The Most Dangerous Fish in British Waters!

What is the most dangerous fish in British waters?

In freshwater the pike is renowned for taking ducklings, but doesn't pose any threat to man. Catfish on the continent have been known to occasionally drag a man down to his death, but our catfish are relatively small and no such instances have occurred here.

Britain has a surprising variety of shark species, most are small like the welsh tiger shark (a.k.a the lesser spotted dogfish).

Mako, porbeagle, thresher and blue shark have been caught in the hundreds of pounds, but no man eaters have been recorded here. Despite sightings of supposed great white sharks being reported, not one has turned up to fisherman, and surfers remain unmolested. Stingrays are present in our waters but encounters with humans are rare, even abroad Steve Irwin's tragic death is an isolated freak incident.

After yesterdays warm up on Trefor pier I was ready to face danger. In fact the most dangerous fish in our waters is the lesser weever fish. True at six inches long it doesn't look scary, and is quite pretty in it's own right, but the dorsal fin contains a particularly nasty venom.

Each year hundreds of people accidently stand on the lesser weever, which has a nasty habit of lying in shallow water covered by sand apart from its top facing eyes and spiky dorsal. Anglers also get spiked.

There is no anti venom, at best you can expect an hour of agony, only mitigated by immersing the affected part of your body in the hottest water you can stand. Those sensitive to venom are in real trouble and unless immediate medical attention is sought could suffer paralysis or even death.

After being soaked yesterday I fished at Barmouth where I was sandblasted for much of the day. Who needs an exfoliation beauty therapy? The third mark I tried finally saw me land a lesser weever on a small strip of mackerel. As you can see I survived to tell the tale!

Charlene - I've been to paradise and have also been to me!

Jonah strikes again! A fishing weekend once again coincided with strong winds, which resulted in Sunday and Monday's planned boat trips being "blown off". To rub salt into my wounds Geth informed me that smoothounds had been taken to 20lb plus on the Friday.

 I arrived in Wales around lunchtime on Saturday, and after picking up some bait it was time to put Plan B into operation.






On my last welsh adventure I had visited Trefor on a reconnaissance mission and the photos of Trefor are from that visit . Plan B was to target coalfish from Trefor pier.

This weekend I would be living dangerously! There is a warning sign advising that the pier is dangerous. Clearly access to the pier is at your own risk and at the end of this session I realised quite how stupid I had been to ignore the signs, as a number of the pier legs were missing! The local council, strapped of cash appear to be waiting for nature to take its course so that they can save on demolition costs.

I would like to say that the session was pleasurable but with driving horizontal rain and strong winds it was an endurance test. The gusts not only threatened to knock me off balance but could potentially bring the pier structure down from under me.






To target the coalfish i fished a small strip of mackerel on a cut down set of sabikkis. This worked a treat and a succession of small coalies were landed along with a couple of small pollack. It is not until you catch both in the same session do you realise how different they are.

In Yorkshire immature coalfish are known as billet and I remember fishing for them in Scarborough
harbour, float fishing with light tackle and mussel as bait.

Trefor is famed for the variety of mini species it produces and by substituting the mackerel for a piece of ragworm I hoped to attract a dragonet or goby. Unfortunately I could not get through the small wrasse.

After three or four hours of fishing the tide down from high I was relieved to get back to the safety of the main harbour wall. Trefor is a stunning venue, being backed by Snowdon and its neighbouring peaks.

I would once again re-iterate that I had been somewhat foolish fishing off the pier and would advise others not to follow my lead. If I return to fish Trefor Pier in future it would be from a kayak!

Unlike Charlene I've been to paradise and have also been to me!

Modern Carp Angling - A Rant!

 Where to catch a grass carp? I have never caught one in Britain although I have had several from France to over twenty pounds. Few waters hold grass carp, and most of those that do, only hold a handful. Elphicks Fishery, a commercial water in Kent has a reasonable stock and the staff advised me to fish their Prairie Lake.

Ideally I would have liked to surface fish to try to select a grassie, however the conditions were against me so I would have to fish blind. The lake was packed to capacity and I slotted in between two long stay anglers as the wind was blowing into that bank. Once the long stay anglers left I figured that the carp would follow the wind and come into the edge. I fished method feeder with popped up corn or white boilie and also float fished the margins. 

Things went to plan and I landed four of the six carp that I saw landed during the day with the biggest a common of around fourteen pounds. 

This is no criticism of Elphicks but I was reminded why I don't often target carp nowadays.

1. I fished a two and a half acre lake today which had nearly thirty carp anglers on it, with swims every ten yards or so. Carp fishing is too popular!

2. Apart from me, to a man two rods were fished to the Island, the tight lines effectively pinning the spooky carp to the island margin. Carp anglers are unimaginative!

