GHOST BUSTERS

Not much on the bank over the last few days folks, tho Ty an myself made a recce trip to Emperor lakes in Loddiswell near Plymouth to have a chat with the very friendly bailiffs Paul and Dave.

This fishery boasts some very large catfish to over 60 lbs as well as a lovely collection of carp ( 10 different 30,s) and tench. After a an informative introduction Paul took us for a walk around the beautifully mature day ticket lake and explained to us everything we wanted to know.

 A session was booked for next weekend. I will be fishing for the cats so watch this space.On a lighter note i was browsing through me ol mate Tone the eel master Cable,s old fishing pics and came across these two cracking ghost carp, i think this was 2005.

Matty Golden maggot Cable,a former master of  the fluke

Myself with a mint condition Ghostie caught from darts farm

TOUGH TIMES

Hello all, sorry about the lack of posts!
For the last two weeks my angling outings have been less than fruitful.
My carp swims on the Exe have not shown any fish other than mullet and the last 5 outings have seen me go home with a dry net every time. At the beginning of the season I'd go as far as saying that carping on the Exe was easy... but now it would seem the carp have moved onto a diffrent area of the river... and with no fish in the swim, easy fishing  it is not.

I decided to give the river a rest in the hopes that a bit of bait and no pressure would encourage the fish back into residence. With this in mind and the fact I needed to be reminded what a carp looked like, I made a visit to Darts farm pools. As i drove up the path I could see that the were alot of cars which meant alot of anglers.
Every swim on the main pond was taken so I set up shop on another pool which was empty of anglers.
I could clearly see a few decent fish up in the water including a stunning ghostie pushing the 20lb mark so I was more than happy to settle for this pond.

On inspection of the water I could see movement in the far bank reeds. Some sneaky tactics were then employed to ensure my hookbaits were bang on the money.
I fired my lead minus the hooklink literally onto the far bank.Then placed my rod in the stand with the baitrunner on and walked round to find my lead. It was then just a case of clipping on my baited hooklink and dropping the rig by hand right on the sweet spot.

Darts farm

The traps were kept small and discreet with small pva sticks threaded up the hooklink for hook protection.

After being ultra confident of a run or two the whole night remained quiet.yet another blank!

My dad on the other hand has been enjoying some good tench sport on the canal during short evening sessions. On that note I tried to steal a slice of his pie and end my string of blanks. Unfortunately, my rods remained still and lifeless, so I went home fish-less wondering when and where my next bite was coming from.

Evening on the Cut

On a blazing hot Monday I was booked in at the hospital for an MRI scan on my duff knee. I took this as an opportunity to take a quick peek into a few tasty swims on the river Exe before my lunchtime appointment. As I peered through the bushes (like a fish-pervert!) my eyes lit up at the sight of four large carp. I had no rod or tackle with me; so it was a case of hoping a fish would hang around long enough for me to get my scan out the way, and to get back with the necessaries to extract a fish or two (or four!).

as I laid in the machine, my thoughts were not on my scan or the results, I was more interested in getting back to the river to try and end my run of misfortune.

I returned to the river with the tools to get the job done. after a while in the company of a few mates and a can of cold cider, a long dark shape drifted past nosing its way in the direction of my bait. 5 minutes later my beverage was launched into the air as I scrambled to get to my rod which was nearly dragged in. As I hit into a fish, my rod was bent as a nine-bob note. This was clearly a goodun!

My legs turned to jelly and  nerves started to mount as the thought of losing this fish instantly crossed my mind; a side-effect which is suffered by most anglers who have endured a fish drought.

With the pressure on me, an the fish hell-bent on freeing itself from the hook. This battle turned out to be nothing short of epic as a powerful force took me from the banks into the water to stop it snapping me off on a dangerous snag.

After clearing the fish from its safe house, I clambered back onto the bank and was now slightly in control.

A few wild lunges and hairy moments later, an absolute brute of a mirror carp was sketchily bundled into the net by my ol' mate Max (aka Gordon Gekko!)

I think i,ll call this one Flipper

What a result!I could see instantly why this fish's strength stood above other battles I have had, as you can see this fish has the pectorals of a Gurnard and a tail the size of a rudder. Clearly a very old fish. Who knows, she may have been swimming the Exe longer than I've been on planet earth; food for thought indeed.

With no scales to get an accurate weight we,ll be left wondering the exact credentials of this corker,but frankly it does not matter.

needless to say i was absolutely made up to have ended my run of blanks with a very special fish.

till next time,be lucky

A GRAND DAY OUT

At the moment the river Exe keeps pulling me back to its banks like a magnet. I cant escape it; weather it be daydreams of the huge mirror known to us as the 'Mother', or the feeling of whenever I have a spare bit of time I should be waterside feeding my addiction.

On a grey and miserable Friday evening myself and partner in crime (Moxy)  unsuprisingly found ourselfs on the banks of the generous river Exe. I quite fancied a nice big toothy pike. Whilst Mox set up shop in the hopes of banking his first river carp.
A couple of bite-less hours passed us by, then the calm was interrupted by the sound of a screaming clutch. Moxy scrambled his way to his rod and latched onto a very strong fish that bulldozed its way up and down stream in a bout of excitement and chaos. After a few hairy moments the fish started to tire and we soon had a cracking sample of a wild common lying in the net.

I never made it onto the scoreboard that evening but enjoyed seeing Moxy open his river carp account and was pleased to see the Exe offer us yet another gift.

