When the rivers are low and salmon and sea trout are hard to find many fly fishers are turning to the the estuary where the silver flanked bass can provide exciting sport on both lure and fly. Nick Hart provides tuition in Fly Fishing in both fresh and saltwater, in rivers and still waters. His latest pictures show some happy anglers making the best of ideal conditions where the estuary meets the sea. Investing in guided fishing can make a huge difference to your catch rates boosting success over many years into the future.
North Devon Tackle Club…Held their latest match at Jennets Reservoir where they enjoyed some great sport.
Norman Martin Won the match with 40lb 7oz. Runner up was Simon Poynter with 36lb 5oz and third Kevin Wilton with 31lb 7oz. Forth place went to Peter Seaward with 24lb 12oz.
Norman fished the venue a couple of weeks before the event and enjoyed success with a 19lb 14oz Carp.(Below)
In addition he landed 121lb of bream and 7lb of roach. (below)
The latest open match on Tanners and Woodpecker lakes had a full complement of 40 anglers fishing. The weather was glorious sunshine and bright blue skies. The match saw a continental payout and the winner of the day was Gary Mealing peg 1 on Woodpecker lake with 154lb 4oz fishing 8mm pellet on the waggler well done Gary!
Second place was Alan Lambert peg 5 on Tanners with 111lb 15oz
Third place was Mick Simpson peg 18 on Woodpecker with 148lb 6oz
All the latest catches from Anglers Paradise as reported by Zenia Gregorek . Don’t forget there are plenty of day ticket opportunities in addition to the famous holiday complex.
Michael Molloy who has been visiting Anglers Paradise for 20 years and caught his Personal Best 11lb 12oz Koi from the Koi Lake on Dog Biscuits!
Michael has been trying for many years to catch an 8lb Koi so when he landed this Beauty – he was more than happy
Michael Said –
“I have been coming to Anglers Paradise for 20 years now with my Wife and Family as the fishing is fantastic as well as everyone that runs it.
I always like to have a go at the Koi Lake and have tried many years to catch an 8lb+ Koi, but haven’t had any success. My nephew Luke wanted to come with me who had travelled all the way from Ireland to join us for our 2nd week of our annual AP Holiday.
We caught several Koi up to 7lbs+ on floating dog biscuits, just as we were about to pack up, a Koi came up and sucked in a biscuit!! After a good fight, I landed it and knew it was over the magical 8lb with the scales going to 11lb 12oz!!
(Above) Gavin Simpson with his Winning PB 6lb 12oz Golden Orfe from the Main Lake – just 1lb 9oz short off the British Record!
Gavin’s Story –
“I decided to go for an easier day and fish (read go for a sleep) on the picturesque Main Lake on the Tuesday as the previous day I’d had a non stop day catching Carp to 11lb on a waggler rod. I believe it was all down to buying a magical Anglers Paradise hat, Ziggy did tell us on the Sunday night that the fish would recognise you if you brought an AP hat or hoody! What a load of rubbish I hear you say, well, my Dad was on the next peg and only caught two all day, now there’s some proof, I even asked him to make sure he actually had a hook on at one point! That’ll teach him for being tight!
The Main Lake is a magical lake full of amazing fish, I had previously caught a PB Carp there last year after going to one of Jo’s Rig Clinics. I looked for some signs of fish but none were showing so I settled for the famous Nev’s Point and had a cast around with a lead to find any features. At 6.5 rod lengths out I found what felt like a gravelly area and set my line clip with my measuring sticks so I would reach the same spot every time along with lining up to a far bank tree.
On my first cast, with a small PVA bag of pellets attached I had an indication within about 30 seconds (see the lucky hat was working again) and caught a small Carp. Another two followed over the next couple of hours, so knowing some fish were out there I put a few freebie boilies out in the same area. After about 4 hours of fishing I had a great bite, better even than the Carp, I struck but this fish felt different. As I played it towards the net I saw this huge orange flank and thought WOW! I put the net under it and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, the most enormous Golden Orfe I had ever seen, what an amazing fish! It weighed in at 6lb 12oz, I had to check what the British Record was as I was sure it couldn’t be a lot more. I was right, the current record is 8lb 5oz, this fish was just 1lb 9oz off of the British record!
What a great fish and what a great memory for a trip that was a present from my wife Kerry for my 40th Birthday. I am sure there is a British record to be had in that lake for someone. Get yourself to Anglers Paradise, buy yourself one of Zyggy’s magic hats or hoodies and get yourself in those record books! I’m ‘Orfe’ there again soon myself to try and catch a bigger one!”
Graham Tasker fished our Day Ticket Kracking Carp Lake during his annual Anglers Paradise holiday and caught himself a lovely 34lb 2oz Mirror after a 10 minute fight!
Graham fished from Peg 2 tight to the margin on the opposite side with a 2oz lead on a snowman rig with a Salty Squid Boilie topped with a Raspberry Pop Up fished over 2kg of Salty Squid freebies.
Andy Facey landed this suberb 12lb 4oz rainbow at Blakewell on a 6lb leader and size 8 green copper john on floating line. Andy spent several hours stalking the big trout that repeatedly followed the fly before suddenly grabbing it and taking off like a torpedo!
James Atkinson won Appledore shipbuilders monthly Rover with a small eyed ray of 9lb 61/4oz. In second place was Richard Boone with a fine wrasse of 5lb 47/8oz and in third Andy Sanders with a thornback ray of 6lb 5oz.
Bideford Angling Club Monthly Rover
1st Antony smith thornback ray 9lb 5 1/2 103.819%
2nd Antony smith thornback ray 8lb 6 1/2 93.402%
3rd Dick Talbot smoothound 9lb 5 93.125%
4th Andy Sanders thornback ray 6lb 6 70.833%
4th Lee Watts dogfish 2lb 2 70.833%
5th Paul Downing thornback ray 5lb 15 65.972%
As the water starts to warm up wrasse should start to show along the North Devons rock marks. Combe Martin SAC member Ollie Passmore set out after the species and was rewarded with a nice fish of 3lb 6oz.
Bull huss continue to provide sport after dark when Ollie Passmore enjoyed success with a huss of 10lb 11oz. (Below)
Boat anglers are continuing to enjoy boat sport off Ilfracombe with several spurdog to 18lb brought aboard John Barbeary’s boat Bluefin. (Below)
James Snell fished up on lodge lake Dam wall and landed 3 fish up to 18lb 6oz caught on Mainline Essential Cell boilies & C R Baits.
Brinn Jones fished Lodge lake to land 6 fish up to 20lb 6oz fishing with fruit pop ups over Nash Boilies.
John Townsend with one of his 6 catches a stunning 26lb mirror ! Caught on shell fish B5 boiled from the swim at the entrance to the spit up on Lodge lake.
Blair Warner had this cracking 28.06 common from Jennetts last week. Blair tempted the fish with a 16mm homemade boilie with a handful of free offerings from the point swim. Congratulations Blair on a stunning fish.
Many thanks to Martin Turner for his quality pictures and write up.
1st Nathan Underwood 37lb 1oz
2nd Christopher Morris 32lb 11oz
3rd Kier Durrant 25lb 4oz
The Cornish bank of Upper Tamar Lake hosted the 1st summer league of group, Nathan put an impressive 37lb 1oz of roach and perch on the scales for a convincing victory, he fished long pole and maggot over groundbait. Christopher drew peg 1 and had a similar catch also on the pole, Kier ,our youngest member took third on whip tactics.Several larger perch,bream and hybrids showed on feeder tactics on the middle pegs but not enough to trouble the end pegs.
