I have been visiting Stafford Moor for over forty years collecting a wealth of memories from its banks. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the fishery was one of the top Stillwater trout fisheries in the country. When I first fished there the lake was owned by Andrew Joynson and managed by Gordon Eveleigh. The lake was well stocked with rainbow trout and brown trout to over 10lb . I well remember tempting a rainbow of 12lb from the lake which is now Beatties. The fishery was extended in the eighties with the higher lake excavated to offer more scope for the trout anglers.
In 2001 the fishery started a new chapter when it was bought by Andy Seery who transformed the lakes into an outstanding coarse fishery offering superb match and coarse fishing.
Today Stafford Moor is owned by the Coombes Family who have invested much time and energy and money into the fishery ensuring it remains one of the country’s top match and specimen venues with luxury Canadian style lodges.
I had been intending to pay a return visit to target the venues carp for some time and arranged a visit in early May. Joanne Coombes and her daughter Millie offered a warm and cheery greeting as I walked into the shop to purchase some bait and bits for my trip on Lodge Lake. The shop is extremely well stocked with bait and tackle for both match and specimen anglers. The shop also has fresh milk, bread and snacks.
I was very impressed with the clean and well maintained onsite facilities that include toilets and showers for anglers to use.
I parked up in the Lodge Lake car park and had a scout around to choose a swim to occupy for the next 24 hours. Fortunately, I had several to choose from and settled for the Big Island Swim. With a gentle breeze blowing into the corner and the odd fish showing I felt confident that this would produce.
I loaded the barrow and wheeled my ridiculous mountain of gear to the swim. First job was to have a cast around with a lead and float to find the depth and potential features. The Island directly out in front was an obvious point of interest and I decided that I would put a bait on each end of the island fishing a third bait out into the clear water to my right.
On the left of the island, I found around three foot of water close in with around five foot to the right side. I carefully measured the distance to my chosen spots and spodded out a mixture of pellets and broken boilies.
I then cast out my baits into each of the chosen spots and set about erecting the bivvy as ominous rainclouds started to build. With the bivvy set up and tackle sort of tidy I put out a few more boilies with a throwing stick. The middle rod was suddenly away the indicator screaming its warning! I lifted the rod to feel a momentary heavy weight. Sadly, the fish came off within seconds and I cursed my luck. Encouraged I hoped this wouldn’t be my only chance of the session.
The swims are well laid out with a gravel base ensuring you do not end up fishing amidst a sea of mud. I put the kettle on and made a fresh brew of coffee sitting back on the bed chair to savour the tranquil surroundings.
When I first fished this lake for trout close to forty years ago there was only sparse vegetation with the banks showing the scars of recent excavation. Today the lakes have matured with the lush greenery of late spring all around. My mind drifted back over the years at the fishery and how it has matured into a haven for wildlife and a fantastic venue for anglers and their families.
Ominous rumbles of thunder came from nearby as the storm clouds gathered. Rain started to fall with intensity and I was glad of the bivvy’s sheltered interior. I love looking out across lakes as the lights and shades play upon the water. At times the rain pelted the surface with great intensity and I sort of dreaded a run for to leave the bivvy would result in a drenching.
I hadn’t expected any extensive rain with the met office forecasting 10% chance of showers! I looked that the rain radar and noted that the rain should eventually move away by late afternoon.
At around 6.00pm the rain did indeed stop and weak sunshine broke through the clouds. Surely the carp would come on the feed anytime soon. I cast out fresh baits and spodded a few more boilies
As darkness eventually descended I expected a run at any moment. I soaked up the atmosphere relishing the onset of darkness as owls hooted in the nearby trees. The occasional star could be glimpsed in breaks in the cloud. I snuggled into the sleeping bag ever hopeful that a screaming alarm would wake me from my slumbers.
A breeze picked up overnight and the occasional single bleep came from the bite alarms raising expectation as I woke sporadically during the dark hours.
The soft cool light of dawn brought with it a sense of disappointment. The confidence that is so vital was ebbing slowly away. I expected to see signs of life as the temperature climbed but all was still except for the ducks and robins that frequently visited my swim.
I reeled in the middle rod and checked the bait that was all good. I put on a fresh bait and topped up the bait in the swim with a few boilies and pellets. The other rods were left in place as I was confident that all would be present and correct with the baits.
I brewed a fresh coffee and sat back to survey the lake and analyse why I had failed to connect with any of the lake’s residents. It would have been interesting to know how other anglers on the complex had caught during the 24 hours I was present. I had a degree of confidence in my bait and rigs. The swim I had chosen seemed to be likely to hold carp with good features and a gentle breeze blowing into the corner.
Perhaps the heavy rain had resulted in a dramatic drop in water temperature suppressing the fish’s appetite? It was possible that the carp were preparing to spawn?
