If you're wondering why on earth I've started this blog with the declaration above, do not despair. It's simply taken from yet another bile-inducing, brain-crushingly tedious women's magazine or, more accurately, 'celeb gossip flick'. This one's entitled "Look!" and contains the usual inane, puerile garbage that one associates with magazines of this ilk. The sickening aspect of them, however, is their undisputed sales success, hence the reason that there seems to be a new one launched every day. Luckily I've copyrighted the following titles: "Ha!", "Buy This You Dribbling Retards!" and "More Of The Same Shite That You Are Going To Buy Anyway, But With A Different 'Celebrity' On The Cover And 10p Cheaper Than Hello!". So all is not lost.

Before I continue, I must add that the only reason I happened to be reading this particular magazine was due to its proximity to the vending machine in the office within which I work. One of my female colleagues brings them in when she's finished 'reading' them. She is evidently addicted to buying them and, believe me, she buys them all. Every goddamn one of the bastards - regardless of whether they're all showing the same photographs and brandishing identical 'news swoops'. This particular one caught my eye as I was waiting for my tea to emerge from the afore-mentioned machine. It really irked me, as you can probably tell. Anyway... I ought to digress and start discussing fishing, before I lose the plot completely.

To date (since the age of eight), I have fished only for carp, my 'personal best' weighing just over 25lb, however my recent capture of a wels catfish means that there's more than a slight possibility that I will fish future sessions with these in mind. Well, that's a lie. I will definitely fish future sessions with them in mind, such was the fight of the fish. I'll reveal more about this later.

The aim of this blog is to provide me with a concrete slab on to which I can etch my thoughts, report captures and, hopefully, provide some form of entertainment for anybody who chooses to read it. One thing's for certain: there'll be no 'celeb gossip' on these pages -- there'll be more chance of "Jordan Getting A Brain!" than that being the case. You have my cast-iron guarantee.

I bet a lot of people who post on here read those magazines Zygote. One of them actually had an article by Peter Andre on spodding done at Burghfield.

That's certainly a shudder-inducing thought lancj1.

Recent Activity.

Gone are the days when I would wake up at 4am to the sound of my alarm clock, bleary-eyed and reeking of cheap (£1 a pint to be precise) lager from the previous night's 'student night' in Ashton, hurriedly pack my fishing gear and stagger to my then-nearest carp fishing haunt, the Bulls Head reservoir, to hopefully eek out a few carp before college. These short sessions were usually followed by me struggling to stay awake during afternoon lessons as a result of both fatigue and, more specifically, a crippling hangover.

It was well worth the effort, for those early days spent fishing on the Bulls Head were the happiest of my life thus far. A large chunk of the many carp I've landed over the years (including my 'personal best') came from that reservoir and I learned myriad lessons in carp fishing through trial-and-error and learning from the more experienced carp anglers that fished there.

I recall an extremely embarrassing incident, which still makes me smile today. It was during one of my pre-college sessions and I had set up in what I had discovered to be a 'hot swim' (near the underwater pipe in the far right corner of the reservoir, a couple of rod lengths out from the overhanging tree, just in case anybody reading this has fished the Bulls Head in the past!). The downside, however, was that you literally had to sit next to your rods due to the nearby snags. This led to a rather cramped situation, especially bearing in mind the limited space on the 'peg' and the rather steep drop-off that lay in wait for anything that plunged into the water below.

Suffice to say, I didn't sleep much the previous night ('student night' in Ashton strikes again) and was particularly exhausted once I'd positioned my baits and switched on my Bitech Vipers. After a few moments sitting 'comfortably' in my sexy blue and white deckchair, I slipped into a surprisingly deep sleep. The only thing that I recall next, was hearing the deafening sound of my alarm clock, leading to a shell-shocked leap into the air. Unfortunately, as I felt a distinct coldness coarsing up my legs, I quickly realised that I was in the reservoir, sliding gradually down the cobbled shelf, towards the pipe. I glanced up, whilst 'treadwalking' my way back to land and noticed, in Blurr-O-Vision, one of my rod tips bobbing up and down like the head of a pubescent schoolboy on a bus, listening to drum 'n' bass on his I-Pod. This was married with the screeching of one of my spools and the incessant drone emitting from one of the Vipers.

