up when we were under constant pressure. Now our wide men, oh dear, our 2 worst players in the tournament by far were Ashley Young & James Milner. Both of them were completely ineffective and created nothing, having said that Milner did have to do a lot of covering for Glen Johnson but there are no excuses for Ashley Young, he was simply awful.

Ashley Young, our worst player at the Euro’s

Up front I thought Welbeck & Carroll did ok but Wayne Rooney might as well not bothered going to the tournament altogether. All he did in 2 games was score a header from 1 inch out that he couldn’t miss and to call him world class is laughable, he isn’t in the same league as some of the true world class players we have seen in the tournament. He might do it for Manchester United now and then but for England he’s been a flop for years.

Let’s look at the positives we can take from the tournament. Our organisation and our defence were very good. We are unbeaten in normal play in the tournament, in fact we are unbeaten under Roy Hodgson and only got knocked out on penalties. We are the only team that have stopped Italy scoring (even though they hit the post twice) which is something both Spain & Germany failed to do. We showed briefly against Italy that we can play good attacking football and have the players to do it. Roy Hodgson has done a great job given the timescale and lack of preparation time to put together a squad and get them to the quarter finals, something the majority of fans never expected.

Roy Hodgson has said since that he knows we have to change and that we have to have more of the ball and be better when we don’t have it. We now have 2 years until the World Cup, so let’s start building for that and blood some youngsters. We need to do the same as Germany & Spain did in order to get where they are now, and if that means we do nothing in the next world cup but give some youngsters tournament experience in preparation for the Euro’s in 2016 and the world cup in 2018 then so be it. I also feel we need to change our system, 4-4-2 went out of the Ark and is way too rigid. One of the biggest factors for our poor possession was that we were outnumbered in midfield, so let’s go continental and go 4-2-3-1. My team for the qualifiers and the next world cup would be:

Hart

Walker  Cahill  Lescott  Baines

Cleverley  Gerrard

                       Walcott  Wilshere  Oxlade-Chamberlain

                                                            Welbeck (Rooney if he can prove himself)

As for the final, well it’s a mouth watering prospect and I couldn’t confidently pick a winner but my gut feeling is that Italy will win it. I thought they were better than Spain when they played them in the group stages and have been better throughout the tournament on the whole and if Super Mario is fired up like he was against the Germans then he will take some stopping.

BEN PARKINSON AN INSPIRATION TO ALL

Ben Before Suffering His Injuries

What an inspiration this Doncaster lad is. For those that don’t know his story (Surely everybody does?) then this is it:

Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson served with 7 Para RHA in Afghanistan. During September 2006 aged just 25 he suffered horrific injuries caused by an anti-tank mine, leaving him unable to walk or speak. Ben is the most injured soldier to survive his injuries in the conflict having lost both legs, the use in his left arm and a shattered spine, broken pelvis as well as suffering brain damage and 35 other injuries. He Spent 3 month’s unconscious in military care where doctors expected Ben not to recover but his progress and recovery has been extraordinary.

 

Ben in 2008 On The Day He Met The Queen

Ben receiving the award for ‘Overcoming Adversity’ at the 2008 Sun Military Awards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week Ben carried the Olympic torch through the town and was cheered along the 300m all the way by folk young and old like the true hero he is. What you are about to read and see now is not something I wrote, but it is the work of Emma Clark from the press because she sums it up perfectly and it could not have been written better…….

After weeks of corporate freeloaders and Z-list celebrities hijacking the Olympic Torch, a REAL hero steps forward

*  Paratrooper Ben Parkinson lost both legs and suffered brain injuries after driving over a mine in Afghanistan

*  He had major surgery on shattered spine and had prosthetic legs fitted

*  Spent three months unconscious in military hospital

*  But he refused to use his crutches to carry the torch

*  Thousands cheer him on in the most inspiring moment of the relay so far

*  Fellow paratroopers travel from Colchester to show their support

*  After completing the challenge, he said: ‘It was nothing – just another walk’

It took the courage and determination of a gravely wounded soldier to remind us what the Olympic Torch relay should really be about.

Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson battled for 27 painful and exhausting minutes  yesterday to carry the torch 300 metres. After accusations that the relay was becoming a circus for minor celebrities and corporate sponsors, here was a real hero to win the crowd’s heart. Few who saw Ben – the most severely wounded soldier to survive the fighting in Afghanistan – could fail to have been stirred as he walked slowly by the cenotaph in his home town of Doncaster.