3. Why do carp waters have dug outs filled with bark or gravel, not grassy natural banks. Elphicks even had astroturf lining each swim! See no. 6

4. When did the Koi and Ghost Carp escape the pet shop!

4. Does nobody know how to floatfish or use leads under three ounces? Why drop three ounces of lead in the margin and spook fish when a float will get your more bites. Carp have long forgotten what a vertical line means. If I can cast to the island with an ounce why use more?

5. Wheelbarrows.....are they moving house or going fishing?

6. Bivvies the size of double decker buses, I am sure that the carp leap to check out whether there are any carp houses set up before feeding. In years gone by we would have been sat behind screens or reedbeds hidden away.

7. Why on a snag free lake where the maximum cast is perhaps sixty yards stocked largely with singles and doubles do you need three pound test curve rods. This is all about fashion, if you are fishing a weedy lake at range maybe, hoever both Dick Walker and Chris Yates landed record carp from Redmire (a weedy lake) on Mark IV carp rods (1.5lb test curve). 

8. Boilies are not the only bait!

9. Baitboats..................after pushing the barrow presumably they are to knackered to cast!

10. Mallets............aaaarggghhhh

11. Why are there two number 4's in this blog article!

Rant over. 

Such a shame as carp are lovely fish, shame about most carp anglers! At some stage I am going to have to target a grass carp again.

I can't catch turbot!

Strong winds are the bane of the sea angler and all boat anglers experience the frustration of trips being cancelled due to strong winds. Even shore anglers may struggle to fish with rock marks becoming dangerous and weed being ripped up and thrown to shore. Additionally the coloured water results in poor fishing for most species.

 I had planned to fish three days out of Weymouth with Colin Penney on Flamer 4, unfortunately the first two days were "blown off" due to strong easterly winds. Luckily the wind dropped and Thursday's planned flatty trip was on. The plan was simple we would fish the mussel beds for plaice during the morning before moving onto the shambles in search of turbot.

After a slow start plaice started coming on board and with each drift the fishing improved. There is an optimum drift speed and Colin moved to different areas of the mussel bed to maximise our chances. Only two anglers failed to catch a plaice before it was time to move to the shambles.

Colin asked whether I had caught a launce (the greater sand eel) and I replied that I hadn't. Launce make good bait, so we spent five minutes working a set of mini sabbikkis just off bottom.  I replace the lead with a shiny pirk as the flash apparently attracts sand eels, it seemed to work as I caught first drop down.

Turbot fishing is a waiting game and we made several long drifts. Eventually my rod banged round, I let out a little line before lifting into my first turbot, however by the time it reached the surface it had turned into a plaice. Colin had said earlier that occasionally plaice were caught on the mackerel or launce strips that are used for turbot.

 My plaice took the boat tally to twenty-seven for the day, however the big plaice eluded us. Five turbot were landed including this beauty of 17lb which won the lucky angler the twenty pound sweepstake for the best flatty of the day (it certainly made up for the plaice blank on the mussels).

Although I didn't catch a turbot my time will come, every trip you learn something new, I learnt that garfish make excellent baits for turbot and that I still can't catch turbot!

A Royal Wedding with a Difference

What were you doing on royal wedding day? I joined a party of individuals for a days fishing aboard My Way skippered by Gethyn Owen out of Holyhead.

My Way was bedecked with bunting, a rod strapped to the stern supporting a row of union jacks blowing in the breeze. There was a party atmosphere on board and today the fishing was almost secondary.

A force 5-6 north-easterly restricted us to inshore waters, the Holyhead Deeps and its big huss, spurdog and tope would have to wait for another day. Today we would be fishing for a mixed bag using three hook flowing rigs baited with ragworm, lugworm, mackerel, sandeel and squid.


During the day a variety of marks were fished and fish came regularly to the boat. As usual LSDs were a nuisance and double or triple shots were not unusual. Plenty of small codling were interspersed with the odd coalfish, pollack, huss, plaice, whiting and dabs were landed along with a solitary spotted ray.

Top angler was Kev who landed the spotted ray and a decent coalfish. I managed to add a bullhuss (they are normally a lot bigger than this) to my species challenge.

The highlight of the day had to be the buffet lunch. Geth put on a spread that would have done any street party proud. The bait trays were moved to make room for the sandwiches and nibbles. It's not every day that you have fresh strawberries and cream on a charter boat!

Thanks Geth for a most enjoyable day despite the weather being against us.

An American Brook Trout in Wales

Back in the 1970s the American brook trout (more correctly brook char) was stocked into a number of fisheries ,including that big trout mecca Avington. Now only two trout farmers produce this fish, and they are only found in a handful of waters across Britain.

