Trip #75 - End of Season Thuggery

It was the last day of the river season and I had been getting more and more excited as the week wore on, thinking about where I was going to go and what I was going to do. Unfortunately the weather had other plans. I checked the EA river levels website before I left and saw the ominous spike, but I still left with my gear and hoped to find somewhere that I could tuck myself away. 

The river was very high all day!

The constant rain from Wednesday onwards meant that when I arrived at the river at Hambridge, I saw straight away that I wasn't going to fulfil my plans of fishing the river. It was as high as I had ever seen it this year (although it has been much higher), and looking over the bridge and down at the bank, the bankings were water logged and were an inch or three under water. Getting back to the car I had a re-think of my plans and decided to give Dillington Pond a bash instead.

It was flying through

Trip #74 - A Thorney venue

I'm always weary of venues which advertise stocking levels, as follows "We have Carp up to 25lb's". What this generally means is there is 1 token big double in the lake along with a few little ones. Still I am not one to shy away from trying new venues, and with winters hold on the seasons slowly giving way to spring, I was quite hopeful that today would be a real confidence booster. I found Thorney lakes on a recent trip back from one of the local rivers, and after some internet searching I saw a lake that looked really promising.

Ignore the dates on this sign.

Trip #73 - Clear as Mud

As I only had a few hours to spare so today’s trip was going to be a short one. I'd spoken to one of my piker mates who told me the key to catching pike in (like anything really) is to put the hours in. Walk the banks, build a mental picture of their habitats and haunts, and when you've covered enough ground and cast a lure or bait enough, you should know where they are most of the time. Arriving at the river today it was clear that most of my day would be spent building that mental picture, as the water was the colour of mud! I'd kept an eye on the EA river levels website, (an invaluable tools as far as river fishing is concerned) and watched the river steadily drop.  What I didn't account for was the length of time it took for the river to lose its colour. Still, I was there on the river, so I’d give it a whirl.

Product Review - Savagegear 9' Parabellum Spinning Rod

As a blogger I get asked to review products from time to time, so when I was contacted recently by NETS, and asked to review some fishing equipment I didn't know what to expect. After a few emails, it seemed as though they wanted me to review one of a range of spinning rods. In this case the 9ft Savagegear Parabellum spinning rod. Wanting to do some predator fishing over the coming months it was fair to say that when this rod arrived in the post I was overjoyed at the prospect of getting it out on the bank and putting it through its paces.