BRYANS ANGLE

After my whiting bash a couple of weeks ago i decided that i fancied another trip out sea fishing but somewhere different to my normal stomping grounds. A venue was chosen and a plan was hatched to take my Dad out for the day to fish Walton Pier as it was meant to be fishing relatively well for whiting, dabs, maybe the chance of a ray, possibly a dogfish or two and even the remotest chance of a 'sea unicorn'. That will do for us i thought and i set about thursday evening tieing lots of different rigs for me and 'old boy' to use. RIG PRODUCTION Friday dawned and as predicted by Metcheck the weather was sunny with a slight breeze, instead of the drizzly rainy days we had prior to this trip. Gear in the van, Dad collected and off we set to the North Essex coastline. Just over an hour and half later we were all set up three quarters of the way along Walton Pier, which i forgot to take any pictures of so here's one i took a few weeks earlier. WALTON PIER ...

Last week i fancied a spot of sea fishing on my local River Crouch so one evening set about getting the gear ready for a little first light dangle at a local mark. I like to tie a few rigs at home so i don't have to fumble around by the water so a few 2 hook flappers, for the whiting and small fish, were made up as well as a couple of big hook pennels for anything larger swimming by. The temperature gauge in the van was reading 0 degrees as i drove the short distance to the river and the heavy frost crunched under foot as i walked to my chosen spot just as the sun was just rising over the horizon making getting out of bed early worthwhile. The tide was already 3 hours down from high water and i had only planned to stay for a couple of hours so the rigs i,d tied the previous evening were quickly attached and launched out at various distances. Bait was strips of mackeral and squid as well as some frozen black lug on the small fish rigs and a cocktail of large fillets of macker...

At the beginning of this year i fished a small river in Essex, which i had been meaning to try for a few years, in hope of catching some nice perch and chub as i,d heard a few reports and walked the river and it looked good for both species. Luckily i did pretty good on that session and caught both my target species, and not bad sized ones too. Well last week i decided i fancied another trip there to see what else this tiny little river had to offer. My target for this short afternoon session was the perch, probably my favourite species to fish for over the past few years. Now that i know the river holds a couple of decent specimens i feel that its worth putting in the effort to see what size these sergeants actually grow too. Arriving at midday i set of on the 1.5 mile trek to a small side pool, which i had caught small roach, rudd and gudgeon from on my last trip, to tempt out a few small silvers to use as live bait on the main river. Arriving at the pool it was obvious that no one...

So last week myself and a friend took the long 12 hour drive to the lake we fished so successfully last year. Thoughts of big fat carp crawling up our lines were foremost in our minds. I,d had a good session last year landing 17 fish, if memory serves, upto 42lb and was looking forward to hopefully a repeat performance. Once the long haul was over and we had arrived at the lake it was time to set up all the usual paraphernalia needed to survive a weeks carp fishing. After a couple of hours lugging bags from van to swim, setting up bivvies and generally getting sorted it was time to relax. First order of the day was to have a little perch fishing with lobworms from the dam wall as last year a few large stripes were seen following marker floats so it was decided to try for them. After an hour or so we,d had half a dozen perch to half pound and a couple of small jack pike, no big perch showed but it was a bright sunny day so we weren't expecting much anyway. A short walk back to our s...

A spur of the moment decision saw me pulling up to my syndicate water just as it was getting light 2 weeks ago with a mind to catch a carp, well lets face it to try and catch a carp. I opted to fish an easily accessible swim because, to be honest, i was in a lazy frame of mind and didn't really fancy pushing my barrow full of kit very far. I have fished this swim once last October and unfortunately had lost a fish late one night due to a hook pull so know it has form. I,d brought Choccy along to keep me company and he was quite content chilling and soaking up the sun as i went about setting up my home for the night and making myself comfy. Once this was done out came the marker rod and i started to thrash the water to a foam as i searched for 3 likely areas to target the old mud suckers. I wasn't too bothered about the disturbance i caused as my marker was dragged through the swim countless times, or with the depth charge water eruptions as my big balls of boilie crumb and ...

So a couple of weeks back i had some time of work to do some more work on the house but decided that i needed to have a little dabble for some bass on my local River Crouch as rumours were they had been showing in good numbers. So armed with a couple score of ragworm and a pack of squid i made the long walk to a mark i,d fancied fishing for quite a while now. On the way to my chosen spot i stopped at a nice creek which i have seen fish topping in before when i have been waking the dogs along there. Out went a 2 hook flapper to see if there was anything lower down as well as another rod fishing a ragworm 3ft or so below a float. I've been wanting to try catching a bass by float fishing for a while but just hadn,t gotten around to it. I only gave the area an hour, as i wanted to get to my main spot, but didn't have so much as a tip dip.  Another 1.5 mile walk and i was at my chosen mark, a point in the river where it bends, and also alongside a nice inlet/outlet for a wild...