Amazing spirit: Thousands of people lined the streets of Doncaster to show their support to the torch relay’s bravest participant

Red, white and blue: Moved onlookers waved Union flags as they watched the plucky soldier perform the difficult feat

Schoolchildren shouted ‘Go Ben’, fellow soldiers walked behind in battle dress and watching mothers sobbed. They were 15 deep on the pavement and every vantage point was taken. For Ben, every step was a triumph of mind over matter – a victory for human endurance and a stirring example of what the Olympic spirit should embody.

His inspiring walk came after revelations earlier this month that some of the coveted places on the relay had been handed out by sponsors to their own staff.  Coca-Cola, Samsung and Adidas have distributed the positions to everyone from marketing executives to IT workers. Last month, Will.i.am, US star of BBC talent show the Voice, trotted the Torch through Taunton – with which he has no connection.

Ben, 27, lost both his legs, broke his back, hips and ribs and was brain damaged when a Taliban mine exploded in 2006. He defied the odds to live – let alone take part in the Olympic torch relay.

He was determined to do it on his new prosthetic legs, scoffing at the offer to be pushed in a wheelchair or use crutches. All the sweat and tears were worthwhile by the time he passed on the flame to the next bearer.

‘I am very proud,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise how much support I had, I was amazed.’

His mother Diane said: ‘I cried from start to finish. People were shouting and cheering. I couldn’t believe so many had turned out.’ ‘It’s the proudest moment of my life,’ said his mother, kissing him at the handover point. ‘We knew Ben would complete the route. He’s so determined.

Ben with his adoring mother Diane Dernie and stepfather Andy

We are so proud of you Ben

L/Bdr Parkinson has come a long way since suffering close to 40 injuries in the explosion in Helmand Province and spending three months unconscious in military hospital. He had to learn to walk on prosthetic legs and undergo major surgery to fix his shattered spine and teach himself to talk once more. He was also recovering from grievous damage to his skull, pelvis, hands, spleen and ribcage.

His mother added: ‘The whole purpose of this was to show everyone what he can do.

‘It’s been such a spur for him, he’s had to work so hard. He’s had this practice torch made and he’s been pounding the streets. ‘He’s doing brilliantly. Even a few months ago we didn’t know if he’d be able to do it without crutches but he’s cracked it and he’s been doing about 500m up and down the area.

‘This town has been such a wonderful place for Ben. Whatever he does, Doncaster’s behind him. It’s so important to Ben because this is his chance to prove what he can do, to thank everybody in Doncaster because he’s had such fantastic support locally.’

Speaking after he handed over the flame, which he carried in a white sling around his neck, the exhausted but grinning 27-year-old said: ‘It was nothing – just another walk. ‘I am very proud. All these people helped me along.’

Ben handing over the flame

Ben was accompanied by 25 colleagues from 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery and his commanding officer Major David Walker said: ‘My men would have crawled over broken glass to be here today to show Ben our support. Everyone in the regiment is tremendously proud of the progress that he’s made against incredible adversity. We’re immensely proud of the physical and mental courage he shows in overcoming major injuries. It’s nothing short of awe-inspiring. We’re here to support Ben. The regiment is a wider family than just its serving members. We are here to show Ben that he is still part of that family.’

Sergeant Adam Colin, who served with L/Bdr Parkinson for many years, including in Afghanistan, added: ‘We’re just here to show our support to Ben – cheer him on and show how fantastically well he’s done and is doing. We’re very, very proud of him so we’re here to give our big support to him and just let him know we’ll always be there for him.’

Proud paratroopers from L/Bdr Pakinson’s regiment, the 7th Parachute Royal Horse Artillery unit supported him all the way

People of all ages turned out in the beaming sunshine to cheer L/Bdr Parkinson on, with schoolchildren chanting ‘Come on, Ben’, while others waved flags, whistled and cheered as he passed by.

His physio Robert ‘Shep’ Shepherd said they had practised the walk about six times in preparation, and admitted it was a mammoth task.

He said: ‘He has just completed an incredible feat. For Ben, this isn’t the same as walking the distance as someone else. It’s the equivalent to walking with three times the amount of his weight on his back. We started training about seven weeks ago, and Ben does physio about 15 hours a week. I’m so proud of him.’

You’re not the only one who is proud of this amazing man!!!