My quest took me to Chirk in the county of Wrexham in North Wales. It was Chirk Trout Farm that first imported the brook trout from America, and they are still reared here and stocked into Chirk fishery.

The fishery consists of two clearwater lakes in a scenic welsh valley, stocked with browns, rainbows including golden and blue trout, brook and tiger trout (a hybrid between the brown and brook trout).

I was lucky enough to have the fishery to myself until lunchtime and trout of all varieties could be seen in the clear water. After an unsuccessful hour fishing buzzers and bloodworm imitations I changed over to an intermediate line and my favourite fly, the nomad.

After a couple of small rainbows including a blue (a colour variant) I watched as a brook trout chased and finally grabbed my black nomad. Although only three quarters of a pound in weight it was really quite striking in appearance, the green flanks covered in yellow and red spots, the fins edged with orange and white, and the underside a pale orange.

During the remainder of the day I caught twenty-four trout, all bar two were returned. Most of the fish were around a pound with a handful of larger fish including a beautifully proportioned rainbow of around four pounds.

I could easily have caught thirty, or even forty trout, as I missed loads of takes including a couple of brookies and a particularly strikingly marked tiger. By moving regularly and ringing the changes with both the retrieve and the colour of nomad the takes kept on coming. Only once did I get a follow from a golden trout which unfortunately veered off at the last moment.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day at Chirk and the fishery has a laid back club like feel to it. Although the majority of the fish are small, they are pristine slim fish with huge tails and so fight like demons. The fly life is good and there was a hatch of grannom, however my fly box was replete of dry sedges and I couldn't persuade them to take my alternative selections. Fish were also grubbing on the bottom in the margins, possibly for shrimp.

I had a long conversation with the fishery owner who advised that brook trout were particularly suitable for stocking in acid waters. Although they have grown them to around six pounds in the past, the larger fish become very dark in colour and prone to fungal infections so they only stock brook trout to around a pound and a half.

It took longer to bait up than to catch!

The sunbleak is an alien invasive species that has been present in Somerset for over twenty years.

The alternative name for the sunbleak is the motherless minnow. The Environment Agency claim that motherless minnows can spawn up to twenty or thirty times a summer and that large populations can appear "from nowhere" in a single season.

I had decided to return to Peterborough via the Viaduct Fishery in Somerset which contains a huge head of these fish.


A couple of the local match anglers were both intrigued and amused why someone would want to deliberately target these fish. I was told that if I fished a pinkie a foot deep under a small float I should catch one within a minute. It probably took me a minute to bait up the tiny size 24 hook!

To cut a long story short I had loads of motherless minnows and they are by far the smallest and least interesting species that I have caught in the challenge to date. Apologies, even after employing the macro function on my camera the distinct short lateral line (the distinguishing feature of the species), is not visible in the photo.

With such a head of small fish it is no surprise that viaduct produces huge perch. Maybe one day I will return to explore the predator potential of this attractive little fishery.

Supernova to the Rescue

The mussel beds and shambles bank off Weymouth are nationally famous for the quality of the flatty fishing they offer. I had two days fishing on Supernova with Lyle Stantiford, Weymouth's youngest skipper. The crew on the first day included a great bunch of lads with whom I had spent an unsuccessful wrecking trip a couple of weeks earlier on another boat. We headed west to feather up some fresh mackerel for bait and the Simon landed a herring and a launce as well as mackerel.

I rigged up a 6lb class rod and attached a delta spoon two feet away from the lead slider with a short 18 inch hooklength below the spoon. A dozen green and black beads added the bling, apparently the plaice mistake them for pea mussels. Taking advice I added a swanshot to keep the hooklength pinned to the deck, in future I would replace one the the beads with a black drilled bullet lead. It is important to present a big bait in a long line, so I threaded a black lug up the line and added three or four ragworm with a thin strip of squid hanging down from the hook point.

The skipper sets up the drift and the baits are dragged along the bottom, the lead and spoon kicking up sand which attracts the inquisitive plaice. Bites are a sharp rattle which can be difficult to identify as the rod tip is constantly rattling from the lead going over the mussels. On feeling a bite line is paid to the fish for ten seconds before winding down and lifting, not striking into the fish.

When the tide increased we moved onto the shambles where we drifted unsuccessfully for turbot. As the tide slackened we returned to the mussel beds for plaice. At the end of the day the crew had accounted for 21 plaice with 7 to my rod.

The fishing followed a similar pattern the following day with a couple of larger fish thrown in, I had four to my best to date at 2lb 12oz and another angler managed a beauty of 3lb 12oz. Most of the plaice were returned. The shambles produced three small turbot, unfortunately not to my rod.