After eventually hauling myself out of the water, heart pounding like a hammer, I grabbed one of the rods in an attempt to halt the now-distant carp. I struck -- nothing! The lead and its accompanying rig crashed into my drenched body. A split second later I realised that I had struck the wrong rod. Noting my error, whilst inwardly cursing my ineptitude, I grabbed hastily for the rod that the carp was actually connected to. In a nutshell: I finally landed the fish - a double figure mirror. It was then that I spotted the binoculars on the far bank. Somebody had witnessed the ordeal, which is a rather fitting end to events. Oh happy days.

Next time: Recent Activity.

Nice writing, Zygote.
Interesting and funny on that last post.
Keep them coming.


It's a pleasant change to see writing that doesn't need proof reading and changing first. QUALITY SHOWS.

Thanks for the kind words THE-MANAGER. I've always enjoyed writing, especially about subjects close to my heart, like fishing. Funnily enough, my chosen career path as a schoolchild was journalism, but barring a period writing articles for the now-defunct Carp News and Angling Techniques, which later became Catchmore Carp, my failure to gain access to journalism school thanks to my "lack of political knowledge" (a portfolio of carp fishing articles, along with a handful of local newspaper cuttings that I appeared in, to my mind was surely enough to cement a place on their course for such an enthusiastic, bright-eyed young man!) my career path to date demonstrates a rather 'zig-zagged' effect. I flirted with stockbroking for the majority of my 'twenties', before a brief period as a recruitment consultant, interspersed with some betting shop management, finishing where I am currently: in private medical insurance. But, anyway. I might write a book one day. Nobody will want it*, but at least I could take it to bed each night with me and snuggle up, secure in the knowledge that it was mine. Ha! *bangs fist down triumphantly* Ouch.

*Well, I could always resort to masking the words with 'exclusive' photographs of the latest Big Brother winner taking a dump on their ex-boyfriend whilst gagging on a half-chewed pizza, ripped to the tits on GHB, and write next to it: "Look! They're even crazier than we are!" But I'll probably put that one on the backburner.

Recent Activity (Well... Thursday night, to be precise.)



Thursday at work was extremely similar to Wednesday. Tuesday too. Oh, and I forgot to mention Monday. Along with every other day since I caught the catfish mentioned above. The similarity I speak of is one of spending every available spare moment at work on Google, in an attempt to uncover the 'secrets' of catfishing. If the I.T. department decided to investigate my search criteria on the Google website, they would uncover such delights as: "breeding lobworms", "lobworm food", "rig lobworm catfish", "pop-up worm cat", "small child catfish eat" and so on. I suspect that the Human Resources department might then have a few questions to present me with.

Come 3pm, I was completely and utterly 'Googled-out'. There was nothing more that the worldwide web could offer me in terms of new catfish information. I had caught the previous catfish on two juicy lobworms, impaled mercilessly on a size 2 Drennan Super Specialist hook, with a tiny section of elastic band pushed on to secure the gyrating medley in place. 20lb Amnesia hooklink. Free running leads. I would simply use the same set-up again for this very short evening session. My estimated time of arrival at the venue would be somewhere in the region of 6-30pm, leaving me with just a few hours' fishing time. Better than none at all, mind.

My computer clock signalled 17:00 and I hurried to my car to commence battle with the rush-hour traffic. Always a joy. I made it back home in the usual half an hour and started packing my equipment into the car, grabbing a tupperware box of pasta that I'd made the previous night. With the gear prepared, I grabbed my makeshift spade (a spoon) and started rooting around outside for lobworms. It had been raining steadily all afternoon, so the task had been made easier, or so I thought. I live in a flat currently, which has a 'communal garden' and in recent weeks I have been trying to create an area that would attract lobworms en-masse. Basically, I had applied drenched newspaper and shifted a few concrete slabs to an area near some collapsed bushes and watered it daily. This, I believed, would do the trick.

I excitedly approached the baited area, tub and 'spade' in hand and turned over the stones to reveal... diddly squat. Well, not in a worm sense that is. There were myriad other wiggling creatures in abundance, but the worms were nowhere to be seen. Cue: prancing around the garden, turning over any objects lay on the ground, crawling under bushes, digging at random points in the soil; anywhere that looked 'wormy'. It must have been a fairly interesting spectacle for any onlooking diners that were tucking into their evening meals, but, as fishermen, we have to do these things if we are to succeed in landing our target species. Or so I kept telling myself.

It wasn't long before I found some lobworms. They had been hiding underneath an old, rotten door that somebody had kindly left alongside the 'wheelie' bins at the front of the flats. Like a child in a sweetshop I grabbed the now-exposed beauties and prevented any of the more adventurous worms from escape in a daring, wheelie-bin-side raid. I had emerged the victor. Ha!

