Wednesday 13th August 2008 - British Young Carp Angling Championship, Qualifier - Brasenose 1

I have drawn peg 26, in the top north-east corner of the lake and there is a pleasent south-westerley wind blowing in. There is quite a lot of weed in the swim although I have managed to find some clear spots. I am using small pva bags of pellet with bright hook baits.
It is now early afternoon and there have been a few caught around the lake, unfortunatley none of which by me. The fish seem to be showing in the main body of the lake although I have just had one liner on my right hand rod. I have tried various colours of corn, pop -ups and even pepperami. The wind has picked up and blowing straight into my face, I am finding it difficult to cast but I feel confident.
Another Blank Session!!!

Jack's First Fishing Trip

Sunday the 30th of November saw me taking my 7 year old cousin Pike Fishing, for the very first time. Being the typical lazy boy he is, we didn't arrive at the venue until nearly 9am. I decided to take him to my secret spot on the River Thames as I knew that we would have a very good chance of catching a few small pike. Conditions were great, quite cold but severly overcast with low-pressure throughout the day.

He had been looking at my album previously and decided that he wanted to catch one of these fantastic predators. I set him up with my standard and very reliable ledgered smelt rig, on both rods. I was hoping that we would catch something and I was very confident as I had never blanked from this particular swim, I was just worried that he would become bored and cold very quickly. The swim had always been pretty instant in bringing me a fish or two and we didn't have to wait long for our first bite...

The ledgered smelt was away and we pulled into a small Jack which put up a very spirited fight. It was fantastic just to see the joy on Jack's face when he saw this pike, he was estatic. After giving him a helping hand in holding it for some very memorable pictures it was returned unharmed.

At 8lb it was not the biggest pike, by anyones standards but at least we had caught! It didnt take long and 10 minutes later we were in again, once again on the smelt. Quite a small fish but Jack didnt mind, it was "huge" in his opinion. The next 20 minutes saw us pulling out of 2 reasonably small pike but we didn't care.

It began to get slow so Jack went off with Dad to try and catch some roach/livebaits whilst I kept with it. I managed to land yet another small pike whilst they were away but soon after, they returned with a few good sized baits.

Out went the float rod and within 30 seconds we were in again! Jack filled with the excitement that you get when that float goes under. Another small pike graced our net and Jack couldn't believe it, we had caught more than 1. We used all of the lives and ended up catching another 4 small pike in about 10 minutes. What a great day!

The cold become too much and we decided to call it a day. Not only had we managed to catch jack a fish but we managed to catch 8 pike in 3 hours. When we got home, in the warm and dry, all Jack wanted to do was to and catch another, good lad!!!!