We had some free entertainment on the return trip as Supernova went to the aid of a boat that was struggling to keep itself from being thrown against the rocky breakwater inside Portland Harbour, the lifeboat RIB arrived in the nick of time and towed the craft to safety.

In a separate incident we returned to Portland Harbour where we towed a speedboat back into Weymouth Harbour. The coastguard were waiting ready to question the speedboat skipper.


Portland Coastguard is one of 10 stations that is due to close as part of the Government's cuts. How bonkers is that!

Arctic Char in a Heatwave

Arctic char are normally found in the glacial lakes of Scotland, the Lake District and North Wales and prefer cold water.

A Hampshire fish farmer has recently gained consent to stock arctic char. Woodington Trout Fishery near Romsey was the first to stock this rare fish.

The weatherman forecasted the warmest day of the year, bright sunshine with temperatures more akin to July than April. I arrived at 7am, the fishery opening time as I expected sport to be over by mid morning.


The lake where the char have been stocked is the Spring Lake, my problem was to locate the outnumbered char and avoid the rainbow trout. At least the bright sunshine meant that visibility was good in the clear water,  I soon found a group of twelve char in a corner of the lake, sheltering under a mat of algae.

I managed to lose three fish in a row as they threw the hook, one was definitely a rainbow. The next cast produced a solid take and my first char of 2lb 10oz was soon on the bank. After resting the swim and enjoying a brew whilst watching a buzzard circling overhead,  I returned to the cor
ner for a slightly smaller fish. A cats whisker nomad fished deep on a steady retrieve accounted for both char.

My ticket allowed me to catch and release on the other lakes but my heart wasn't really in it, so after limited success on nymphs and dry fly I packed up after a late lunch.

Diamonds are Forever

I decided on a return visit to the little Warwickshire pool I first visited last month. Last time I was told that the pool also contained another species, the diamond back sturgeon. The coloured water would not allow me to select individual fish so I would have to trust to luck.

Remembering my Sheringham, I set about cultivating my luck. It didn't work as I managed to somehow break the top joint of one of my carp rods whilst setting up, doh!

This heavily coloured pool set in a fold in the hills, surrounded by trees is a wildlife haven. Today it was just me and the wildlife.  I have to confess that I spent a significant proportion of the day just watching nature. Hares lollopped around the field behind me and opposite pheasants strutted around safe in the knowledge that the shooting season was months away. Behind the dam I discovered a badger set at the edge of the woods. 

Knowing that frogs have already spawned, that croaking could only be the common toad. On investigation cables of toad spawn could be seen amongst the emergent reed stems and water plantain, mating toads could be seen in ones, twos, threes and lets not go there......Frogspawn was also present and the resultant tadpoles will provide a rich harvest for the resident carp and sturgeon over the next few months.

Using one rod does focus the mind somewhat, and so I decided to set up a float as I would be margin fishing.

The fishing followed the same pattern as last time, mid morning the float sank from sight and I struck into a diamond back sturgeon which immediately came up through ten feet of water and half threw itself onto the bank. After  thrashing around on the surface and leaping I guided the fish over the net, the fight lasted no more than thirty seconds

As I packed up "burley chassis" was belting out Diamonds are Forever (on the radio) which seemed somewhat appropriate.

Second time lucky with the Herring!

 A settled spell of high pressure saw herring return to Brighton Marina. I had four days holiday ahead of me and decided to travel to Weymouth via Brighton so that I could fish two or three hours either side of high tide before continuing my journey.

Making my way over to the East Breakwater in glorious sunshine I arrived to find that the sea flat calm and clear. I settled for Peg 20, I had intended to fish a second rod for plaice, however I had neglected to refill my multiplier with fresh line, doh! At least I could concentrate my efforts on the lure fishing.
                                                          
Herring are usually caught here on small sabikkis known as herring feathers locally or by float fishing a small strip of herring. I set up a carp rod with a string of sabikkis and a two ounce lead.

A chat to the baliff revealed that a few herring had been caught over the previous few days so I was feeling positive that the herring would arrive with the high tide (a big spring tide). Right on high tide I felt a feeble tapping on the rod top and and I assumed I was attached to my first herring. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had caught a sprat, unlike immature herrings sprats have a distinct sharp abdominal keel.

A few minutes later I had an enforced break as a team were surveying the breakwater. The survey boat tied up in front of me whilst the two divers checked out the state of the breakwater wall. Their progress could be tracked by a steady stream of bubbles, a bit like a patrolling crucian carp or tench. Any defects in the breakwater would be repaired later.

Once the survey boat had moved on I resumed my feathering. An hour after high tide I took a break for a late lunch and put out a flapper rig with lugworm for half an hour or so without success.

