Sick of the F1 carp, the bagging, the bragging and the downright stupidity of man-made commercial fishing venues?

Have a crack at fishing a big river...It won't be easy...But it will be fun!

PART 1

Do not take anything for granted…No time for Apathy

Join the Angling Trust

On my last two day session I caught over 60 barbel and a shed load of bream for a truly massive weight of fish, I knew where the fish would be, I knew what the fish would take, I knew what tackle I would need to accomplish my plan. I bagged up. Big time.

Well whoopy-doo to me!

Not much more than a week after I had made that catch on a very low and clear Trent it began to rain, I looked up at the clouds and thought “Yes…About time we had a bit of a flush through!” but I also tempered that thought by adding “Just not too much at once as the drains will be chocka-block with all manner of rubbish”

Talk about prophetic!

I awoke to a text message from Andy Fieldhouse who was fishing on the River Wye and bagging up; the message simply read “What do you know about the fish kill on the Trent?”

By the time the computer had been powered up and I had logged into BBC News I had received more text messages and my stomach was starting to knot up…This was sounding very ominous indeed.

And it was…Not only had the upper Trent received a massive dose of cyanide that had wiped out around thirty miles of river, it was also in the process of getting a large plug of untreated sewage to boot as a kind of sick chaser…

I was in total shock, I felt sick to my stomach. My fist thought was, how the hell does cyanide manage to find its way into our water treatment system?

Quite easily it seems by the looks of it! Somebody thought that it would be ok to throw it down the drain… but why would anyone be so stupid?

Money.

Money and profit.

We have a situation in this country where polluters are given an economic incentive to pollute and destroy at will; the companies involved can offset the consequences of a court appearance against the overall profit they will make by blatantly and deliberately polluting our environment.

Well I personally have had enough of it; it disgusts me that we hold our environment in such low regards as to tolerate anyone deliberately disposing of such lethal chemicals as cyanide in such a blasé manner.

How is it, that in a so called modern world we allow such wanton destruction?

Is money and profit really that important?

What if people had been killed by the cyanide? Would the directors of the company responsible be charged with manslaughter or criminal gross negligence?

I would hope so…But people were not killed, fish were and as we know fish are neither furry funny, feathered or financially important to the majority of people. Imagine the public outcry if lots of fluffy white rabbits with huge floppy lop ears and big sad eyes lay dead on the edges of the river?

People would be outraged and marching on Whitehall with flaming torches and pitchforks demanding action. But no action of that kind has been taken and this whole thing will get brushed under the carpet with the least amount of fuss…It was just fish after all!

Just fish…but the fish are part of a complex river ecosystem…What will now happen to the kingfishers the Herons, the Egrets, The Oyster Catchers?

I can see the RSPB taking a very serious line on this and when they move they move like a well greased killing machine. I imagine that if the pollution had been on one of their major bird watching sites as this has been on one of our major fishing venues there would be lobbyists and lawyers galore crawling over every inch of those involved!

Well enough is enough, it is time that we fishermen got our heads from out of our backsides and started making a bigger noise than we do, its time to start punching our weight otherwise we are finished. We can forget about the factional differences and such likes as our rivers will be devoid of anything higher than microbes and tubeworms! Otters will be irrelevant, Cormorants won’t matter, Salmon runs will not get out of the blocks and the closed season won’t even have bothered opening!

When we allow the directors of a company to discharge cyanide without fear of anything more than a few percent shaved off the overall fiscal profits for the year which basically equates to them not having Dom Perignon but Moet et Chandon at the end of year party something is very, very wrong!

Custodial sentencing needs to be applied for gross negligence and fines need to be terrifyingly high. The disposal of dangerous chemical waste is a serious matter and therefore needs to be monitored 24/7/365.25 days of the year.

And you lot can play your part by supporting the Angling trust, get your hands in your pockets and join up.

Don’t think about it just do it!

I know twenty quid in this current financial situation is a fair whack of money but the consequences of the Angling trust failing through lack of support is beyond imagination. We would have no protection whatsoever.

Give them a ring today 08447700616 or visit their website www.anglingtrust.net

It makes sense.

 It's that time of year again when the temprature is dropping but it isn't so low as to warrant putting the barbel rods away and picking up on the pike, chub, roach , perch or grayling just yet.

( isn't it amazing when you look at it like that...The all-rounder always has something to aim for!)

This week I was fishing a low and cold River Trent near Newark ( Not Collingham either ), the river was up maybe ten inches and holding just the faintest hint of colour.

There were a few anglers on the opposite bank who were banging in bait left right and centre with catapults...Noobs!

You cannot feed onto the bottom of a large river with any degree of accuracy with a catapult...All you will do is spread a load of expensive bait everywhere but where you want it!

And the fish will get spread out as the search for it...And when they find it they will soon get full up if they start munching on big pellets and boillies.

Did they catch?

No.

Did I catch?

Yes!

What did I do different?

I used Mole hill!

Yes, thats right mole hill soil...4 parts mole hill to one part micro pellet with the addition of Teme Severn Barbel pro and Cornsteeping Liquor. This created an extremly high attract low feed ground bait and my single Teme Severn Crustacean pellet as hookbait was snaffled by a nice fish of around 6lb.

I did not stay too long after I had caught the fish...The job was done!

The night was beginning to draw in and more rain threatened.

So there it is folks if you want to catch in the cold think about what you are doing...Increase the attraction but decrease the food value and most important keep everything tight!

 It had been raining on and off all week and so it came as no supprise that the river level was some three feet ( 1 metre) above normal. Unfortunatly there was still a lot of rubbish being washed down with the flow which really hampered fishing.

I chose a known flood peg ( The inside of a bend over heavy gravel ) that gave me the chance to fish onto a good crease with 6-8 feet of water moving at a steady waling pace.

My groundbait if that what it is best described as consisted of molehill and corn steeping liquor with the addition of some maggots and micro-pellet.

Action was far slower than expected but I put this down to the amount of rubbish that was accumulating on my line. Ten minutes was all I could manage at a time before my leads ( 4 oz  Paul Fisk swim feeders...I call everything with lead on leads )were dragged out of position.

I swapped them for 8oz feeders and this was far better.

Hookbaits were rotated until I tried a thin slice of lamprey which resulted in an imediate take from a large school barbel of maybe 6lb.

2 fish in 2 sessions from rivers in bad moods...Not bad results!

I had one more bite which threatened to tear the rod out of the alarm but no hook-up was forthcoming.

The zander rod which I had high hopes for remained utterly still...A big disapointment

Next week I will be targeting the upper river ...Fingers crossed :O)