Carp fishing is full of highs and lows and most of us go through a whole range of emotions during the season as our plans either come to fruition or don’t work out. It’s not often we get both extremes of emotions in a single session though, and it’s even less often when we get them within a couple of hours….. After my “headbanger” of a week, I didn’t have to return to work until Wednesday so I was back at the lake again on Sunday afternoon. There was a cold, northerly w...

Well I thought you have to hear about my latest blunder. Blunder that’s putting it mildly in fact I ignored the blindingly obvious and paid a high price, let me tell you. As you can see by the pictures here is my bait mix that I ve been going on about for the last few weeks. It’s got it all natural taste and smell with loads of attraction plus that solid food item with the squid and liver boilies it’s awesome and has been driving the carp mad. The longer you leave the GLM to...

Hard at the day job and in need of some fishing I decided a trip down to Oakwood for the evening was on the cards. I finished my work early and arrived at the lake just after 5pm, could have been there for 4.30 but I had fish & chips for tea on the way. So now fed and looking forward to an evenings angling I quickly made up the rods using standard semi fixed leads with a lead clip system. I have been soaking some hook baits in a solution for nearly a year and happened t...

Well it's two days off for me and a planned trip to a Colne Valley lake with my old mate Keith Standley AKA (Backdraft).Arriving at the lake we have a good look round and seeing no sign of fish,I settle for a swim with the wind blowing in my face.Leading around I've found a hard spot at about 50 yards a chod rig with a16mm. Red Crusty pop up goes on this, followed by 2 kilo of Red Crusty. Left rod sorted an fishing. On my right it's fairly weedy and I decided to use the weed...

Last week I was working in France and whilst in the Burgundy region had the chance to fish a lake called Lac Mary Lou near Chalon sur Saone. This beautiful lake is famous for its specimen fish including Carp, catfish, Pike and Zander. The lake is a former gravel pit that is now very mature. It’s quite deep with depths of 25ft and plenty of underwater features. My friend Pascal who invited me to fish the lake, suggested I try a swim where I could easily cast to a underwat...

I popped over to Suffolk Waterpark last Thursday mid-day for a quick 24hr session & after a chat with the Bailiffs & a look to see which way the wind was blowing decided to fish the shallow water end peg on the café bank, it looked really “carpy” & with a nice ripple on the surface I was confident the fish would be up that end .A feel around with a lead confirmed that there was a lot of bottom weed present in the swim & patches of thicker stuff dotted all over...

The next few sessions at the water park were completely fruitless; conditions during the times I could fish and even more angling pressure are the best two excuses I’ve got! One thing that did keep me going was another social with Paul the taxi man which resulted in him catching one of the A-teamers known as Nemo. During the blank sessions I really started to question why I was still there, it was costing a fortune, opportunities were not presenting themselves to me and my sy...

Weymouth boats are getting amongst the big plaice…… Bob Grady (above) from Essex landed a personal best fish weighing 5Ib 2oz while drift fishing aboard Flamer IV. Bob was using an uptide rod with a flatty trace baited with king ragworm and squid strip. Patrick Megan (above) from Plymouth Devon landed several Plaice including his personal best weighing 6Ib 2oz while also fishing on the drift. Patrick was over the moon with his catch and was using 10Ib class tack...

As a new member of the Gulp Carp Army I posted a very short blog last month,. However I thought that For those that do not know me a brief history of my angling background could be useful? I have fished from the age of six, coming up to nearly 50years. I have been a specialist angler for almost 40 years. In that length of time I have caught quite a few big fish of all species that has resulted in numerous appearances in the angling weeklies and I have compiled many feature...

Situated on the picturesque coastline of the Inishowen Peninsula, North Donegal, Lough Swilly offers the sea angler a wide variety of species to target in its shallow, well sheltered waters. The lough covers an area of over fifty kilometres in length with an average width of five kilometres and contains a wealth of boat and shore marks to explore. The relatively shallow water and fast tides lends itself well to uptide methods, although drifting can also produce excellent resu...