Throughout the day I had alternated between casting and retrieving the sabikkis and jigging them next to the wall. Eventually my persistance paid off, the carp rod bending over into a healthy curve to mark the arival of a pod of herring. As they came up through the water it was clear that I had four herring on simultaneously, although one fell off.

The window of opportunity was small as the herring disppeared as suddenly as the arrived. I fished on for another half an hour before packing up and continuing my journey. A herring fresh from the sea bears little resemblance to those on the fishmongers slab. The silver sides are tinged with pearlescent blue and purple and the scales are easily dislodged.

The less said about Weymouth the better. The weather was glorious however the fishing was poor despite the best efforts of the skipper. I had one bite in two days boat fishing which was almost certainly from a bait robbing dogfish.

Does this fish belong to her majesty?

The sturgeon like the swan belongs to the monarch and any sturgeon captured in British waters have to be offered to the Queen. Being on the "Red List" and classified as critically endangered the Queen is hardly inundated with offers of sturgeon, hence the fiasco reported by the BBC News in 2004.

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 A sturgeon caught in Swansea Bay which disappeared after police intercepted it during an investigation into its alleged illegal sale has been traced.

Police moved in at the fish market in Plymouth, Devon, on Thursday, as the 9ft long, 264lb fish, went to auction. Officers had been alerted because sturgeon, whose eggs are sold as caviar, is a protected species. But after Devon and Cornwall Police scenes of crime officers had taken pictures of the fish, it vanished.

A spokesman for the force said that officers regained possession of the huge fish at an undisclosed location on Friday. He added: "We have had a phone call and as a result we have seen the fish at a location which we are not going to release. The inquiry goes on. The fish is now under police possession and we are seeing if any criminal offences have been committed." It is believed that the fish is due to be transferred to the Natural History Museum on Monday.

The sturgeon was caught accidentally in fisherman Robert Davies' net in Swansea Bay on Wednesday. Mr Davies, 27, of Llanelli, first offered the sturgeon, classed as a royal fish, to the Queen after catching it in Swansea Bay on Wednesday afternoon. After receiving a fax from Buckingham Palace saying he could "dispose of it as he saw fit", he travelled to Plymouth to sell it at auction. It had been bought for £650 by a fish wholesaler before police moved in.

Fisherman Mr Davies said police called him on Thursday to ask if he knew where it was. "They've lost the fish," he said. "They called to ask if I had it but I haven't got it."

It is not illegal to catch or keep a sturgeon, providing it is offered to The Queen first and officers said if it had been given away for free or kept by the fisherman, no offence would have been committed. The sturgeon is rarely seen in UK waters and is classified as a "royal" fish - a status granted by King Edward II.

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So what am I doing even contemplating fishing for sturgeon....hey, the death penalty is still in place for treason!

Luckily the sturgeon that have been stocked into a number of stillwaters around the country are not the native species but several species that originate from Russia. The Environment Agency have not sanctioned any stocking of sturgeon, so where have they come from? Some are dumped pets, some deliberate illegal stockings, and in the case of the fishery I visited in Warwickshire the owners bought a farm unaware of what might be in the lakes buried amongst the trees.

After a couple of circuits of the deserted lake I settled on a swim that gave me a view of the whole lake. Any fish cruising the margins would be intercepted as they moved out of the bay to my right. A float fished lift method style was used in the margin and my other rod was fished in the open water on a running leger rig. Bait was a cube of luncheon meat soaked in salmon oil, fished over a couple of handfuls of dead red maggots.  

As the water was still cold, free offerings were kept to a minimum. After an hour my float dipped briefly before sliding away - I struck. I was obviously attached to a  large fish, the clutch ticking as the fish slowly took line. After about five minutes I finally saw that it was a sturgeon and not a big carp.

On the scales it weighed 25lb 7oz. After a couple of photos, I returned this prehistoric looking creature to the murky waters of the small lake.

Then, breaking out in a cold sweat, I remembered that the sturgeon that got Mr Davies in so much trouble wasn't even the native species 'Acipenser Sturio', but an American fish that was ever so slightly lost. 

I began to write:

Dear Queenie................................................

What ever happened to the Pike-Perch!

The Duke of Bedford (the grey squirrel guy) was also responsible for introducing pike-perch into Britain in the late 19th century into his lakes at Woburn.

In 1963 the (then) Great Ouse River Authority introduced pike-perch into the Relief Channel. By the end of the decade the name pike-perch slipped into oblivion and the continental name "zander" came into use. Personally I prefer the older name pike-perch as it is so descriptive, despite it's appearance this fish is not related to either the perch or pike.

