A few good fish!

Good evening my friends....

Young Riley O'neill! Well done my son! Oh...and happy 9th birthday

Before I start off with my news reports, I'd like to say a massive congratulations to two lovely people.

First up we have young Riley O'neill who is the son of my good friend Mathew, who you'll remember was out with me fly fishing for carp last week.

Riley had a few hours surface fishing with his old man for his 9th birthday and he managed to catch this beautiful common carp for his efforts! Well done Riley...Star in the making son!

 Next up is the lovely Lucy Rowley. Lucy is the partner of one of my field testers and has never done any fishing before.





Her fiance Mat, took her out for 24hrs and showed her the ropes.

Well, needless to say she took to it like a duck to water and managed to not only land a handful of lovely fish but actually stalked one of them using a prototype bait I'd sent Mat.

Well done Lucy and may your enjoyment of our lovely sport grow and grow. Mat and Lucy are back out this evening fishing again I believe....so i'm hoping to see lots of great pictures flowing in from the pair. I hope the weather holds up for you guys, tight lines.

Happy 40th Stuart! xxxx

Finally, i'd like to say a few words about a very special person who's just turned 40 years old this week. Mr Stuart Andrews, my friend of almost 30 years. Stuart and I met at school when we were just 11 years old and our friendship formed immediately due to our shared love of fishing. Stuart and I have shared more adventures on and off the bank than I'm sure the both of us can remember.

Some that have made as extremely happy and some more sad times....all have been shared in some way, shape or form. Despite things that life has thrown at us and despite the fact that we now live some 150 miles apart, he remains and always will be, the closet thing I have to a real brother.

Thanks for being my friend Stuart and I hope we can spend many more wonderful years fishing together and enjoying life. Happy birthday my friend....Love you loads!

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Well, it's been a very busy fortnight for me and my family. The wife did a shift cover for 8 days at the Reptile shop, while the owners were away on their holidays in Gran Canaria. I had lots of bait rolling to do and things were too busy to get out and do any real fishing to speak of.

Trout fun with Tash!

I did however manage an hours Dry Fly Fishing in my local village river and pulled out a couple of stunning little wild brown trout, with the help of my little angling guide, daughter Natasha! The fish were rather shy of just about everything I threw at them and despite trying everything in my fly box, they were all too big!

I popped into town and paid a visit to the local tackle shop for some smaller hooks to tie up a few grey gnats. I ended up tying up a half dozen or so Gnats on size 22 hooks! God only knows how on earth I was able to see the dam things, let alone tie anything that resembles a real fly!!!!

Anyway, short story long etc....I managed the task and even caught a couple of trout on them! Great stuff! The water was very low and very clear just as the upper Taff had been a week or so back. Speaking of which, I saw in the press this week that a young lad of 7 years old I believe? Fell into the river Taff in Mertyr right where Mathew and I were fishing last week. Terrible story and it claimed the poor kids life. My only question is to why on earth he was playing there in the first place? It's incredibly deep even in low water conditions and a kid of age 7 wouldn't stand a chance falling in there. Awfully sad and my heart goes out to the family and friends.

On a more cheerful note now and I've continued my success on my little bolt hole water this last week. I managed a quick overnighter last night and to be honest the heat was almost unbearable on arrival at the pool. I ended up having to strip off and seek solace under a big tree out of the suns rays as I was literally just cooking! Amazing! Despite the bright sun and heat, I went for a walk around the pool in search of any of my chosen target fish.

Target acquired and a very happy Keith!

The main target I had was a very pretty looking fully scaled mirror that had the girth of what looked like a fish of maybe 25lbs plus. I'd seen her on 2 other occasions and felt that she may well have been one of the lakes larger occupants. I went around with a sandwich and a cola and put my polaroids on. I did a full trip around the lakes and found the usual suspects sitting in their spots under overhanging bushes. There was no sign of the 'fully' though?

Who cares how big they are when they look like this!