Now, on to the fishing. I arrived at the lake to find it empty. Good start. With the rain easing and the sun starting to dominate, I gathered my gear and walked hurriedly to a swim that I'd noticed the ducks making particularly hasty retreats from in my previous visit. There's an island about 30 yards in front of you and a wealth of gnarly snags to your right - about 20 yards to the right of the island. Having experienced the catfish's incredible strength on my last visit, I elected to avoid fishing tight to the snags and cast my first wriggling mass of worms just short of the island, so a good 20 yards clear of the menacing snags. The second bait was flicked to the left of the island, just beyond it. The slack lines were then attached to my homemade monkey climbers, which consist of two chopsticks that I 'borrowed' from my girlfriend (they were a gift to her, but I promised I'd take good care of them...) and two wine bottle tops with holes punctured into them. I would normally use standard carp indicators, but as I wanted to create no resistance whatsoever, this ultra-fine set-up was employed. I haven't the time for any dropped baits!

With the traps set, I sat back in my chair and took in the scenery; the sounds of nature easing the mind-strain of another day in the office. Immediately, a bleep on the right-hand Delkim, followed by the bottle top twitching upwards. A blasted tiddler playing tug-o-war with my lovely worms, I mused. Another twitch. Then nothing. By this time, my stomach had started to remind me that it hadn't been blessed with food since lunchtime, so I dug out my tub of pasta from the rucksack.

Three mouthfuls later, another bleep. The tub was slowly lowered to the ground as I awaited further developments. Nothing. So, back to the pasta. I decided that I'd simply wolf it all down and be done with hunger for the night, when- BLEEEEP! The bottle top shot up as if it had been summoned by God himself. Pasta thrown to the muddy ground. Rod lifted upwards. The catfish actually lifted from the water as I struck, before launching into an unstoppable run towards the snags. I gave the fish no line whatsoever, the two and three quarter-pound Dictator bent double, the 12lb line whistling in the very soft wind. I plunged the rod below the surface in a desperate attempt to turn the fish away from the snags but felt the inevitable grinding that one associates with the fish reaching its desired location. Snagged. I felt sick in the stomach, as I'd witnessed the size of the fish when it rose from the water before its initial run, and it was certainly bigger than the previous catfish. Not a '20', but it would've set a personal benchmark. I'm funny like that.

So, after several further attempts to dislodge the fish, I placed the rod back down into the rests, sat down and rolled myself a cigarette, still shocked from what had just occurred. A couple of locals had appeared, probably after hearing the alarm, and were offering the usual condolences: "I bet you've been waiting all day for that-" then the helpful: "There's some big catfish in 'ere.." followed by sorrowful shakes of the head and tales of fish they've caught recently, during which you don't hear a single word they've uttered and are re-playing the entire fight through in your head again: If only I'd not been eating when I got the take, then I'd have gained an extra second to prevent the fish from reaching the snags... I should have exerted more pressure as there's no way you're going to get snapped on this tackle -- you could land bleeding SHARKS on this gear! And so on.

Eventually, after further tugs at what I was now convinced to be just the tree root into which my hook had been left, I decided to pull for a break and get another bait out before it was time to head off home. I pulled with all my might, and it's a testament to the strength of my knots that the line just wouldn't snap! The line was now whistling in defiance. I then heard a crash and saw that the catfish was still attached. Feeling a wave of euphoria, I then reverted back to 'battle mode'. I tried turning the line this-way-and-that, before I felt the wonderful 'plunk' as I felt the line become free of the snag and the relieving pull of the fish again. The show was not over! It was at this point that the line snapped.

On reflection, the line must have been worn down to virtually match-fishing proportions after its continued exposure to those snags, and for it to finally give way isn't surprising. I begrudgingly re-baited and sat out the remaining two hours in silence, before returning home to a few glasses of wine and, to my elation, a catfish special on the television programme Predators.

I'll Be Back!

Excellent stuff, very enjoyable reading

I can fully understand your new found enthusiasm for the cats, I went through it a few years back, but in France - link to article

awesome fighting machines

Thanks Mark. Read your article -- excellent result! Hopefully I'll experience cats of that size at some point in the future...