I compared notes with a good friend who told me that his mate was fishing a prolific water and had not had a run for 36 hours. So maybe the conditions were just not conducive for good fishing? Or was I just a bad angler?
I am not a regular carp fisher and fish very few longer overnight sessions. With many species of fish to target I am wary of the addictive nature of carp fishing. The desire to hear that bite alarm scream out and subsequent bending rod is a strong compulsion.
Non anglers struggle to comprehend the whole notion of spending days trying to catch a fish that is returned to the water. I have given up trying to explain or justify the obsession. There is certainly something rather special about carp fishing that attracts a huge number of devotees.
I am looking forward to my next visit to a carp lake when I will hopefully get it right and bank a fish or two.
Recent reports at Stafford Moor show some very impressive specimens with several carp of over 30lb banked.
(Below) Andy & Jack Burrett fished on swims 1 and 2 on Beatties lake and banked 43 fish including a new Common lake record ! ………….. a stunning 36lb 3oz common.
( Below) Ben Smith banked 7 fish out up to 31lb 12oz from the inlet swim on Beatties lake , Ben used pva bags with pellet and 12mm pink wafters.
I called into the shop after packing away having to admit to Jo that I had blanked on what is one of Devon’s most prolific carp waters. I joked that I was able to blank and still leave with a smile. The fishery owner’s life is certainly not easy as Jo quipped that she could write a book on the strange comments made by visiting anglers. “ How many fish can I expect to catch in a 24 hour session?”. Or “I am off now; I have been fishing for nearly three hours and caught too many fish! Meeting the needs of anglers is certainly a challenge.
My own impression of Stafford Moor is that of a very well run fishery that offers the chance to catch some superb specimens. Next time I intend to put things right!
Peter Tancock banked this superb 13lb bream from Lower Tamar Lake.
I joined fellow members of Combe Martin SAC on a trip in search of grey mullet in Portishead Marina following reports of some good fish being tempted from the complex. Unlike many marinas it seemed that angling was permitted and even encouraged. Hopefully this state of affairs will continue providing those who use the area respect other users and leave no litter.
The trip had been planned at the turn of the year with timings based upon knowledge gleaned from fellow anglers and members of the National Mullet Club. Stories of mullet to over 7lb certainly inspired. Though I think it fair to say we all knew that hopes and reality are often far apart.
It seemed that fortune was on our side with the Met office forecasting warm sunshine, temperatures up to 20 degrees and light winds. We met up in Barnstaple at 6:30am and loaded the gear into Nicks truck. Dan and his son Solly would meet us at the venue. It was a little overcast and chill in the morning air but by 10:00 the sun would burn through the clouds and we would bathe in the warmth of the late spring sunshine!
Two hours later after a smooth and uneventful journey discussing the trials and tribulations of life and those fishing trips of past and future we stepped out into the bitter chill of reality. A bitter cold North East Wind was sweeping down through the marina making us all ponder upon our gullibility in actually believing the promise of warm sunshine!
We were in contact with Andrew Burt of the National Mullet Club and were grateful for his offer of expertise and venue knowledge. Especially for his tips on where to find a good full English at a reasonable price. ( Ocean Café Port Marina Portishead).
The marina is in fact a large venue with plenty of water to explore and by the end of the day we had managed a couple of laps. We found a relatively sheltered corner to start proceedings and set up with both float and quivertip rods. The nearby Costa offered access to a toilet at the cost of a coffee.
There were several anglers fishing around the marina and it seemed that most were targeting bass and flounder. We witnessed a decent sized flounder requiring a landing net within the first hour.
The water within the marina is surprisingly clear considering it is fed from the turbid waters of the Upper Bristol Channel. When the lock gates were operated it was clear to see the murky influx of water that flooded in.
The first couple of hours proved uneventful and rather chilly. That full English seemed ever tempting and at 10:30 we headed for the café and joined Andy Burt and his mate from the NMC.
Fully nourished after breakfast and banter we headed back to the water’s edge to try our luck. Dan and Solly had found a few mullet and were getting regular bites with Dan landing a good fish of around 3lb along with a smaller fish. John Avery, John Shapland, Nick Phillips and myself wondered around the marina trying different promising looking spots.
I missed a good bite on the float and had a few indications on the quiver tip. Slowly the mist burnt away and that warm sunshine beamed down from a brilliant blue sky. The marina abounded with life as dogwalkers, joggers and strollers went about their day. Luxury yachts cruised in and out and it was apparent that the area enjoys a degree of affluence. Waterside bars, restaurants and coffee shops certainly seemed to be buzzing with life.
Our piscatorial adventure was not however living up to expectations and our hopes of specimen mullet began to fade. Though in fairness connection with just one fish could have totally changed that.
