Spring 2026

 Introduction

I'd already caught two fish. One modest example and one very big one. Both very powerful, the second one in particular. Prolonged physical fights. I was down to one rod and shortly after I had put the very big fish back my bobbin did a kind of staccato movement which was fairly normal, the previous two had done the same before absolutely tearing off. 

Whatever was mouthing my bait didn't tear off but I was fairly sure it was hooked and I picked the rod up and leaned into it. Sure enough, I was met with solid resistance. It didn't feel very big initially and I vividly remember thinking to myself I wouldn't mess about and give it maximum pressure from the off to try and get it in quickly.

I wasn't fishing very far out and I'm not particularly prone to exaggeration but I swear within about thirty seconds of deciding to show this fish who was boss with a stout rod and thirty pound line it was closer to my pals on the neighbouring lake than it was to me. It was a beast and determined to get away.

That dear reader is a hook and tease. Before we get to that story I have other remarkable things to tell you about....

Walthamstow

It had been a while since we had visited east London. Members of our online specimen group SHUK were granted access to Walthamstow reservoirs one and two. Surprisingly there were only eight takers and as such we decided to not have a draw for pegs and just meet up as we'd all have plenty of room. Three of us chose to fish one while five were on two. 

I chose an open area just off an island and baited heavily with groudbait, pellets and corn. I'd been given a massive bucket of floating pellets that I had ground up and added some binder. My mates are some of the loveliest people you could ever meet but they won't be offended when I tell you they won't be troubling MENSA for membership anytime soon. They insisted my groundbait would float. I still don't know whether they were joking or not but what I can tell you is that I had nobody fishing downwind of me.

Anyway, I had to wait until nearly four in the morning for my first bite. The fight was woeful but I'd got my target species and it was a lovely fish...

11lb 6oz

I followed that an hour later with a new PB.....

14lb

Despite topping up my spot a few times I had no action during the day and had to wait until almost the same time the following morning to add another...

13lb 2oz

An hour or so later I had another....

12lb 10oz

James Hunt was next to me and he found it fairly slow going too. He managed a couple of carp and three bream. Strangely he had a couple of nines before he got his prize...

12lb 12oz

Behind me was our old friend Nick. He wasn't in the best area but plugged away and had a couple to show for his efforts including this magnificent example...

14lb

Our youngest member Joe was the star of the show. He had an almost unbelievable twenty one double figure bream.....

His biggest 14lb 2oz

He also had a 7lb 12oz Tench. Remarkable fishing and all those double figure bream were over his previous PB. Joe had caught from the start and at one point early on he was visited by specimen angling superstar and bream expert Dai Gribble to ask him about his tactics. A testament to Joe's abilities. 

In case you missed it and I have been asked before- What makes Dai so good? He's inquisitive. I've fished with him a bit and he always takes something away from his time with other anglers. It is also a reason why I claim to not have a clue what I'm doing when he asks me anything, which to be fair, sometimes I don't. 

Dai had a a lot of bream, not as many as Joe and suspiciously only started catching after roughing him up, er, I mean asking him politely for advice. It included the best fish of the trip....

15lb 3oz

Next up is Nate Green who had undoubtedly the nicest carp of the trip...

20lb + common

He also had a couple of bream one of which was just under his PB of 12lb 8oz so he strolled over to Joe's peg for last knocking and had this...

12lb 12oz

Last but not least was Mike Lyddon who had several bream three of which were over 14lb...

14lb 6oz

That's only seven I hear you cry? Andy Loble joined us mid session and slotted in an unfancied peg just to be sociable. Next time Andy. Incidentally I'm not saying Andy is posh but who do you know that brings a Charlie Bingham ready meal to a BBQ?

Local action

Back to Lincolnshire now and I heard one of my local venues had been restocked with a few carp over twenty pounds. Those as well as the resident catfish piqued my interest. True to form I had plenty of carp, absolutely none of which were over twenty pounds. As I write this I've caught over twenty carp from there and haven't managed one over the target weight yet. Here are some of the better ones...