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO ABOUT BENS DAY CARRYING THE OLYMPIC TORCH!

WHAT’S COMING IN MY NEXT BLOG?

Weather and health permitting I will be out a few times over the next couple of weeks and will be writing up about how I fare.

Hopefully more good news about the Rovers.

How England are doing against the old enemy in the one day international cricket series.

Any other current events that crop up that I find interesting.

Until then tight lines,

Jon

Pre Season Blog

It’s 4.40pm on Friday 15^th June 2012 and it is at about this time I had planned to be heading down to the Trent and getting ready to start a weekend session at midnight, however I am currently looking out of my living room window at the monsoon that is happening outside. Watching the weather forecast earlier the country is about to be hit apparently by a ‘once every 50 year’ storm. It’s not a last minute cancellation to my plans, I knew earlier in the week that this was coming and had called off my weekend away on Tuesday. However all is not lost, the weather looks a lot better from Monday so I will try to grab a couple of days on the bank next week when hopefully the river level will be dropping and conditions should be spot on.

SO WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO LATELY?

Well I have spent numerous days of the closed season on the banks of the Trent on both the tidal and non-tidal stretches armed with a rod with a 5oz lead finding new spots and getting the depths of swims from the far bank right to my feet. Due to my limited mobility and the fact I can’t walk far my aim was to find places where vehicular access is essential so I am parked close to where I fish, and surprisingly I was pleased with the amount of places I did manage to find. So I have quite a few places I can target but I am going to concentrate on just 2-3 so I can try to master them.

MY BAIT PROJECT

I said in my previous blog I am going to be working on making my own bait for the upcoming season and so far I have enjoyed every minute of this. After hours of stinking the house out and behaving like a mad alchemist on a mission I am really happy with what I have made so far. As you can see from the picture below my cupboard resembles Jamie Oliver’s pantry but with different flavours, oils, colourings, base mixes and other dry ingredients and the picture is just a small selection of what is in there.

Just Some Of The Ingredients I Have Been Using

I have made 2 base mixes so far that complement each other in terms of flavours, colours and feeding trigger ingredients that I hope will be successful. One base mix is my hook bait mix for making boilies, sticks, sausages & paste and the other is similar to a groundbait/stik mix used for binding particles in the feeder and PVA mesh bags. Through experimenting I found that my hook bait mix was spot on if I used 8 medium eggs with 100ml of flavour/oil/colour per 500g of dry mix for making the boilies, sticks & sausages and throughout the summer I will be making my paste on the bank with river water along with my chosen flavours, oils and colours as I want this to break up fairly quickly from around my hook bait. In the winter I will mix it at home with egg for a slower breakdown as I won’t be putting anywhere near as much feed in so the attraction around my hook bait is there for longer.

Base Mix

Ready To Roll

Particle Boiles (8mm)

Sticks & Sausages

As you can see in the above pictures you can see my base mix, particle boilies (8mm), sticks and sausages. The particle boilies will be used whole and broken up with my Krusha and be part of the particle mix I will be using through the feeder. The sticks and sausages will be my main hook baits to be broken up and fished how I want. I have also come up with 4 different hook bait glugs by mixing different flavours and oils and will be testing these out too, you can see below the sausage sections I have been glugging ready to test in upcoming sessions, whether they will work or not I have no idea but I am looking forward to finding out.

Glugged Sausage Hook Baits

 

RESIGNATION FROM TEAM FISHING

I have decided to stop team fishing and will not be fishing for Clay Lane this year. There are a couple of reasons but the main on is my health. My mobility sucks due to my back and knees and this along with a heart murmur I have means there is no chance of half mile walks up the towpath with my gear. The second is it could be awkward as I don’t see eye to eye with 1 of the members. However this said the team consists of a cracking bunch of lads who I wish all the best for and hopefully they can have another good season. I have told the captain that even though I won’t be fishing for them I am more than willing to help in terms of passing on information about how venues they will have matches on are fishing if I have been on them.

ROVERS

It’s finally happened, 2 long months after the end of the season when other clubs have already done lots of business we have finally made our first signing, welcome to Doncaster Rovers Dave Syers. Yes like I was I bet you are thinking ‘who?’, because unless you look into things a little then from the outside it looks like a free transfer of a player nobody has heard of from a team that has struggled at the wrong end of league 2 for a number of seasons (Bradford City). However reading their fans forums it seems the majority are gutted he’s gone and that he was their best player, so hopefully he can bring something to the club. What has pleased me is some of the things he has said…..

