BRYANS ANGLE

On my way to do an overnighter on my syndicate this week i made a pitstop at a small river located  en-route. My aim was to have a wee chuck around with the micro lures for a perch or maybe a chub if  my luck was in. Well i didn't catch anything, my excuse is that it was too hot and too sunny,  but enjoyed a couple of hours stalking along the banks of the crystal clear water and spying on anything resembling a fish. I did have a few follows from micro chub and small perch but no actual takers. I wasn't,t bothered though as i had a great time just watching the fish hold in the flow, before darting for cover as i peered closer. CHUBLETS HOLDING STATION IN THE FLOW  A large part of the river seemed totally devoid of fish where as other parts were teaming with roach and chublets. I did find a couple of nice size chub, around the 3lb mark i reckon, but didn't manage to get a picture of them. I also watched what i thought was a near double figure carp slowly drifting ...

So due to the Covid virus lockdown, and prior to that  being too busy, i actually haven't bee fishing for over 4 months, and i,ve been gagging to get back out and wet a line. Fortunately this week good old Boris started a 5 stage lockdown lift and this week was stage 1 and allowed us back out fishing as well as other hobbies which can be carrie out whilst applying the social distancing rules. This meant that i could dust down the fishing gear and get myself out there fishing. I just had to decide what i wanted to fish for as i have a quite a few options locally. In the end i opted to go to the local saltwater river and try for a thornback ray before they moved out of the river for the rest of the year. Luckily enough i had prepped all the necessary gear, and stocked up on frozen bait,  before the lockdown was brought into force. So yesterday armed with 3 rods and a rucksack i walked the half mile to my chosen spot which was a marshy platform which jutted out into the river ...

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 ...