The catfish were irritating me. Like most big predators I suspect they feed ravenously before laying up for a while. I'd had a couple of blanks before they switched on. I started off with a kitty of around 17lb...

And then early that same morning I had a better one....

27lb 4oz

Now I had been winding the carp rods in at night and just fishing for cats but on my next visit I decided to put a cat rod out early in the evening while it was still light. Within half an hour it tore off. There wasn't much weed in the lake at the time but this fish charged into every weed bed it could find. It gave me the right old runaround before finally sliding over the net. They really are impressively powerful....

44lb 2oz

I had a couple more small ones after that but I reckoned the 44 was probably the biggest of the residents so was happy to leave them in peace for a while.

And that was pretty much it for my spring fishing although I did get the boat on the sea and caught several smooth hounds upto around 9lb. I have to say though, it was rough. Rough enough for me not to bother again.

Queasy

One of many

Linear

Whoever said a bad days fishing beats a good day at work was lying. 

Oxfordshire is a long way from Skegness. The draw time was arranged for 9am which meant a 3.50am alarm call. I travelled over with Nick and met the rest of the group. There were twelve of us on a lake exclusive booking for three nights. 

I have a brief but checkered history with Manor Farm lake and I knew I really needed to be in the top half of the draw. I came out eleventh. That disappointment was the start of a rather embarrassing meltdown. I had a plan B of going off to fish for cats on another lake but it wouldn't have been very sociable. So I barrowed all my gear to the far end of the lake to fish the lifebouys swim on Manor. It took three trips. 

A lot of work had taken place since our last visit and it soon became apparent my chosen spot had been designed for a different climate and seemingly a different pastime. The mercury was creeping towards thirty degrees and there was very little shade. I had my gear in three or four partially shaded spots trying to keep cool. As the sun moved the shade all but disappeared. I couldn't find a clear spot, Nick kindly helped with that. My spomb mix went knarly and I was overheating. With my stuff all over the place, under logs and in stubbly stingers I started to slip into a slightly delusional tantrum. It wasn't edifying or pleasant and yes, I'd have rather been at work.

Eventually I calmed down and gradually started to pull myself together. Remarkably I felt happy with my baited area and rigs so set up my shelter on some fairly uneven roughly cut foliage. Not ideal but would be partially shaded early in the morning. 

The first night I had two cat rods and a carp rod out. At 2am I had a screaming take and my initial bleary thoughts were it must be one of the cat rods. It wasn't. I lifted into my unseen foe and it felt slightly odd before locking solid. I heaved from every angle and after some time and a lot of walking backwards I managed to free it and brought my rig back minus the fish.

That was the only indication I had for the next twenty four hours. I snapped one of my spod rods which did nothing for my enthusiasm but the one saving grace was the fact I had Nick and Dai next to me and we had a couple of lovely BBQ's. On the second evening it was a whole group affair....

Si, Martin, Coops, Nate, Gareth, Me, James, Dave, Nick,Oz, Dai, Matt.

That second night I had three carp rods out. Sure enough around 2am I had another take. Again quite odd, I never really felt any resistance and it locked solid again. This time I lost the rig and somehow my other rod on the spot had become tangled and I lost that too. Word around the lake was that they may have been a fish trailing line. An hour later I had another 'take' and another snag and another lost rig. As I tried to get some sleep I promised myself I would put up with this debacle not a moment longer than necessary.

I woke around 7am and decided to move. Not pegs but lakes. I still had one cat rod intact and some bait. It was a big effort but at that time it was still fairly cool. By the time I had moved from the far corner of one lake to another it was around 10.30 and the temperature had risen to unbearable again. My new spot was paradise though. A semi-circular beach like swim shrouded by mature trees and shrubs. Almost fully shaded and supremely comfortable. 

Dai had given me some tips and I set about baiting my spot. I put a lot in and by the time I had two baits out it was past midday. As I sat there I looked at my rods, one 5lb spod rod and one 3.25lb carp rod. Both with my cat reels though loaded with 30lb Big game line. It wasn't right and I needed some water from next to the shop anyway so I wound in and wandered around to see if they had any suitable alternatives. 