Mid afternoon my quiver tip plunged over and I made contact with a powerful fish. The plunging on the rod didn’t really feel mullet like but with mullet on the mind that is what I expected to see. Instead of the expected mullet a large eel appeared writhing on the surface to be safely scooped up into the net. At around 2lb the slimy creature highlighted the surprises that reside within these urban waters.
It would certainly be well worth exploring the venue with LRF tactics as I am sure it holds a few surprises in addition to the bass, pollock, flounder and mullet.
By late afternoon we had all had enough and with a two hour journey home we waved goodbye to Andy Burt and his mate as they float fished from their boat using their knowledge of the venue to build a catch of small bass and mullet.
I feel sure we will return to the venue again later in the year for that connection with an outsize urban mullet.
One of my favourite reference books, The Urban Dictionary, finds entomology rather dull and swotty. It comes close to apologising for any guilty pleasure that might be found in creepy crawlies. The entry reads: “Entomology – Noun – The scientific word for the study of insects. It’s bug research pretty much. I enjoy studying entomology. Really.”
This, by the profane standards of the Urban Dictionary, is remarkably demure language (if you don’t know the Urban Dictionary, look it up online – it’s fun, for a while). If I were a swotty entomologist I would expect the Dictionary to be obscenely hostile. But all is not what it seems. Entomologists have hidden qualities.
If you do a little digital digging, you’ll find that amidst the Dictionary’s aggressive smut, the swots and entomologists are an unexpectedly feisty bunch who give as good as they get.
For example, here are a couple of the Dictionary’s more printable definitions of “swot”. The first, appropriately, is written by a swot and it’s a zinger:
1) “Swot – noun – A word used by morons to insult a person of superior academic abilities. Morons believe being called a swot is a horrible, undesirable humiliation for the victim. Well, the morons can fuck-off now!”
The morons’ counter-view lacks flair and basic literacy, as our swot would have told us (if only we’d asked):
2) “Swot – noun – A swot is a person who excels in a subject or lesson, who never gets anythink wrong and is teachers pet.”
Although I rarely did well in exams and was teacher’s pet hate, I like the first definition. I’m sure you’ll agree that a swotty entomologist of the kind who tells the dullards to F-off sounds like good company. And I especially like the added emphasis of the Now! An extra flourish added just in case the first 2 words weren’t enough.
So, game on: Saturday night’s alright for fighting – and I’m with the entomologist. BUT, and it’s a big one, fists and fishing don’t always mix well on the bank. So what are these swotty, foul-mouthed fly fetishists for when we’re out there casting a line?
I’m going to declare an interest here. As an intellectually indolent teenager with a serious fly-fishing habit, I didn’t have much truck with entomology.
Instead, all my effort went into dropping a dry fly of indeterminant type on the nose of a rising trout that I could see. Presentation was everything and entomology was for grown-ups. Nothing much has changed since.
So as you can see, an entomologist might be someone I’d rather rub shoulders with after fishing. Why would I want to be on the bank with a new partner who calls me a moron and tells me to F-off just because my philistine ineptitude is a denial of their faith (and everything)? However, I think I will have to swallow my pride …. while I still won’t pay any attention to fly catalogues, I’m fascinated by entomologists and would like to go fishing with one. Really – and regularly.
Back in the day, my fantasy choice of fishing partner would have been Hunter S Thompson, author of the lost masterpiece Fear and Loathing on a Trout Stream (a frantic tale of sex, drugs and the evening rise). Thompson was a roiling bundle of provocation, and so is our entomologist. Like Thompson, he or she is happy to say F-off to anyone found to be insufferable. In Thompson’s case that was almost everyone he met, especially if the resulting brouhaha made good copy. I like to think my new entomologist friend could do this too, but more selectively. And, fingers crossed, that this would happen with less reliance on the fabulous intake of drink and drugs that kept Thompson in fighting shape. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to go the full Hunter-S, so absent the great man himself, the entomologist sounds promising.
This is important because every-so-often life washes up people who deserve to be told to F-off now, and I’ll admit I’m not very good at confrontation. So hanging out with an attack entomologist might be useful. Not only can my new friend speak ill unto evil but, most importantly of all, he or she also knows exactly to whom and why it needs saying. And that is why entomology really, really matters. Even to a slouch like me.
It also means that I can be sure that if the entomologist really does do a Thompson and gets us into a fight, then it will be with someone who deserves the beating. And I’m hoping the entomologist will be better with their fists than me, because we’ll be in trouble if they’re not.
But there’s more to entomologists than bare-knuckle jeopardy. They’re a clever and well-educated bunch of people, usually with some paperwork to prove it. So, if you want to know about the impacts of sewage, climate change, industry or farming on a river, just ask an entomologist. And if you also want hard evidence to save your river from any of this, then you know who to turn to. I cannot stress enough how important, how essential and wonderful even the foulest-mouthed entomologists are. We should all honk-for-entomology. I want to see Hug-an-Entomologist t-shirts and Fuck-off Now! coffee mugs (this last item for Christmas presents please).
