BRYANS ANGLE

Recently i have been drawn towards having a bash at catching some lovely Essex flounders like i used to many years ago. I actually havn,t caught, or fished for, flounder for a good 10 years now. In fact probably the last time i caught one would of been when i used to fish the platforms near Westcliff Leisure Center for anything that would take my bait. I used to love fishing tides that would be at their highest around 9pm, during the winter this was, and would use light gear and cast to the moored boats and end of the groins and would have great fun catching pouting, whiting, flounder, dabs, small bass and sometimes even rockling. My other half at the time thought i was mad as i would go out in all sorts of weather, i loved it that much. Anyway due to reminiscing about my past fishing exploits i decided that i needed to scratch this itch and early one morning last week saw me and Oscar The Wonder Dog walking along the pathway at the bottom of the sea defences at a mark on Canvey Isl...

A couple of weeks back i took my dogs for their usual long weekend walk along Benfleet Creek as a change to our local haunt of South Fambridge. I guess i should of checked my tide app as when we got there it was at dead low water so there basically wasn,t any water for Harry to have a swim. It was a shame as he does love the water, and sometimes i have a right job to get him out of it when we have to go. Unfortunately Oscar doesn,t like to swim, he can swim but just chooses not too. He,s happy just running around splatting in the mud and searching through the scrub grass. Anyway, as we were walking along the creek i was taking note of the gully left behind by the receded tide. In places it came within 10 yards of the bank where i was, and also in a couple of places the water was a foot or so deeper than the average. I know this as Harry was wading through the remaining water and i was keeping an eye on how far up his legs/belly the water was. Seeing all this mud and the dee...

Last week i knicked the morning of work as i fancied spending a few hours after the perch at a small local pond which i,ve been told holds a few biggies within its shallow waters. Weather was perfect, overcast with a slight breeze, as i set up in the last swim to the left of this tiny water. One rod was set up with a ledgered lobworm cast to some reeds where i had seen a big perch lunge at my lure last year. While my other rod was to be floatfished to the right in front of some more reeds with the hope of some silvers that i could use as bait, as well as causing some activity in the hope that this might draw in a couple of perch. Unfortunately the perch didn,t materialise, but i did have an enjoyable mornings fishing catching some gorgeous roach to three quarters of a pound along with a couple of bream to 3lb and 5 carp to around 4lb or so. All the fish were caught on a single floatfished maggot on a size 18 hook to 1.8lb hooklink attached to 3lb mainline. Great fun........ ...

I managed an afternoon after the perch on a local venue 2 weeks ago as i was ' itchin to go a fishin'. The weather wasn,t the best for perch fishing as the sun was strong with only a slight breeze to ruffle the waters surface. First task was to catch a handful of silvers to use as bait, my favourite technique being free roaming a small roach beneath a 1 swan shot loafer incorporating a 9 inch wire trace with a small semi barbed treble hook attached at the end. This set up has accounted for a lot of good perch upto 3lb 14oz as well as pike to upper doubles. As per usual a couple of micro pike snaffled my livies and put up turbo charged fights on my light gear, but they soon paid a short visit to the bank. The speed of these small pike is quite amazing. I could see their every twist and turn through the clear water as i was wearing that most vital item of fishing kit, polarised glasses. Small they may of been but they still had some impressive chompers.... After...