A short time later I returned with two shiny new rods. Daiwa Black Widow 12ft in 4lb test curve. It was an outlay I could have done without but I was a lot happier when they were on the pod.

I didn't have to wait long for the first fish. Typically it was a stubborn fight but no real dramas and I had my first fish of the trip in the net. 

28lb 4oz

Some cats are a bit messy. They eat a lot and ergo they deposit a lot. So A quick change of clothes and recast later I sat back to enjoy my surroundings, happy to have just caught something. 

My next bite came fairly quickly and it became apparent early on in the fight this fish was substantially bigger. The initial run wasn't far, maybe thirty yards but it stubbornly hung out there, refusing to come any closer. The Black Widows were coping well but with shrink wrapped butts I had no leverage, to be precise I either had leverage or testicles, not both. I nestled the too thin butt just above my pelvis and walked backwards as far as I could before shuffling forward to gain some line. It worked and slowly but surely the cat came back towards me. Eventually I managed to net it and called for some help. I had called James but he was away at the local supermarket. Luckily the next closest on Manor, Coops, came around to help. It wasn't a PB but it was close.

82lb

Tired but happy

With two nights of broken sleep, an arduous move and a couple of battles I was starting to feel a little weary. The observant among you will realise I still had a rod out on the spot. After Coops had gone sure enough I had a take on that rod. Here's your opening story. It wasn't like the other two. The bobbin just jiggled up and down, like it was trying to eject the bait. As previously reported I leaned into it and prepared to bully it all the way in. I was tired. It wasn't.

It charged off with quite spectacular dogged power. The fish steamed straight through one thick weed bed and just carried on. Coops was back in his peg on the adjacent lake by now and I reckoned the fish was closer to him than it was to me. A second tranche of weed slowed it enough for me to gain some kind of control. Following the previous fight I repeated the same routine. Lock the rod and walk it backwards before slowly gaining on it. Fortunately for me James walked around mid fight to see if I still needed help. I remarked at this point the chances of getting it in weren't great. The line had gathered a lot of weed but it had little effect on the cat who was still powering all over the place. 

My new rod and heavy line stayed the course and the ever brilliant James paddled into the margin with me to help with the netting. It took a few attempts but we finally got it safely in the net.

New PB at 99lb

I can't thank James and Coops enough for their help but that was me done. As I sit here now I could catch them all day but the trip had all its tribulations and effort caught up with me so I had a much needed snooze. I even offered my peg to the others, that was my frame of mind. What a fish though. My biggest ever and a wonderful memory.

I awoke around teatime and put a bit more bait out before casting in again. A visiting Andy Loble came round and we had a nice chat in the evening sunshine. The alarms remained unusually quiet. After Andy departed and with the light fading my left hand rod did the usual. A quick jerking of the bobbin before tearing off. 

39lb 6oz

Before I could recast the other rod railed off. Another quite fraught fight in the now inky black night ensued. 

51lb 8oz

Again, this seems odd and it's certainly not anything I can remember doing before but I decided not to fish on. Sleep was more important to me than catching anymore cats. A privileged position to be in but I've had red letter sessions before and they happen so infrequently I always try and make the most of them. I'm reasonably fit, incredibly strong and some would say unfairly good looking but I needed uninterrupted rest.

The next morning I cast both rods out again and they both went within an hour. The first was another titanic battle that resulted in this....

81lb

The business end

Of course as soon as that magnificent creature was safely returned my other rod tore off.....

45lb 8oz

Once again, I had time to recast, plenty really but I decided to call it a day. I wanted to try and dry all my gear out, have a leisurely pack away and have a shower before getting in Nicks van for the long journey home. My friends were kind with superlatives, calling it the greatest move they'd ever witnessed. I was certainly very happy just to have experienced it. As ever in fishing all the disappointments paled into insignificance as I rode high on the feeling of achievement. 

Manor fished typically hard and I heartily concur with the mantra of life being too short to fish for carp but here are some highlights from people with far more patience than me......

