BRYANS ANGLE

I had a couple of hours fishing a local estuary for thornback rays on saturday as i,ve been meaning to give it a go for the past few years and i,ve recently been hearing some good reports of late of a few of our spikey friends being caught from the shore just a few miles up the road from where i live. So as i had some squid in the freezer, always have, and also some nice frozen herrings left over from the pike season i decided to dust down the sea tackle Saturday afternoon and head to my chosen venue to fish the tide a couple hours either side of high water the same evening. Gear sorted out from the tackle room, reels re-spooled with my favourite 15lb Red Ice line, clipped down rigs and pennel hooklinks tied, bait put in the bag and everything including Oscar the springer were bundled into the back of the car and away i went to smell the salty air. I fished an hour up and 2 down but only had one little rattle on my close in scratching rod. The bait was only lasting...

Over the past 10  years or so i guess i,ve tried and failed to catch a catfish in the UK. I,ve caught a few in France upto low 70lbs but have only ever managed the one of 26lb here and that was when i was targetting carp. I guess i havn,t actually fished for them that much and usually it would be a quick decision overnight session whenever i got a spare evening, not often i can asure you. Anyway the beginning of this week i decided i wanted to have a proper go for them and took a walk round a fishery 15 miles away and had a chat with the anglers there. They all confirmed what i knew in that there was quite a few catfish present upto 90lb. That was enough for me and this weds afternoon saw me hot footing it to the fishery in question kitted out with the heavy gear. On arriving at the car park a couple of other anglers were just starting to unload their cars so as only fellow anglers can do i approached them and picked their brains about the water. Fortunately they were a couple of...

Having moved house i decided to have a walk round a local lake i used to fish over 10 years ago which now happens to be at the end of my road. I had a nice slow walk around one evening and the place has hardly changed, nor has the bailiff who instantly recognised me even though i,m a couple of stone heavier and have face fur which he hasn,t seen. It was quite nice catching up with him he hadn,t changed a bit. Anyway as i slowly crept into a nice overgrown corner i spied a big paint brush tail waving at me from the nearside margin. On looking closer it was clear that there was a couple of good sized tench grubbing around the roots of some reeds. That was all the incentive i needed and the next day i was in the tackle room making up some rigs to have a go for these tench before they moved off. Due to the vegetation covering this little corner i decided to tie up some popped up artificial bait rigs. As you can see they looked the bees knees in my viewing class, ok its an empty posh pa...

Firstly i must apologise for not posting for a few months as i have been busy with the tackle business, WATERBOUYS TACKLE , and moving house. All has settled down now and hopefully back to normal. I have managed a bit of fishing though, and actually managed to catch some fish as well, woohoo.... I had some great fun at the back end of the season catching small pike, on little float fished livebaits meant for perch, on a local river. No decent size perch though but i didn,t really mind as the pike always scrap well on my light Avon rod. I thoroughly enjoyed catching some crucian carp from a small farm pond located on the same plot as Waterbouy Towers. I havn,t caught a crucian for more years than i care to remember. I used to fish nights catching them with my Dad when i was a teenager, using small pieces of breadflake fished a rod length out just over the nearside shelf. My Dad always beat me on size and quantity even though we,d practically have the floats a couple feet ...

Just thought i,d do a little product review this morning as i,m sitting here deciding whether to brave the weather and go piking on a local river which i know will be pushing through hard as we had a lot of rain last night. I just can,t seem to make up my mind, i,ve fished an area i,ve found twice now with not so much of a sniff from a fish, but it was bitterly cold on both occasions. Its quite mild outside now but the rain we,ve had and the snow melt over the past few days will of made the river flood through and might of chilled it a bit more. Decisions Decisions....................... Anyway back to the review...... I bought this Nash Peg One Day Shelter a couple of years ago and have used it a good few times now and have to say i,m quite impressed with it. Its nice and lightweight, less than 3.5 kgs, and fits nicely in my rod holdall. Its got an odd way to erect which takes a bit of getting used to as you have to pull a string on the top to lock it out but its nice and easy....

Its 6.45am and i,ve been awake since 2.30am this morning. I suffer from insomnia sometimes when i have too many thoughts rolling around in my braincell, theres only so much it can take. Whilst sitting on the sofa drinking tea and surfing the net i decided to tidy up my photo archive on my harddrive. I,ve now spent the past 4 hours or so collating my files and browsing through pictures of fish i,ve caught over the past 20 years or so. How come up to i guess 3 years ago i used to actually catch quite a few fish as well as some nice specimens from a good few different species. I don,t know, maybe its because i don,t go as much. Or maybe its because theres more pressure on the fish. All i know is there is a distinct lack of catch photos from the past couple of years. I thought i,d share a few of the older pics with you. My biggest perch at 3lb 10oz. Doesn,t actually look that big in the picture but it was really broad across the back. My first 3lb perch caught on the last day befor...

Well i spent the day pike fishing my local syndicate water today to check its potential for the toothy ones as i,ve only fished it once for them. After moving 3 times during the coarse of the day and trying all many of techniques, including various lures, deadbaits on the bottom, deadbaits popped up, free roaming livebaits, sunken float paternostered livebaits and very nearly dynamite, i blanked. The weather was perfect, overcast and a nice bit of wind. The water was perfect, a good bit of clarity and a foot up. I was in the right frame of mind but still no fish. The only interesting part of the day was the homemade turkey and veg soup i had for my lunch and taking some pics of a goose as it limped around behind me. I think it had a damaged wing as when i tried to get closer to take some piccies it just limped off. Oh well if we caught every time we went fishing it would get boring i guess. I think its time to have some perch fun on a couple of local rivers, i,ll let you know h...