Since then zander have spread throughout Fenland colonising most of the drains and rivers. In some cases they were illegally moved by anglers and can now be found in the Rivers Severn and Trent and throughout the Midlands canal system. Whilst it is true that silver fish populations have been decimated in many waters containing zander, in the long term nature always finds its own balance between the predator and the prey, as has happened in the Fens. If anything, it is the pike that has suffered from the competition, as rarely do waters produce both big pike and zander.

Zander populations have been in decline in recent years. Many waters, including Ferry Meadows in Peterborough, have suffered at the hands of a small minority who have used nets and set lines to catch zander for the pot.

I decided to travel to the Coventry Canal in search of the zander and spent a couple of hours walking the towpath before settling on an area which containing overhanging trees, a bridge and a boatyard. I opted to fish a hair rigged section of roach on a size 6 hook on a running leger. Zander are renowned for dropping baits so I opted to use my old washing liquid bottle top indicators to minimise resistance.

I fished three swims during the course of a chilly afternoon and my only take, after only fifteen minutes, resulted in the smallest zander I have ever caught!

Blondes make me sick!

After three cancelled trips, I finally got out for my first boat trip of 2011. I was on Silver Spray skippered by Sam Cumming in search of blonde rays and spurdogs that inhabit the offshore banks 15-20 miles out of Poole.

The tidal flow on these banks is so powerful that these marks can only be fished on neap tides.  The rays are here to breed and by April they are gone, leaving only a handful of days each year that they can be targeted.

Thirty pound class rods were required as a pound and a half of lead was required to hold bottom. A 6/0 hook on a four foot flowing trace of 100lb mono was baited with a mackerel and sandeel cocktail. The heavy nylon was necessary as spurdogs are toothy critters and there was always the chance of a decent conger.


The sea got a bit lumpy and for the first time during this challenge I suffered from a bout of sea sickness. On previous trips I had been so careful, avoiding alcohol and spicy food for 48 hours, combined with a preventative sea sickness tablet the night before the trip...... that will teach me!

It was a relatively slow day and we moved a couple of times during the day in search of better sport. Three blonde rays were landed with the largest, a male of 14lb (notice the long claspers in the photo) falling to my rod. These pre-historic looking creatures are really quite impressive in the flesh. The spurdogs were noticeable by their absence although one angler was bitten off having tackled up with a 40lb mono trace.

I also had a decent whiting which I rather dismissed at the time. In retrospect I wished I had got a photograph as at 2lb 6oz it was a personal best by miles.

It rained, it hailed, some of us were sea sick and it was difficult to keep your balance at times but as one lad said "you really know you are alive!"

Red Herring!

Today I experienced my first blank session of 2011!

Reports of herring arriving on Brighton Marina midweek saw me drive down to Sussex in search of a new species. I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and travel light intending to rove around the East Arm "feathering" for a herring without the distraction of a second rod. My feathers were mini sabikkis.

On arrival the sea was coloured up and the wind strengthening,  I knew I was up against it as the herring would move offshore in these conditions. The East Arm was packed which meant that roving was not an option. Several hours later I packed up fish-less knowing that I would have caught a few flatties, rockling and whiting if I had put out a second rod on the bottom. If the sea clears out in the next couple of weeks I will be back!

Incidentally pike anglers might be interested to know that red herrings really work, they take on colour really well using the powdered food dyes that the carp boys use when making boilies!

Go with the flow when chubbing on small rivers!

I have just returned from a short session chubbing on the Upper Welland, catching a number of fish to 4lb 7oz. Rather than bore you with the details of the session I thought I would offer up my top ten tips for winter chubbing on small rivers.

Tip 1 - Have a lie in!  You will catch more chub late afternoon through dusk than at any other time in winter!

Tip 2 - Use a bobbin as well as a quivertip if you can! You won't miss many bites, I use an old squeezy bottle top with a betalight inserted for fishing after dark.

Tip 3 - Keep moving! Twenty minutes in a swim is ample, most of my chub come in within the first ten minutes.

Tip 4 - Don't use a bolt rig! Chub will often pull the rod right round without getting hooked as any barbel angler will testify.

Tip 5 - Keep it simple! Use a swan shot link leger, or do as I do and pinch on swan shot or two on the line 18 inches above the hook (unless you are using crust).

Tip 6 - Don't cast directly into the swim! Where you can fish down your own bank and cast into the main current and allow the bait to roll round into the slacker water. 

Tip 7 - Fish one new swim every time you go roving for chub, even if you think you know the stretch! Twenty minutes in the course of a day is not long and I have had a number of five pound plus chub from "unfancied" swims.

Tip 8 - Don't ignore maggots if the water is clear! Using big baits you might have to wait until dusk for a bite whereas you can catch on maggot all day long.

Tip 9 - Don't ignore the float! It's fun and it catches big chub. Boss the flow with a decent sized chubber or avon float and fish flake or maggot on the hook.