Hmmm. I am looking out of the office window and it is absolutely pissing it down. This always seems to occur when I plan a short session after work. Like today. Not that I will be defeated by this tedious and predictable downpour. I will still leave the warmth of my flat this evening and, in all probability, spend the remaining daylight hours assisting the ground in its quest to absorb as much of this gushing rain as is physically possible. I think the part that really annoys me is having to set up in the rain - every little task seems that little bit more fiddly, especially if you're planning on using PVA bags, like I am tonight. Or maybe I just get 'the blues' when it rains. That's quite a strong possibility, I suspect.

Anyway. I'm going to perform a back-flip now; to a couple of Sundays ago when I caught my first catfish. If I discuss this, it's highly likely that I won't give a toss about the rain when I've finished.

On the Friday preceding Catfish Sunday, I had booked the day off work and elected to visit a tiny, rather pretty venue called Crook Hall Farm or something-or-other. I understood that the water was oozing with carp; predominantly at the smaller end of the scale, but with the added lure of a few 'known twenties' to have a stab at. The weather on Friday was particularly hot and I managed to catch a number of small carp from the surface, using good old-fashioned crust. In a nutshell: it was a very enjoyable, relaxing day and a pleasant change catching lively little carp on light tackle. One common in particular - which couldn't have made 6lb - nearly 'did me' by whizzing itself around a pole that was sticking out of the water near some lily pads. But we won't talk about that!

Instead, I'll discuss Sunday's events. The scorching weather had continued throughout the weekend and my highly effective 'sales skills' had convinced my girlfriend that "a lovely afternoon's sunbathing would be just the ticket before going back to dreary old work on Monday; especially if said sunbathing was to be conducted in the blissful surroundings of a glimmering, suntan-boosting lake!"

Destination: Debdale reservoirs. Quite why I decided that I would prefer to spend the afternoon fishing in the mysterious depths of Debdale, than go to a nice easy day-ticket water and bag up with carp, I do not know. Perhaps it was just that... the mystery. Over the years I've been party to many first-hand accounts of big fish dwelling in those deep, murky waters and instead of spending another afternoon simply catching small fish - fun as they are - I chose to forage for some juicy lobworms and simply ledger them at distance. Intended quarry: unspecified. Realistic objective: huge catfish. Unrealistic objective, yet not completely out of the question: clonking carp. Other: large specimen fish. As I saw it, I was playing an 'open game'.

Towels... check! Girlfriend's sun lounger... check! Girlfriend's latest book (the latest Dan Brown offering, I think)... check! Fishing equipment… check!

En route to Debdale, I felt obliged to explain to my girlfriend at great length how difficult a venue Debdale was, and that the capture of any fish would be a result. This is useful in order that your partner doesn’t view you as a ‘fishing failure’, but as an ambitious, thrill-seeking hunter that had the balls to stand toe-to-toe with such a sweeping, vast and extremely challenging area of water. Of course, only a very small part of this is true. The only other problem, I told her, was that the last time I walked around Debdale (about six months ago) the water level was stupendously low and finding a comfortable place to locate our bottoms might prove difficult unless the water level had been restored to its usual glory. Again, I inwardly cursed not recalling the desperate water level before we set off and by the time we were driving through Belle Vue, I was convinced that the water level wouldn’t have changed and that Debdale would be out of the question. But I didn’t know for certain, so there was still a glimmer of hope…

We arrived and the bricks, rocks, rusty cans of Diamond White, hypodermic needles and dried-out, used condoms greeted us in their time-decayed glory. The damn water level was the same as last time. Unperturbed, I unloaded my gear and set forth to find an area that we could relax in comfortably. Half an hour later, sweating and cursing, it was confirmed that there was nowhere reasonably comfortable for us to set up stall. My girlfriend, bless her, said we should just clamber down on to the rocks and just fling the baits out for as long as we could bear. Feeling guilty at ever having suggested wasting a sunny afternoon walking through overgrown brambles and nettles, sweating to death and generally achieving naff-all in the feel-good factor, I declined and tried to think of the nearest place we could go to that wouldn’t render our afternoon an utter waste of time and energy. That place, as it happened, was Reddish Vale.

I’d only ever fished the ‘Vale as a child and sporadically over the years that followed, with many double-figure carp to my name. There were rumours of bigger fish, but nothing concrete to focus one’s attention on. Regardless of this, the ‘Vale was, at least, somewhere we could retire for an afternoon’s lounging around and enjoying some peace and quiet. As is par for the course here, there were myriad walkers and families enjoying a nice stroll through the ‘country park’, but I was relieved to discover a fairly secluded spot which was facing some overhanging bushes that had grown on the wooden staging that splits the lake in half - an area that I’d caught from previously. Perfect. The lobworms were secured to the size 6 hooks and cast tight to the bushes, about 20 yards apart. Delkims switched on. Indicators set. Finally time to sit back and enjoy the afternoon sun.

