A change of venue and methods can be just the thing to keep you refreshed and on the ball! In this article, Nick Speed visits a venue that’s completely alien to him these days, a canal cutting off the River Don at Sprotbrough.
Mark Pollard reflects on a very successful trip to the Emerald Isle, and recounts his lessons learnt…
The Irish festival scene has seen a huge rise in popularity in the past few years and in turn winning over on the Emerald Isle is becoming increasingly difficult. Well, that’s the case for most, although if you’re a certain Mark Pollard it seems that winning in Ireland is about as easy as getting your hands on a pint of Guinness!
We joined him on his return from another successful visit to Ireland, where he managed to frame in five out of five festivals!
Fish To Win
A festival-winning fish? Redworms and maggot was a great hook bait for skimmers!
I would say the most important nugget of advice I could give to anyone visiting Ireland and who wants to do well is be positive. The fishing in Ireland when I was last there (for a full five weeks in September), was the best I’ve ever known it and with such good fishing on offer you have to make the most of it.
Fishing for skimmers and roach in the UK may be about fine lines and small hooks but for feeder fishing the past few weeks I’ve been using 0.
Dan Webb lets some of the England Feeder team's cats out of the championship bag. . .
There seems to be this idea flying around that this little piece I'm writing each month might not be entirely serious.
The Build Up
It was back to Partridge lakes today for the third round of the teams of four winter league. The weather leading up to the contest had taken a turn for the worse with a slight drop in temperature (although it still wasn't as cold as it should be for the beginning of December). The conditions had however, had a big impact on the weights that had come out recently and it had also been frozen at the start of the week, but, on the open match Saturday it had been ice-free so I was unsure on how it would fish after all the melted ice water had gone in but I was looking forward to it nonetheless.
On the trip down to the fishery I was surprised to see that the canal near me had frozen over and I was half thinking that I should turn back for the ice breaker but fearing that this would make me late I decided to head on but still hoped that Partridge would be ice-free.
January 22nd, Peg 151, Covey Six
Today was the second round of the Partridge Lakes winter league and after managing a second in section on the previous round I hoped that I could build on that this week, but after my performance on the teams of four I wasn’t that optimistic.
The weather during the week had been quite reasonable for the time of year, with some settled temperatures at last, but as per usual it was all change by the weekend as an easterly breeze had brought some cold weather and we were back down to minus temps during the night. It was forecast to be 2ºC all day with some snow flurries, and no doubt this would affect the fishing today, but it would be the same for everyone so no point complaining.
I arrived at the fishery just before 8.
Stu Redman gets his super-bright bait dyes out to show you how you can make your maggots and pinkies stand out from the crowd!
Just in case you have been living under a rock or something, the fluoro bait phenomenon is well and truly happening! Those of you who frequent Facebook with any regularity will surely have spied some rather luminous looking maggots and pinkies on various anglers’ side trays. Many anglers have seemingly noticed an opportunity to get a bit of an edge when it comes to the effectiveness of their baits, particularly when the water is still clear and a hi-viz bait will work well.
Just think about how anglers are catching on Method and Hybrid feeders these days, and most of the time they are using super-bright high-visibility hook baits. So the question must be asked, why not take the same theory and apply it to pole fishing?
‘Mad scientist’ Stu Redman is one man who is never afraid to do things a little differently.
Match Fishing’s Joe Carass has been on The Tunnel Barn Winter League this where he had to go to great lengths to secure a decent result for the team. Well it has been another tough weekend in the angling world and my Match Fishing Drawbags team only just kept in touch with the leading pack on the Tunnel Barn Farm winter league. Last weekend we had our first victory after finally having four decent draws after a procession of dross draws in the previous rounds. This weekend however saw the end of the mild weather and an appearance of minus temperatures that was sure to slow the angling down! This week we had an ok draw with Steve Ringer on New 17, Lee Kerry on Extension 17 and Jon Arthur on Club 5 which was a bit iffy.
It has been a while since my last blog, but it has been a couple of months filled with activity here at DHP towers! First we said goodbye to Dave Harrell who left his post here at Match Fishing to pursue other interests. This was a shock to us all and I know that many people will miss him. Luckily we have managed to snare Alex Bones, who I’m sure plenty of you will know for his hair cut, and the bit of fishing that he does occasionally! Alex will be a great asset to the mag and hopefully we can go from strength to strength and keep improving the mag! Anyway I have had an up and down few weeks fishing. Spawning fish have made lakes fish poor and go very peggy and I seem to have avoided the fish more than normal! I have managed a win and a second up at the Oaks but this week saw the frustration return!Saturday saw me on Cedar Lake.
Welcome to my first ever blog for the Match fishing magazine website!Over the next few months I will try and talk you through the trials and tribulations of being a modern day match angler. My blog will be a ‘warts ‘n’ all’ account of my latest matches and I wont hold anything back (even if I don’t catch much!) To open my account I will start by talking about the latest round of the Garbolino/Sensas International rules match that Darren Cox and Sean Ashby run. It was going to be the third round, this was to be held at Gold Valley and with my Barnsley Blacks team winning the league we definitely had to try our best to get a good result. On the Friday before the match we had a little practice and worked out that the match was going to be extremely hard, but luckily we had sussed out that perch were going to be the target species and these would be what we primarily fished for.
Match Fishing’s Joe Carass has had a good weekend at his regular haunt – Tunnel Barn Farm!Well it would seem that winter is well and truly here now. It seems to be upon us much earlier than the previous two years. Hopefully it wont have too much of an adverse effect on the fishing as I love my winter fishing!This week has seen me on Round Two of the Tunnel Barn winter league with the Match Fishing Drawbags team. You may recall we came second in the first round so we were hoping for a slightly better result in round two.
When I arrived the lake we were fishing was very coloured and really cold so I knew that it was going to fish very hard.
I drew an area that doesn’t really produce but the upside of it was that I had a lot of room. The weather was really bad with wind and rain but I had the wind over my back, which meant I could present my bait well, which is key in cold-water conditions. Line one had an island at around 13 metres where I would start without feeding a thing.
Match Fishing magazine gets on the bank with the first two graduates of the Guru Match Academy!
You’d have thought that, at just 14 and 15 years of age respectively, Rob Swan and Will McCranor spend most of their days locked in a dark bedroom playing computer games and glued to their iPhones, like many teenagers in modern society.
In actual fact, when not working hard on their studies during term time you will more than likely find them on the banks of one of their local fisheries, giving the adults a run for their money on an open match or festival.
Both are the very first graduates of the brand new Guru Match Academy. This is an event run by Guru, which sees a group of young match anglers coached over a two-day period, where over those two days the Guru stars decide between them which pair of youngsters involved is going to gain a sponsorship deal worth over £1,000!
We caught up with Rob and Will at the picturesque Partridge Lakes Fishery, in Warrington, to see how they were getting on since successfully acquiring their sponsorships with Guru.