I walked around again and all of a sudden she came into view at the back of a thick reed bed, some 20 yards out. I ducked down and cowered out of sight. I watched as she made her way along the reeds and then into the open water to the right of the reed bed.

She was now heading straight into the bankside to my right and would have been an easy target for a floater! My rods were back at the car though and not set up yet....Bloody typical I thought.


I sat for another 15 minutes watching her mooching around near the bank and then she made her merry way up the West bank towards the top end of the lake and out of view. I made the decision to grab my rod and net and try to find her again. I nipped off a small piece of bread crust and slid it over a size 6 hook. I then walked along the bank where I saw her last.....Not a sign of anything. I thought I'd have a look down the other end of the lake and see if anything else was about worth catching.

Peaches....every bloody one of them!

On arrival down the Southern end, the wind had pushed a lot of willow blossom on to the lake surface and there was a thick scum layer forming. Just below the film I could make out 3 shapes....All scaley mirrors in stunning form. The largest, near the back, was the target fish! In the open as well!


The fish seemed to be in a bit of a hurry and the 2 smaller mirrors were speeding across the top to vacate the area. Shortly followed by the big girl. I thought it was a very unlikely chance she'd look at my crust hook bait cast some 5 feet in front of her but to my complete surprise she turned and engulfed it all! Then spat it straight back out before I had the chance to set the hook.

Stunning.... stunning..... stunning!

I watched as she started to head away and then she made a swift 180 degree U turn back towards the crust and slurped the whole bloody thing in yet again! I wasn't missing the chance a second time and a swift upwards strike saw the hook grab a great hold!

The fight was rapid and dogged to say the least. There was blossom and all manner of debris flying everywhere and at numerous points in the fight I thought I was either going in after her or I was loosing the scrap to roots.


Despite the worries, she finally made the net rim and I let out a huge sigh of relief. Just shy of twenty pounds and probably one of the best looking carp to ever grace my landing net!

After returning the fish to the water, I went around the pools a few more times in search of another likely target to nab. I went for another nice mirror only to have it beaten to the crust by a very greedy 2lb Golden Rudd! A stunning fish and I wish I'd grabbed a picture of it now! My next encounter was with another very scaley mirror of just under 10lbs....more the stamp of present fish in the venue.

Eventually the sun started to drop below the trees and thoughts of getting prepped for the coming night stepped into my head. I set up in a spot I'd fished before and dropped baits into the middle of the pool where I'd had good success in recent times.

The fish haven't seen much bait in the venue and really seem to love bread and anything white. Bearing this in mind I had purposefully made up a kilo or so of some misshaped scopex flavour boilies in pure white, with a few seeds in. Nothing dramatic, just a very simple cheap base mix. Needless to say the fish absolutely went loopy over them and by morning and despite heavy rain and wind, I was up 18 fish in total!

Great fishing in any ones books and there was also the fact to consider that every fish was a real looker....including the small ones! I couldn't believe the change in the weather over night though and by 5am it had changed from warm and sunny to very wet and windy. The paths were sodden and so was my moral. I hadn't slept a wink from the continuous bites I'd received and my state of mental health was battered. Time to head home. I packed the kit up, all drenched through and headed for the hills.

Scales and perfection!

Well, this weekend's going to be a little different from the norm. Natasha and I are meeting up with good friends Joel, Ceri and Kris for a session at Celtic Lakes in Lampeter, in search of catfish and Sturgeon.

I have to say at this point that I'd made a vow some time ago that I wouldn't bother going back there due to reasons I won't go into publicly, but I have to say I'm looking forward to seeing the lads and if that means going somewhere I'm less than happy to fish, then so be it. Lets just hope the fish are obliging as I'll be a tadd pissed at paying £35+ for one nights fishing otherwise!!!

Hope your all in good health and here's to the summer finally starting to make an appearance with the coming fishing season just around the corner.

Tight lines
Keith