Fishing In And Around The Midlands, U.K.
My initial interest in fishing started when I was a child when I used to go most weekends with my uncle, on the back of his Vespa carrying all the tackle to a local canal near the Stewpony on the way to Bridgnorth. In about 1989 the interest was reactivated while watching a friend pike fishing on the River Avon, at a place called Pensham near Pershore within 15 mins of starting fishing he had landed a 15lb. Pike. During the next few month's I purchased some tackle, the first pike I caught was at Fladbury near the weir, it was around 5lb. on a plug called a big S. My biggest pike to date is 23 lb caught at Holtfleet with my son Paul on 18-02-00 ( see photo and article below ). During the summer of 99, some weekends were spent down on the Avon at a place called Eckington near Pershore. Various fish were caught throughout the season including Roach caught on hemp, the first time I have ever fished for anything on bait nearly the same size as the hook. From that day I have been fishing most weekends except for this winter because I have been involved in learning about web site design which I are enjoying.
18-02-00 1.00pm.
Venue ~ Holtfleet
Weight ~ 23lb
Method ~ Ledgered 1/2 herring (tail)
Weather ~ Cold and windy
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Arrived at Holtfleet about 10.00am due to the tackle shop not opening till 9.00 (late decision to go the day before). When we arrived the place we were going to fish was taken so we had to fish above the lock Nothing happened for the first three hours, tried spinning with a favorite Big S usually works. Approx 1.00 the bait alarm went off as I struck I knew it was something big, surprisingly it hardly put up a fight just felt like a sack of potatoes, within minutes it was netted, weighed photographed and returned to the water without any harm. A little while later my pike float disappeared slowly underwater, again with a herring tail bait, a pike of around 10-12lb was brought to the bank but slipped the hooks as we about to net it. Nothing else was caught during the rest of the day. Around about 4 years ago I had 86lb of pike over a two day period of fishing at Holtfleet, mostly caught on dead bait. One of the pike landed was caught on both days with different baits, it weighed around 14lb. My previous best was 17.5lb caught at Pensham in Oct 98. again on dead bait (sprat), this was my first 20lb plus in the last 8 years of river fishing. Click here for more photos of the 23lb pike. |
My best catches to date
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PIKE |
18-02-00 / 23lb |
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ZANDER |
17-06-99 / 8 lb 8 oz. |
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CHUB |
5lb |
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FISHING ALBUM (soon) |