Gareth with a 35lb 2oz Mirror

James 31lb Common

Dai 38lb 

Martin 31lb 4oz

Matt with a 7lb 6oz Tench

Back to reality

Nick in his ever pessimistic demeanour had advised me joining a waiting list for a tidal Trent fishing club ticket was a waste of time due to the length of time it would take to get accepted. Luckily my optimism stopped me from taking any notice of him and sure enough I got a ticket in the late spring. So far I've had three trips with just one modest barbel to show for my efforts. It has been very hot though and the river, even the tidal has been in poor form so I decided to go elsewhere. 

I still needed three carp over 20lb for my annual SHUK competition so with my local proving stubborn I reluctantly headed back to the caravan park. The old bailiff was lovely. His replacement not so but it had been a couple of years and I decided to give it a try. I've been three times and not had any unsavoury encounters yet so I'll keep plugging away as there are some nice fish in there.....

22lb 4oz

Catch Cult

Written blogs typically don't really get a massive audience. I could do videos while fishing where I just talk nonsense and absolutely nothing happens and get a larger audience. Print media is different but also in decline. It used to dominate. Reading takes effort for most, certainly more than scrolling. Catch Cult is a high quality fishing magazine that has recently been taken over by some very nice and talented people. Please give them a try. You can buy yours or subscribe here.....

catch-cult.co.uk

till next time.........

Winter 2025/26

 Introduction

Hello to Hugo, a young angler that recently reached out to me to tell me of his fishing exploits in Lincolnshire. I actually met Hugo on the riverbank by chance recently, a fine young man. If you want to get in touch you can do so here....

shukphil@gmail.com

River Witham

We left off last time on the river Witham and it was our venue of choice for most of the winter. At the start of the colder months the perch were quite obliging. With the river still running clear and a full tank of petrol in the boat, Nick and I went exploring far far upstream. We fished a few likely looking spots and caught several small perch and pike. Sadly the best areas were busy with other anglers so we motored back towards our moorings. 

Sure enough the fish were still there and we caught a few better perch.... 

3lb 3oz

A week or so later Nick kindly let me take the boat out with our old friend Andy Wilson. The winter rains still hadn't arrived in force so the river was in fine condition and we didn't have to travel far to find a few fish. Andy was first in on the action mainly due to my excellent guiding with a mid two pounder......

Andy in action

I hadn't realised until just now that the first good fish I had was probably a recapture....

3lb 3oz

Andy then had a three pounder of his own, at exactly three pounds. We retained them in the net for around twenty minutes until the bites dried up. It was a hectic start and we had caught some lovely perch...

We had a quiet period before I had a savage bite on my dropshotted worm. For a while I thought I was into the mother of all perch. I played it carefully and slowly but surely it came into view. A bloody tench. Only the second one I had caught on that method. I unhooked it in the net and slipped it back. A few casts later the same happened again. Surely this time I'd cracked it I thought as the fish tore off all around the boat. Nope, another tench.....

While catching tench was fun it wasn't what we had in mind so we moved to another spot. Now boat fishing can be frustrating, as you'll hear about later on. Sometimes you can fish in the same way as the person sitting four feet away and watch your partner catch one after another while you remain biteless. From memory the most extreme example of this was when Martin caught seven three pound perch and I think I had one on the Welland. That was a smaller boat too so we were even closer together, just how he likes it.

Anyway this particular afternoon I caught five or six perch while Andy struggled. I'll be honest the very biggest was a bit of a fluke. I was fishing about ten yards from the boat and it is one of the deepest parts of the river so I had quite a bit of line between me and the hook. I had a take and struck into it. Almost immediately the braid tangled around the tip of the rod. I had little choice but to try and untangle it. Braid tangles can be unfathomably difficult to rectify and it took a couple of minutes to free it. Luckily the fish was still on. and it turned about to be the biggest I would catch all winter....