Tip 10 - Go with the flow! Probably the most important tip of all, unless it is really cold aim to position your bait just off the main flow. In icy conditions the bait should be placed closer to the bank in the slackest water.

Note: My scales aren't weighing light, the photo is of a big six from the Dorset Stour not a four from the Welland!

Silver Tourists at Wareham!

For the first time since 1998 I was able to have a day off work on my birthday. The trip did not start well, due to heavy traffic I arrived in dorset a couple of hours later than expected, only to find that the tackle shop in Wareham had run out of maggots,  necessitating a trip to Poole to pick up some bait. To top it all a bitterly north east wind had caused temperatures to plummet.

It was two o'clock before I finally set up on Wareham Quay. I set up a couple of quivertip tip rods hoping to entice a specimen roach and hopefully bonus sea trout.

My feedered maggots soon attracted the attentions of series of salmon parr. These thumb print markings are also present on immature brown trout. Hopefully the presence of so many parr bodes well for the future of salmon on the Frome, in it's heyday fish in excess of forty pounds were recorded on this small river.

Eventually I hooked a better fish which turned out to be a small sea trout of perhaps three quarters of a pound. A trio of decent dace and a postage stamp sized flounder (literally) completed my catch. Due to the biting cold I packed up an hour after dusk.

My original plan was to spent a couple of days fishing the offshore banks out of Poole hoping for a Blonde Ray or spurdog, unfortunately because of the weather the trip had to be called off.

My plan B was to travel to Viaduct Fishery in Somerset in search of a motherless minnow or sun bleak as they are more properly known. These alien fish have colonised a number of the drains and stillwaters in Somerset. The fishery owner advised that if I fished here in August it would take seconds for me to catch one but that they didn't really show up much in winter. So not such a cunning plan, I only managed to catch a dozen or so small roach during the course of another freezing cold day. I will be back during the summer.

Dab Central

Folkestone pier is a strange place, it is a concrete pier, a breakwater really! I asked the car park attendant how to get to the pier and he responded go through the gap next to the cafe. How surreal, I went through the gap to find a disused railway station, complete with tracks and platform numbers, but with the victorian iron structure bereft of a roof. I walked along the platform and up some steps which led me out onto the pier, I settled on peg 30 which was on an elbow in the pier. Behind me were the rusted remains of the railway and other dereliction, this species hunt is taking me to some strange places.

I arrived a couple of hours before high tide and planned to fish through till after dark. My target was a three or five bearded rockling or slugs as sea anglers know them. I fished two or three hook flappers with size 6 aberdeens which would be baited with a section of black lugworm. I decided to fish both rods fairly close, one at thirty yards and the other at around fifty yards out.

 I soon discovered that the sea bed must have been carpeted with dabs as I caught most casts and occasionally two at a time. As the tide became stronger I realised that the sea bed was snaggy and proceeded to lose several sets of gear. I noticed the locals were using leads with fixed soft tail wires, whilst my breakaway lead wires were fatally ensnared the wires on the soft fixed leads would straighten and pull free (well usually). A spring tide merely exacerbated the problem and I spent a frustrating couple of hours before the tide eased off during the afternoon.

Whiting showed during the afternoon with four being keepers along with the smallest lesser spotted dogfish I have ever seen. The dab tally was growing and I lost count, I am sure I must have landed at least twenty. An angler nearby had a rockling and I maintained the attitude of a serious sea angler denigrating the fish as a slug whilst wanting one of my own.

Just on dusk a short cast of maybe ten yards saw me finally land one of my target species, a five bearded rockling. Apologies for the picture quality as light was fading fast.

The walk back to the car in the dark was a bit erie as I walked along the station platform, I thought to myself that it was the perfect place to mug someone. On the long drive back home I thought about why the station was build, was it to bring passengers to a long lost boarding point for shipping or was it Dab Central for anglers in search of a tasty dab or two for tea?

A Personal Best Brown Trout

This year the Environment agency have abolished the closed season for brown trout in fully enclosed stillwaters. This is a change I fully support for the following reasons:

• Wild brown trout in stillwaters spawn in feeder streams and thus retaining the closed season in stillwaters that are not fully enclosed protects this valuable resource.
• Most stillwaters nowadays are artificially stocked with triploid trout (this is achieved by heat treating the eggs). Triploid fish look, swim, jump, and taste like normal fish, except for one important difference; they never develop normal eggs or sperm and are unable to reproduce (i.e. they are sterile and never lose condition).
• The closed season for rainbow trout on stillwaters was removed some years ago and retaining one for brown trout was inconsistent.

