BRYANS ANGLE

Well finally i was given a pass by the better half to have a couple days out from working on the extension and without any hesitation plans were made and bags packed for a 2 night trip to my new syndicate water. The weather was bloody cold when i arrived at first light but after a couple of hours walking part of the banks i opted for a nice tree lined section of bank which was sheltered from the cold wind and considerably warmer than the rest of the 100 acres. Even the sun came out to greet me. It wasn,t just because it was warmer here, i had also seen quite a lot of small fish activity here when i first walked through the trees. They were only silver fish but seeing as though i had not seen any activity at all anywhere else on the lake i thought this would be as good a place as any. The swim also gave me plenty of water to fish and even more water to scan in case any carp showed themselves anywhere else. By mid afternoon i had everything set up and three rods fishing in w...

 I managed to finish a little job an hour earlier than expected earlier in the week and ended up with a little free time on my hands as i couldn,t start the next job for a while. Sitting in my van i racked my brains as to what i could do with this spare, and very rare, hour. I was too far from Waterbouy Towers to pop back there, too far from a local town to grab a coffee, and too far from any friends who i can drop in on for a chin wag. What to do thought i........  Eureka....... A local country park was only a couple minutes drive away so i decided to pop in there for a nice leisurely stroll around the lake that resides in the middle of the grounds. Once parked up, and after having paid £3 for the pleasure, i walked along the gravel pathway and down the hill towards the lake. I walked along the trail beneath the canopy of mature trees, which fortunately sheltered me from the light shower of rain that had just started, and then rounded a corner at the end and looked ...

Earlier this week i managed to finish work earlier than usual and rather than just go homw and sit in fromnt of the tv as i usually i opted to grab a couple of hours fishing on the way home. The only problem was i couldn,t make up my mind what i actually wanted to fish for. After being deep in thought for at least 60 seconds i decided that i,d fish for nothing in particular but give myself a chance to catch anything that swims by, and the best way of targeting nothing and everything is the humble float. I grabbed my float rod, necessary float fishing paraphernalia, a tin of sweetcorn, some hemp and some pellets and drove home with an aim of fishing a water just up the road from where i live. Upon arriving at the water i was pleasantly surprised to only see one other person fishing, i think it might of been due to the football, which was great as i had a pick of all the best areas to fish. I took a slow walk around the lake and finally found a lot of bubbling and a few rolls in a nice...

Saturday just gone saw me getting a pass from 'she who must be obeyed' to spend the night fishing as she was off out with friends. Now i only found this out saturday morning so i promptly rushed through my days work, loaded up 'The Beast' and shot over to my syndicate water to try for tench and maybe a carp. Unfortunately after a check around the water and ear marking a couple of swims, when i actually went back to them they were taken by carpers, bummer. Oh well i thought i,ll settle for a swim which i,ve had my eye on for a while, but lo and behold when i got there a chappie was there chucking lures for the resident pike. I spent the next half hour or so chatting with this chap, he was a nice guy, before loading up the barrow and walking around to the next swim along. By 6.30 i had 3 rods set up, 2 for the carp and one for tench. I,d seen bream and possibly tench rolling to the left of this swim so i was hopeful.  I baited the area i,d seen the fish roll with a rig...

Late friday afternoon i arrived at my new syndicate water with tench, and to a lesser degree carp, on my mind. First thing to be done was to have a little walk around the areas that i,d ear marked for attention, no mean feat considering this water is hovering around the 100 acre mark and its long. Parking up in one of the car parks i could see 3 other cars so i opted to take a little walk along the arm towards the shallow end as this area has mature trees on both banks as well as nice reed beds and the bed is silty with years of decaying leaf mulch from the surrounding trees, also this is where the original river used to run before the area was flooded. Sods law dictates that the swims that i had an interest in fishing were already taken, but thats fishing for you. A quick chat with one of the carpers revealed that a couple of tench had been caught from this arm earlier in the week. I was tempted to set up further along the bank but opted to give it a miss as to be honest i didn,t real...

Recently i,ve heard a few rumours that some big tench have been caught from a local day ticket lake, just a couple of miles away from WATERBOUY TOWERS, with at least one confirmed double figure beastie being banked. Well as you,d expect, these catches got me interested so at the beginning of last week i paid a little recce visit to the aforementioned water. I,ve known of this water for the past 6 years since a couple of locals took on the mammoth task of renevating the, long left wild, water. When i first had a look at it all those years ago i had to admit it didn,t inspire me as it was just an overgrown hole in the ground with huge piles of rubbish and soil everywhere, so i didn,t bother to pay any attention to it. When i turned up there a week ago it looked like a totally different lake, the overgrown reeds, bushed etc had been sympathetically cut back. There was plenty of good size clean swims which had been built, but with plenty of space between them. And there was a pleasant arra...

A week ago i had another go for the tench on a local water for a couple of hours after work. I,m really enjoying this style of fishing, turning up around 6.30 in the evening with 2 rods and only a small amount of gear, having a wander around the lake looking for signs of fish before settling in my chosen swim until dark then off home for a cuppa and bed. I,m lucky that the lake i,ve chosen is only 2 mins away from where i live, and although is fished quite heavily by the day ticket crowd, it is still an attrctive water with plety of areas you can tuck yourself away in. Anyway after choosing my swim with a big reedbed to my left and a small island to my right i proceeded to set up. I now leave my rods all set up now so not to lose time having to retie leadcore etc, all i have to do is clip on a new hooklink and slide on a lead and i,m fishing. On one rod a opted for a stick mix and boilie approach cast to the bottom of the shelf around the small island, mainly in hope of a passing c...

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...