So forget matching the hatch – I’m never going to do it. But I will dabble in citizen science and count insects to give our pugnacious entomologist the data needed to take down polluters. And if that’s what entomology is for, and it sure looks like it is, then I’m a fan.
I’m also a fan because this is about more than science. Language matters and in this case it’s direct and Anglo-Saxon, the building blocks of good writing. So the Urban Dictionary is right: The morons who wreck rivers really do need to ‘F-off Now’, and they have to do it before it’s too late.
Until about 20 years ago river water quality in my part of the world, Britain and Ireland, was fitfully improving. Now we have a rolling ecological disaster and it’s getting worse. Much worse.
This isn’t a problem peculiar to a small part of North-West Europe. It’s happening just about everywhere people go fishing. So whether it’s raw sewage or farm slurry or some stinking factory or the over-heating redds that my new friend the entomologist identifies as the wrecking ball, then I’m with them on the barricades, bandana askew, Che t-shirt rescued from the attic and two fingers aloft.
They can all Fuck-off Now!
The River Bray flowed through the heart of a peaceful valley in early May with new born lambs frolicking on the riverside fields with bluebells and wild garlic abundant. As I drove to the river I tuned into Radio 4 with commentary of the Coronation of King Charles taking place in London. The pageantry and splendour was described in great detail and I was content that my wife Pauline would be relishing the spectacle in front of the TV at home.
The call of the river is strong and after several fruitless visits to the Lower rivers searching for silver I relished a sortie with lighter tackle in search of wild browns.
I parked the car and pulled on my waders, heading to the river with my 3 weight Snowbee https://www.snowbee.co.uk/fly-fishing/rods/snowbee-classic-fly-rod-3-4-4-piece-7.html
I tied a big bushy dry fly to a short dropper https://www.nigelnunnflies.com beneath this on the tip I tied a small copper John nymph.
The river had a tinge of colour following heavy overnight rain and I hoped this would make the fish a little less easily spooked as the river here is often crystal clear with the trout scattering in all directions as a clumsy angler like myself approaches the water.
I flicked the duo of flies into the streamy water. The dry fly bobbed under on the second drift and a tiny brown trout was swung from the water. I admired its beauty and shook it from the tiny barbless hook into the water without touching it.
I was soon totally absorbed in the tranquillity of the river valley totally focussed on the dry fly as it drifted down after each searching upstream cast.
I came to a deep pool and carefully flicked out the flies whilst knelt behind a tree stump. Moments after the flies alighted a good sized trout appeared from the deep water to seize the dry fly. I lifted the rod and made contact with the trout that took off downstream with power that surprised me. It soon became apparent that the fish was hooked in the tail. I had missed the fish as it took the dry, foul hooking it in the tail with the nymph. So, this fish really didn’t count despite it going for the fly and giving a great scrap in the fast water.
I waded on up river searching likely runs and tempting a couple of tiny trout with one or two other better fish throwing the hook.
A tumbling trout stream in late Spring is a pure delight as bird song reverberates all around and the lush green of spring abounds.
I prefer to search the faster deeper runs at the heads of the pools and it was here that I found the better trout. The dry fly disappearing as a fish intercepted the tiny nymph below.
The rod took on a healthy curve and the trout erupted from the river gyrating airborne above the water in one of those moments that are etched in the minds eye forever. I admired the pristine wild brown that was close to 12” before releasing it back into its home.
Fifty yards or so further up river I added another beautiful trout to the mornings tally its bejewelled flanks far superior to any created for his majesties far away in London.
I returned home in time to watch the Royal event culminate in the traditional gathering upon the balcony. As I watched the thousands cheer in celebration I reflected upon the jewels I had witnessed that morning beside a tumbling stream in the heart of a peaceful valley.
Later in the day we headed to Lynmouth to watch the Coronation Day parade of boats. Shanty singers, boats and flares brought cheer and smiles.
At the top of the tide huge numbers of mullet could be seen their sides flashing as they browsed on the rocks as mullet do. With big mullet abundant I couldn’t resist returning the following evening to find lots of tiny mullet and an absence of bigger fish. Every tide is different I guess and mullet always appear as if they would be easy to catch when you have left the rod at home.
Reece Woolgar has extended his lead in Combe Martin SAC’s Lure fishing league catching his second bass of 59cm. Giving him a total of 116cm for two bass. The league winner is the one with the best length for three bass. The competition is sponsored by HIgh Street Tackle Ilfracombe and is free to club members.
At the end of June HIgh Street Tackle are hosting an Open lure fishing competition in conjunction with CMSAC. Further details to be announced soon. See poster below and comment from Danny Watson.