Tim Small owner of Lechlade Trout Fishery has stocked a number of large brown trout this winter.I arrived to find Lechlade thankfully free of ice. With visibility poor I had little chance of stalking a brown trout so I decided to fish deep with lures that might be seen to imitate fish fry. After a couple of hours I was still fishless despite rods bending all around me. A brief spell with a "blinged out" terry's tadpole saw me land a six pound rainbow.

Walking round the lake I noticed that one lucky angler had caught a brace of large browns from under a tree by the island. When the spot became vacant I dropped in and spent the whole afternoon in this area resting the water regularly. I had two fish in quick succession on a white nomad; a rainbow trout of about seven pounds and a new personal best brown trout of 8lb 11oz.

Next cast a double figure brown followed the fly in and I saw the white of it's mouth open as I 'hung' the fly prior to recasting. Unfortunately it changed it's mind and despite changing flies regularly I could only provoke follows. With half an hour to go until dusk I finally had a solid take, unfortunately it was just an average rainbow which completed my limit.

Will we see large numbers of specimen brown trout being stocked into our trout fisheries as a result of this legislation? I suspect not as rainbows grow fast and are much easier, quicker and therefore cheaper to produce. Tim Small is an exception, he breeds his own fish and is keen to provide the trout angler with the chance to catch big browns through the winter.

Postscript: I returned to Lechlade the following Sunday and the browns were noticeable by their absence. I hard to work hard on a difficult day for my limit of four stockie rainbows. On Lechlade even the stockies are around six pounds!

Reflections on 2010

It looks like 2010 is going to end like it began with snow lying on the ground and sub zero temperatures. In the run up to Christmas I like to take a break from fishing and spend time with the family. It is an ideal time to reflect on the years fishing, sort out the tackle and make plans for the year ahead.

During 2010 I fished on 71 days, most but not all of which are written up in this blog. Nine days were spent game fishing with the remainder evenly split between coarse and sea fishing. I failed to catch a fish on six occasions, mainly due to making poor decisions. I only bivvied up once whilst after catfish and the shortest session after a shanny lasted all of 15 minutes! Frankly I prefer short focussed sessions, lacking both the time and inclination to spend several days camping just to catch a fish.

 I travelled more than usual and fished in 17 counties during the year (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Sussex, Gloucestershire, Surrey, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and Anglesey). The most trips I had to any single water was three and I fished a number of new venues.

My favourite saltwater location is Weymouth,

due to the wide variety of fishing available from both boat and shore. Surprisingly I even enjoyed my trips to commercial coarse fisheries, not all of them are overstocked muddy holes!

At the start of this challenge my target was to catch 50 species during 2010, so I am pleased to end the year on 61. I caught 29 species for the first time. Only five species of fish that I had previously caught in British waters eluded me during 2010, these were blue shark, coalfish, stone loach, sea trout and zander.

In addition to the species I caught, I witnessed and missed out on a further eleven species: bull huss, common dragonet , tub gurnard, plaice, blonde ray,  blue shark, common smoothhound, tope, sea trout, baillions and cuckoo wrasse.

The sheer variety of fish to be found in British waters is staggering, some like the leopard spotted goby would not be out of place on a coral reef! The largest fish I caught during 2010 was a 20 pound plus catfish, the smallest a two inch three spined stickleback. Ironically it was catching some of the smallest species that gave me the biggest headaches, especially the bitterling and pumpkinseed.

I employed a wider range of techniques in 2010 than in any year previously. Less time was spent bolt-rigging in freshwater, a high proportion of the time saw me either trotting a float down a river or fishing a waggler or pole float on a stillwater. I fly fished on both stillwater and rivers for game fish and fished lures in the sea, as well as the more traditional float and leger rigs. I discovered that sea fishing can be sporting if you are able to use light tackle. Indeed after this challenge is over I intend to explore sport fishing in our seas, the last remaining truly wild fishing in our overcrowded island.

The highlight of 2010 for me was the 5lb 4oz ballan wrasse that I caught off Weymouth in October.

With only eight freshwater species left to catch, inevitably 2011 will be biased towards sea fishing. I hope to fish on 100 days during 2011 but as there are only four species that I can target locally, I will return to my specimen hunting roots for my midweek sessions. Weekends and days off will be spent at the coast and I hope to get out on the charter boats at least once a month.

I have drawn up a list of nearly forty saltwater species that I hope to target during 2011 which will take me to the west coast of Scotland, the coast of Wales and the south and south west coasts of England. I expect my species list to grow slowly during the first quarter of 2011, becoming more and more prolific as the year progresses through to the end of October. If I can reach 90+ species by  this time next year, then maybe achieving 100 species from British waters in three years will be within reach.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my fishing during 2010, have you? Join me in 2011 for another year of species hunting in British waters.