3lb 10oz

Finally it was Andy's turn to get one but sadly he lost before that spot too went dead. It had been a great day and we headed back to the first area for the last hour. I was the only one to get a bite, again another heavy feeling fish but this time I knew fairly early on it wasn't a perch as it loped about in the flow....

. 

Turned into a species hunt

The session with Andy turned out to be the last time all winter we encountered the perch in any numbers. The rain came and pretty much didn't stop for months. The main river was high and dirty for weeks on end. Most weekends Nick and I were out though. The boat gives a huge advantage over bank fishing and looking at local catch reports our results were once again, fairly spectacular. On a slow day we'd still get ten or so pike between us. On a good day, twenty to thirty wasn't unusual. 

We're both a competition with our fishing group- SHUK where you get points for various species over certain weights. The qualifying weight for pike is fifteen pounds. Almost every trip we'd get two or three doubles, mostly low ones. Anything approaching fifteen and we would weigh them. I think Nick had a couple of big fourteens and I came close a few times.....

Lots of low doubles like this

My biggest of the winter wasn't huge but the sheer numbers of pike we were catching meant we were bound to get a bigger one eventually....

17lb 14oz

Back to one of the frustrations of boat fishing. Now usually I'm made up when Nick or anyone for that matter gets a big fish but I have to admit the green eyed monster made an appearance on the following trip. Nick and I both fish in the same way, same areas, same rigs, same baits. Even though he's a rank amateur and as crude as you like I still learn lots from him in certain situations. There was no justification in him catching another twenty in front of me though. His third since we've been fishing on his boat together and I've been sat next to him on each and every occasion. The jammy git....

 

21lb 5oz

In all of the following trips I made sure I fished as well as possible but we didn't come across any of the other bigger fish. Still great fun though and I'm remarkably thankful for the boat. Nick pays for all the upkeep, licences etc while I chip in by keeping it clean and hauling one of the world's heaviest anchors at his often unreasonably frequent requests.  

I did have a couple of trips to the tidal Trent in the hope of a barbel but had no luck. They were spur of the moment forays and looking back just turning up for a few hours isn't the most productive way on such a big waterway. 

I also had a couple of trips to the river Bain but save for a rogue trout that too wasn't kind to me either......

End of season campaign

For as long as I can remember I've had the last few weeks off work to have a bit of a fish and this year I was keen to make the most of it. I was keen to go to Scotland to fish for grayling with Nick but he was insistent on only going when conditions came just right so we'd have to go at the drop of a hat. While Nick was faffing about with river levels and weather apps our friend Richie Martin invited me down south instead. Even he only gave me 24hrs notice, it was a one off chance.   

We are both standing in this photo, Richie is on a bench, like Tom Cruise.

I set my alarm for 4am the next day and sure enough by 3.30 I was wide awake with anticipation. Even so I didn't meet Richie until 9am, such was the distance I travelled. Another half hour I'd have been in France. Such was the speed of which we'd arranged the trip Richie had very kindly brought all the bait and coffee we'd need for the day. We set up our float rods by a fishing hut on the banks of the main river and Richie led me around the stretch, pointing out likely holding spots. 

Now I had only caught grayling once before, on the river Test as a guest of Will Barnard, to just over a pound so I was keen to beat that. It turned out to be a glorious day and one of the most pleasurable I can remember and it was all down to Richie. After a slow start and a few rogue trout I did catch a new PB grayling of 1lb 7oz. 

 With a new, albeit modest PB in the bag Richie wandered off to have a fish of his own. Half an hour later he came back and kindly invited me to fish his swim as he thought he had found a decent shoal of grayling. Sure enough he was right and I caught a great fish of 1lb 15oz.....

I was only here once and fished hard for the rest of the afternoon. Richie had a lovely fish of 2lb 2oz and upped my Pb to 2lb, braced with another of 1lb 14oz...

Beautiful surroundings

I also had about ten trout and a lovely chub around 4lb. It was a brilliant day. despite losing a big grayling towards the end. How big we'll never know but my host has had them recently to 3lb 5oz.....

Thanks again Richie, much appreciated.