“I came down here and met Dean, and ever since then there was no looking back,”

“It’s an unbelievable club and Dean Saunders really sold it to me, after the meeting it was a case of when could I sign rather than if.

“Obviously relegation last season is a disappointment, but speaking to Dean you can see the passion and the idea’s he has – I just can’t wait to be a part of it.”

Dave Syers

On Monday evening I will be at the clubs ‘Forum For The Future’, where Rovers Chairman John Ryan plus other major shareholders will be in attendance giving all Rovers fans the opportunity to discuss the club, the plans to rebuild the first team for next season and the commercial and community projects that are being planned for the future.  I hope there is some transparency from the club into why exactly Dick Watson & Terry Bramall have decided to return to the board of directors, if the club don’t say why then I hope fans ask why. Last season the pair of them along with 2-3 of Dick Watson’s family members couldn’t get out quick enough and were seen by most as rats deserting a sinking ship, now it seems they want to return in a blaze of glory and will no doubt be promoted by the club as returning saviours. I however am very suspicious regarding their return for a few reasons and I also have my opinions why they have decided to come back. Some thing’s I would like to know publically are:

1. Why did they leave in the first place? Yes the club gave ‘health reasons’ for Dick Watsons departure yet he still attended games after this and looked perfectly healthy. Also this reason was just for Dick Watson, why did Terry Bramall and 2-3 other members of Dick Watsons family resigning from the board and walk out?
2. How have the rest of the board reacted to the return of the Keepmoat 2 when it was down to them keeping the club running last season after Dick Watson, Terry Bramall and others from the Watson family walked out on the club when things were going wrong? as this could surely cause unrest at board level?
3. Why have the Keepmoat 2 only decided to return to the club AFTER we have control of the ground and site?

This is just my opinion, but I believe the only reason they are back is to make money, but not directly from the club, maybe I’m wrong but I guess we will see over the upcoming couple of years. How are they going to do this? You are asking, well I’m sure I read in the agreement between the club and the council that the club can develop and expand on the site with permission from the council. Now it doesn’t take a genius to work out the potential to possibly make a lot of money from this, after all 2 clubs local to us (The Blades & Leeds) have themselves developed on their sites in the building of hotels, could something like this and other potential money spinning developments be what Mr Watson & Bramall are really returning to the club for? Who knows? But as Roy Hodgson said recently I don’t think they have returned for “footballing reasons” but time will tell and maybe I am wrong, we will see.

One thing that doesn’t get mentioned anywhere that is also a worry of mine is the power these 2 actually have at the club. Between them they own roughly 66% of D.R.F.C. and between them can do what the hell they want and John Ryan can do nothing to stop them. In fact between them they even have the power to vote John off the board, now that is a scary thought for many Rovers fans.

THE EURO’S

Well we’re around a week into the feast of football so far and we have seen some cracking matches so far. The best so far in my opinion was Poland v Russia, so much national pride and passion for all to see, it was just a pity that this also meant that there were some dreadful scenes outside the ground both before and after the match.

Having seen everyone play so far I think Germany will win it. They look awesome to be honest but I’m not surprised with some of the players they have. They have a lot to thank Jürgen Klinsmann for, he revolutionised the way they play and introduced the world to a German side that do also have some flair about them and his work has been continued by his then assistant Joachim Löw.

As for England, well yes there were times against France we looked good but to be honest we did scrape a point. Yes it was a fantastic point but in all honesty the French battered us in terms of possession and attempts at goal and we were hanging on for dear life at the end. We remind me of the way Italy used to play years ago, very defensively with the only difference being that we aren’t as good. I just wish we showed some flair and had some idea how to attack and break sides down but sadly we don’t at the moment. Hopefully this can change when we kick off against Sweden in about 30 minute’s time.

WHATS COMING IN MY NEXT BLOG?

When I write my next blog in a week or two I will revealing everything about the sessions I have on the Trent, hopefully my baits work and I will have some cracking photographs to upload too.

I am also fishing a private lake next Friday and will be posting about that along with all other sessions I hopefully have the chance to fit in.

I’ll be discussing what happened at the Rovers forum and also any other news in regards to signings etc.

And finally I would love to be writing about how England won the Euro’s playing some wonderful expansive football, but I doubt I will be hehe.

Until then, tight lines.

Jon