Within ten minutes of the worms commencing their gradual, yet inevitable death, whilst in the middle of talking to my girlfriend and rolling a cigarette, the right hand Delkim sounded… and continued. The half-finished cigarette was plunged into my mouth and I pounced on the now-bobbing rod, connecting with a fish that evidently didn’t fancy sticking around. The rod lurched over and the fish, mocking my initial gut reaction that it was just a small ‘nuisance fish’, peeled off about 50 yards of line without reply. There was nothing I could do, but let it run. I recall trembling like a leaf and muttering, cigarette-in-mouth, to my girlfriend, “What the f*** is this? I didn’t realise there were any 20lb carp still in here!” as the fish continued relieving me of my line. Realising that I had probably been ‘shocked into action’, such was the immediacy of the take, I gave myself an imaginary slap in the face and started giving the fish some stick of my own. There wasn’t much choice really, because if the fish had continued its run, it would shortly be inside the Visitor Centre looking at children’s paintings and enquiring about local wildlife walks. Not a pretty proposition.

After an estimated thirty minutes of ‘battle’, I gradually drew the fish back to within touching distance. The tell-tale tail and whiskers confirmed my earlier suspicion that I had hooked my first Wels catfish and it was with much relief that my landing net finally enclosed the magnificently attractive fish. So attractive, in fact, that I gave it a nice kiss before releasing it back to the lake. Luckily, of the photographs that my girlfriend took of events, the kissing one didn’t make it through editing. Oh well. These things happen, as they say. The fish weighed in at exactly 12lb. Not a huge fish by any stretch of the imagination, but confirmation of my obsession with yet another incredible species of fish. If anybody wants to view the photographs that were taken during and after this capture, they can be seen on Reddish Vale’s website in the ‘Angling’ section. Please don’t laugh at my write-up as I didn’t realise that they’d be putting that on too. Quite embarrassing when I re-read it, but I can claim that I was being deliberately ‘cheesy’. You know, in a satirical sense and that.

http://www.reddishvale.moonfruit.com/

Interim, highly anti-climatic, excessively moist update.

As the title suggests, this week has been far from life-changing in the fish stakes. Or any other stakes for that matter. Excluding 'steak' steaks, one of which I thoroughly enjoyed on Tuesday night. Thus far, my week has yielded two blanks. However, the two sessions in question were extremely short, after-work affairs; the second of which was cut even shorter thanks to an incredible downpour of rain on Wednesday night, which I thought, at one point, was paving the way for a tidal wave of monumental proportions. Obviously it didn't, but the matter was not helped by the fact that I idiotically decided not to bring my fishing umbrella along with me, predominantly because the sun had been baking me in the office all day and continued to do so as I loaded my gear into the car. To trust current weather conditions to remain fairly consistent for just a few hours is, as we all know, extremely silly, but I did anyway.

One thing that did make me smile, before the sky hurled its boxers across the room and decided to tommy-gun me into the ground with piss stored up from a three day bender, was the way that all the ducks and geese on the lake started evacuating the lake at the slightest change in atmospheric pressure. I could clearly 'feel' the dampness in the air and their movements did provide adequate warning that the weather was about to perform an almost immediate 180-degree turn on me, which it did with such gusto as to render me completely at its mercy. The ducks and geese, which were now comfortably holed-up in their respective shelters, grabbing six-packs of beer from their fridges and making out with each other, began mocking me in unison. It was quite a sinister scenario. Needless to say, it was only a matter of an hour or so before I followed their lead and returned home for some creature comforts of my own. I intend to be back on the bank for greater periods this weekend. I cannot wait.

In other news: EXCLUSIVE! Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz went for a pizza! EXCLUSIVE!

Tactical Rethink.