Fluff flinging

I was shattered by the time we got back to the cars and was keen to find some accommodation. Both the nearest Travelodges were full and I ended up in The Stonehenge Inn which was ok (apart from the world's coldest shower) as it was near my planned venue for the next day, a nearby trout fishery.

I was at the gate of the trout venue before it opened at 8am. There were already a couple of anglers waiting to get in. The gate opened and I paid for a six fish ticket and headed down the lake to a spot where I was assured it would hold some big browns. Sure enough I saw a couple of big fish in the early morning sun. I wasted about six hours trying to catch them. When I eventually hooked the very biggest one my hook snapped at the bend. I gave up and moved around the lake chatting to the other anglers. The one who had caught the most had taken them on a green montana. This proved invaluable information as I had five fish in the last two hours, all on a green montana....

3lb 4oz to 4lb 4oz

River Trent

At the end of the week Nick rang, the Scotland trip was on. I was so close to going but I bailed at the last minute. A very big barbel had been caught on a stretch of the Trent I knew well and was keen to have a try for it as well as partake in some chub fishing. In fact Nick and I usually fish the area for chub and here's where amazingly I've learned something from him. I usually fish for the chub on the tip and after some initial success he pretty much always outfishes me by using the float. 

I was there fairly early on the first day and actually bumped into the chap that had caught the massive barbel a few days before. With a bit of information gleaned from him I wandered off upstream to try for chub on the float. I fed a few balls of liquidised bread and trotted a piece of flake down on a size ten. On the third run down a had a bite. I'm not exaggerating, whatever I'd hooked took me sixty yards downstream. I got up and followed it three pegs down until a bush stopped my progress. I had no choice but to get down the bank and just hold on and gradually try and bring it back. I was on five pound line so could apply a bit of pressure but if I had lost that fish I could have attributed any weight to it I wanted. In the end it was a barbel of 8lb 8oz.....

Not wanting to go through that ordeal again I set my barbel rods up. I had another fairly quickly although it was slightly smaller. The swim went dead and I decided to head downstream nearer to where the big barbel had been caught. Sure enough something soon took an interest in my boilie offering....

5lb 4oz chub

Things weren't exactly going to plan although a five pound chub was most welcome. I added another small barbel before the light started fading and I fished for chub again to no avail. I gave up and introduced about fifty boilies before heading to the local Travelodge. It was £26 to stay there, cheaper than going home although if anyone stops at the Newark branch they don't have any parking. Something to note. No wonder it was cheap. The bath was warm though.

The next day started off well as I had a barbel by design in the first hour, about 7lb....

The rest of the morning was quiet but I was still fairly confident of a bite or two. The river was in good condition for the first time in months and it was reasonably mild. Sure enough around lunchtime the downstream rod hooped over and I connected with a better fish. It wasn't giving up easily and after a spirited battle it was in the net. The last few decent barbel I have caught have all been in the dark so I was surprised just how big it looked in the daylight. Not massive but it absolutely made my day....

12lb 7oz

I added another small barbel before getting bored of being so static and headed off in search of chub again with my float rod. Probably why I'll never be a serious barbel angler. Catching them is thrilling, fishing for them is not so. 

Anyway I had three chub to just under 4lb 11oz on the float.....

It was another great day and I did go back a couple of times that same week. Sadly the river started rising again and I blanked both times. Bloody weather.

Last day

With my new found eagerness for float fishing I bought myself a new rod and reel. A Drennan Vertex 14ft and little Shimano Aernos reel. Keen to try it out and with most venues out of sorts I went over to the river Bain for the last day. It was a jolly affair as I met our friend Jez for the first time in a long while while I was down there. I had a great afternoon catching small chub, dace and some lovely roach......

 The best roach went 1lb 8oz....

Final word

My plans for the spring are the usual fly fishing and maybe a bit of carping. I do have a bream trip coming up too so I'm looking forward to that. Beating my PB of 11lb 12oz is the target. I'm trying to convince Nick to put his boat on the Trent for the start of the season but I have a feeling he's going elsewhere. We'll see. 

Till next time..........