So a few weeks back i was returning from a nice walk with the dogs and as i was crossing a tiny little tidal creek i glanced down and saw, quite to my amazement really, a solitary jellyfish 'swimming' along with the current. Now i,ve seen plenty of jellyfish whilst on holidays down in the South West as well as when i have been out boat fishing, i,ve also seen the odd one washed up dead on the shore but i have never seen a live one swimming up a creek in Essex. I had to get a little film of it so out came  the trusty iPhone and i captured a couple of minutes of the wee beauty and put it up on my Youtube channel. The link is below if you fancy a looksie. Cheers guys, tight lines and have a good weekend......

So lately i havn,t had a lot of spare time to go fishing due to work and the ongoing attempts to complete the extension i,ve built on my house, this has meant that i havn,t been to my syndicate for a few months so the limited fishing i have done has been very local and only for a couple of hours at a time. Now i,m not complaining too much about fishing short sessions locally as there is some not too bad waters nearby, and i have caught ok, but its meant i,ve had to scale my tackle down considerably to allow me to be more mobile and chase fish down rather than wait for them to come to me. This has been good fun as i used to be very mobile when i first started fishing and its quite nice to do so again. With two waters being within 1 mile away, another around 3 miles, and miles and miles of  the River Roach and the River Crouch starting within 2 miles away i thought it would be a good idea to kit out the old mountain bike to use as my mode of transport for fishing these venue...

Around May time thornback ray start to show up in catches from the shore and boat, in my local River Crouch, as they migrate into the shallower water to spawn i believe. This gives us the chance to catch a few for a couple of months before they drift away to wherever they go to. For the past few years i seem to of  been too busy to fish for them locally and on the the odd occasion that i have had the time to wet a line i havn,t been able to connect with one. Well i thought i,d have another try a couple of weeks back as the weather was due to be nice and i just fancied having a dangle in saltwater. Weighed down with all my kit i stumbled the mile  or so along the sea wall to my chosen marsh area that i thought might produce the goods. After nearly falling 'arse over tit' over a bramble and then having to 'hop' over a small adder as it crossed my path i finally dumped my gear down at my chosen spot and sat on my bucket a huffing, puffing sweaty old man. After a few mi...

So any of you who have read my Blogs before will know that i have 2 spaniels, Paddy a Sprocker and Choccie who is a Working Cocker. Well i,ve always wanted a furry fishing buddy so have decided that i will have a go at teaching Choccie the ropes at being a 'carp dog'. He has the right temperament for it as he is very obedient, doesn,t roam too far and can quite happily keep himself entertained. i,ve taken him, along with Paddy, on a couple of sea fishing excursions on the local tidal river and both have behaved well so thought it was time to take it to the next level. Instead of just throwing him in at the deep end i thought it best to ease him into fishing so i took him along for a mornings walk around my syndicate as i marker float around a few areas to get an idea of whats under the water. Well i have to say i am really impressed with him as he settled in nicely as i spent time casting around various areas, i did originally think he might be jumping up at anything i wa...

So just up the road from where i live is a small public park with a nice lake of a few acres which is run as a day ticket water. I,ve fished there a few times for the carp as it is relatively easy fishing and you can always manage to winkle out a fish or two in a couple of hours dangling. Alongside this lake is a small stream, the River Roach, which is only shallow and  an be jumped across quite easily, but at the far end of the lake the is an inlet from this stream to keep water flowing into it and to do this a small weir has been built. above this weir is a small pool of no more than 50ft long and 20ft wide which also flows out of a small tunnel beneath the railway track above. I,d heard rumours that there was a small head of silver fish in this pool and thought that i would have a little explore one morning, so armed with a little ground bait, a pint of maggots and my feeder rod i made my way along the path from the road, then along the lake itself and finally over a sma...

So as i was still convalescing i decided to take the dogs out for a mornings fishing for dabs and whiting at a local mark i know. I didn,t realign have high hopes of catching anything as the sun was shining and there had been a good bit of rain for the previous couple of days. Also i,d opted to fish low water, which i,ve not done here before, and the local reports were that next to nothing was being caught locally. Sod it, thought i, i,m going anyway. Well the sun was definitely bright and there was also quite a breeze blowing, bit nippy too to be honest but i, and the pooches, were dressed for the occasion. I set up three rods and cast them at different distances and areas with different rigs and bait on each. On rod had a whole squid with a fillet of mackerel whipped to it thumped as far as i could cast in hope of an early season ray or maybe a bass. The second rod had a 2 hook flapper set up and bait with lugworm and fish strip and was cast around 50 yards out. And the ...

So i,ve been suffering from an Incasserated Ubilical Hernia since christmas which basically stopped me from doing much, fishing, walking, working, so i have basically been moping around the house. Fortunately i had an op to repair the hernia mid January which was good but meant that for a couple of weeks i was even more house bound as the wound healed up. I was meant to stay of my feet for a couple of weeks and no activities for a couple more, but i could,t wait and as soon as i was fit enough to walk i packed my pike fishing gear and headed of to a local water for a 'gentle' couple of hours dangling. Upon arriving in my chosen swim i dropped a float fished half herring in the near margins and turned round to set up my other rod, my rods were already tackle up but just needed the rod sections putting together a trace clipped on and bait hooked. I,d just finished hooking up a small roach deadbait, horizontally so it could drift around the swim, when i noticed my margin ...