Well… deep down I knew that this wouldn’t be plain sailing. I seriously expected to simply turn up and, provided the ‘hot’ swim was available, cast my irresistible worms into the vicinity of some very hungry catfish and force the inevitable error. Not so yesterday. Not a long session by any means, but twelve twitchless hours does lead somebody of my slightly paranoid and over-critical nature to sense niggling doubts about presentation. Yes, the weather has been far from perfect of late, swinging from one extreme to the next in a fashion not dissimilar to one that equity traders must experience in the moments preceding a stock market crash, but fishing on such a small venue, in a swim that oozes the sense of predators lying in wait, you (or should I say: “I”) expect some action, be it via a run, or merely the sight of fish crashing nearby. Barring myriad bream idling on the surface during sunny spells, there was no sign of any catfish working the swim. Being the sporadic, binge-feeders that they are, perhaps I was simply fishing for inactive fish, but you always live in hope of a ‘straggler’; a fish who simply cannot resist the temptation of a quick snack – rather like ourselves.

The first time I wound in the right-hand rod to check the status of my lobworms (after about three hours), I noticed a large amount of weed attached to the hook. Inside the weed were two of my lobworms (the third one appeared to have been getting a little too intimate with a vampire). The two worms in question were buried so deeply that they snapped in half when I attempted to ease them back out. This worried me slightly, but seeing as there wasn’t much weed around, coupled with the fact that this hadn’t happened previously, I concluded that I had simply cast into a slightly weedy area by misfortune and the worms, seeing the opportunity to go undercover for a while, seized the opportunity. Undeterred, I re-baited and cast out again, aiming a fraction to the left of the potential ‘weed spot’.

Recently, on my left-hand rod, I have been experimenting with different baits; ones that are easier to obtain than the sometimes-difficult-to-locate lobworm. Indeed, I am aware of companies such as Worm Direct, but when finances are tight one cannot afford such luxuries, therefore the perimeter of my flat just has to do! Thus far I’ve given halibut pellets a fair crack of the whip (well, I say “fair crack”, when in reality I’ve had some action on the worms, then hurriedly discarded the pellets like you would an undesirable ‘ex’, in favour of the mighty worm) and have been using luncheon meat to date. The meat from the tin has been cut into six hefty chunks then fried on each side to toughen. I have then added a dash of Worcestershire sauce and crumbled a fish stock cube onto the toughened meat, before refrigerating. With nothing to report on the left-hand rod to date, I intend to stick with the meat but try soaking it in amino acids first, then freezing it. The bait waiting next in line is mackerel strips. In fairness, it is likely that I’ll be chopping and changing constantly, but experience using as many baits as possible is the way forward, I believe. Anyway, back to worms.

The ‘undercover worms’ scenario continued for the remainder of what proved to be a blank session, although each time it occurred I began contemplating popping them up, which is probably what everybody reading this has been screaming and shouting at their screens since the beginning of this update! The reason that I soldiered on with bottom baits is, quite simply, because I feel more at ease as an angler when my baits are presented in as natural a manner as possible. I shudder at the thought of my quarry being presented with a tasty morsel, yet declining it due to the angler’s sheer clumsiness. Obviously, this is where my deep-rooted worries need to be addressed, as it is fairly common knowledge that even the most obscure-looking rigs do actually catch fish. My years of carp fishing have seen me, at times, employing the most bizarre-looking rigs; by which I refer to the ‘zig rig’ and other rigs based on the ‘pop-up’ theory. I feel that it is simply down to my naivety with catfish that this deep-rooted desire for a natural-looking bait is evident. However, in order to advance my thinking in this respect, I have to experiment further with my rigs if I’m to develop to the stage where I’m regularly catching big cats.

My ‘Master Plan’ for the next outing involves fishing the worms about six inches from the lake bed, direct from a free-running lead, with a small section of cork attached to a light nylon hair. Trial and error will probably lead to variations on this theme, but the theory remains the same. That said, it is also likely that I’ll be receiving more ‘nuisance fish’ attention, however the way the ‘Vale’s fishing at the moment (one ‘bit-basher’ I spoke to last week had fished up and down the lake tirelessly, with a variety of methods and failed to catch anything!) I think I could live with it. A bonus big carp would be most welcome too!

Another observation I noticed yesterday, particularly in the shallow margins, was the abundance of tiny fry which, knowing the catfish’s voracious nature, would be the ideal food source for a good old binge feed. With this in mind, making your bait stand out seems the only option if you’re to stand a chance of tempting the ‘now-spoilt’ catfish! Accordingly, the baits used on my ‘experimental left-hand rod’ will now be popped up a few inches too.

God, I hate work*. I detect a ‘sickie’ in the offing…

*Well, I don’t hate my job specifically. It’s actually one of the nicest environments I’ve ever worked in. Unfortunately, it gets in the way of my ‘true calling’ -- but this also applies to millions of us, so I should just shut my mouth and quit complaining!