                                                                               TAKE 2

Saterday morning,no work,no skating,hmmm...what could i do? by 10am i was peering into the depths of  yes, you guessed it, the river Exe. Accompanied by my trusty dog Pepe we soon spotted 3 decent fish,one being a mirror clearly pushing the 20lb mark, the other 2 strapping commons in the upper double region.

A quick call to Mox saw him join us bank side in the swim where I had made contact with the trio. We also quiver tipped maggots to pass the time and to gather a few baits to entice a croc or two later on in the day. No luck on the carp front but we now had a few pike baits in the live well, so we moved on to a different stretch in search of old Esox.

Again no action so we jumped back in the motor to drive to yet another location in the hopes that we could grab a decent fish or two as the light faded.

5 minutes at the new spot and Moxy was into a carp that fought like a demon on crack.To our amazement as soon as the fish was returned the pike rod slowly crept off upstream. To cut the story short the jammy git proceeded to land a solid mid-double pike to complete an amazing brace in the space of ten minutes!
A quality bit of angling by anybody's standard. Did I mention I chipped in with one dace all day!

With mox on fire and the river being so kind who knows what may happen next time. Maybe the 'Mother'.....just maybe.

GALLERY

A variety of captures, caught from jungle rivers to small farm ponds, lots of good memory,s

Gurnard,Copacabana Brazil

Immaculate canal common

Mixed bag Goodiford mill

Topsham  stretch canal carp

Weirfield sea trout

4lb 10 oz orfe Spires lake

                                                                         PREDATORS

Winter double River Exe

A river Exe 3lb 4oz

A river Exe giant

70lb sturgeon

Lunch, Pantanal jungle Brazil

Eating machine

Snow pike River Exe

Hartsmoore perch

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE CRUST

 It was a Saturday morning and after going into work with a stinking hang over i decided that it was far to hot an i felt like poop,so i jacked in early an took Pepe for a stroll round the Exe ( if anything to clear my head of its heavy haze) during our meanderings we visited a few of my favourite carp haunts.I had carried some bait along with me to chuck into a couple spots (also used to bribe the dog into behaving ) as luck would have it a large carp drifted into the swim and started feeding enthusiastically on my free offering's.A hasty move to the car was made to grab a rod, matt and net.

Praying the fish had not gone far i approached the swim with a rod already made up.I looked through the sunlit water with the aid of polarising glasses.With no fish in sight my hook bait went out to the area it had been seen feeding on. Not long after i was into a decent common which threw the hook to my disappointment.Slightly peeved another bait went back to the spot.All of a sudden the bait runner was melting, I struck into a heavy fish that took me on a merry dance for what felt like an hour. ( more like ten minutes)

The next stroke of luck came in the form of a home less lad camped down by the river, he took the job as Gilley and netted the chunk for me.An did the honour of taking the photographs, overall a thoroughly bloody nice chap.

A real old looking river warrior,the result of some serious opportunist angling.Just goes to show you don't,have to be tucked away in a bivvy hours on end to catch a biggie,just be in the right place at the right time.After all that excitement i packed up and drove home with a big grin on my face.My hang over was cured!

well chuffed

THE CARP CRUSADER

After what seemed like a short closed season due to a trip round south America,the rivers where open again. My attention drawn to the many great and small carp that that cruise around the river Exe.lots of loitering around the banks with the dog during hot sunny weather saw us spot many a lump.

With river carping for me the key is fish location,there are many  holding spots dotted around the river where usualy a carp or two are not far away,

During a short evening session i was fortunate enough to bank a hatrick of carp.(which was nice)

first fish of the season

     

solid low double

and a fully scaled cracker

CANAL CAPERS

Having spent the last few sessions targeting catfish on lakes I decided to give it a rest and spend a night on the Exeter canal, a hard but special venue to which I owe some of my most fond fishing triumphs. I spent the evening in the company of Moxy and Ty, a couple of my skating pals who also share a liking of chasing big fish.

They had kindly spent 2 nights raking and baiting 3 swims around the Lime kilms area. I arrived late afternoon, pushing it a bit for a Saturday but luckily no one had nicked my spot. With heavy rain fore-casted for the whole evening I'm not surprised.

With carp being the main target I opted for large snowman style baits, balancing a stack of corn, tipped with a trimmed down monster squid pop up. To finish off, hook links were then threaded through PVA sticks and flicked out to the baited clear patch.

When fishing the canal, the possibility of a fish of a lifetime is always on the cards; which is the main reason I'm constantly drawn to this venue. Whether it be carp, pike or tench, fish of specimen proportions are there for the taking.

First fish went to Mox in the form of a very typical canal bream. An hour into dark my right hand buzzer burst into life. I swept the rod back over my shoulder and bent into a fish that most certainly (and thankfully) was no bream. Not that I hate the poor old bream (like some carp anglers do), its just that their not meant to be caught on 2.5lb tc rods with heavy line.anyway after a bit of a tussle it turned out to be a very welcome tench of 6lb.

An absolute perfect example of a healthy canal tench, not like some of the colour-less little blighters found in ponds. If u want a proper tench the exeter canal is the place to go. 99% of tench I have ever caught there have been shapely fish in mint condition.


No more action for the night, but lots and lots of rain and line bites. At 4.30 am my other rod slowly trundled off. I was out of my bivvy like a flash, no shoes or coat on, hitting a run in the middle of a blinking monsoon. A bream flopped to the surface and popped of the hook leaving me stood there wet to my draws. On that note i packed up all my soggy gear, and made a mad dash to the car park. Good tench and a laugh with the bays. never a chore!