Busy busy busy!

Not long before the big day now..... Role on June 16th 2015!

Hello everyone and welcome to May! Yep, summers finally just around the corner and so is that wonderful June 16th open day! I have to say at this point that I'm not as excited about the big day as I was last year and I think it's down to the fact that the end of the season was so poor on the Wye, that it kind of killed the vibe for me a bit. Needless to say, that I'm only now just starting to get the river/barbel bug back again and thoughts of center pin reels, flowing water and bars of epic gold are thundering through my mind yet again.....

This last week or so has suddenly become very busy for me personally and lots of orders have been flying in for big quantities of bait. I've managed to keep on top of most of the orders and despite a slight delay in rolling times, I think all bar a few are now completed and sent or ready to go after the bank holiday weekend break. Don't forget that if any of you need stuff for open day then give me a shout soon as we only have just over a month to go and this is silly season in the bait rolling unit! Get your orders in asap if you don't want to be disappointed.

Shed loads of bait rolled this week!

Fishing has been a little on the quiet side with the obvious high level of work load but I have been out on a couple of quick overnighters and a brief hours floater fishing. I cracked into another single night on one of my little quiet pools and despite the early season results of 2 nice commons from there, I blanked yet again in a different swim. A little annoying as I thought they were starting to get their heads down in there now.

My next chance for a dabble was last Thursday and despite a quick glancing trip over to Pysgodlyn Mawr in search of a floater fish which failed miserably due to crap weather, I did however manage a couple of nice fish from Treoes Pond after.

In my usual turn up, catch and then bugger off fashion, I turned up at 1pm, got the gear out and walked up the bank about 50 yards. Sat right next to the margins, less than a foot from the bank were 2 fish. A mirror and a smaller common. I bent down out of their vision and gently lowered a piece of floating crust onto the head of the bigger mirror. It shied away and up came the smaller common from nowhere! I lifted the rig clear to avoid catching the smaller fish and let him have the crust before I spooked them both out of the swim for good.

Within a few minutes the bigger mirror was back in residence and I gently lowered another piece of crust which the greedy common attempted to scupper again. I let him grab it but he only got half. He left just a tiny slither of bread on the hook which didn't even now float! I slowly jiggled it across in front of mr mirror and he snaffled it quickly before turning and making a run for it.

A nice mirror taken just inches from the bank on floating crust

Next thing I know all hell breaks loose and the mirror makes a charge for open water. I held on tight and watched as the rod tip buckled around the tree I was fishing in front of. Eventually after a couple of minutes of tussling for position, I sunk the net under a nice chunky mid double mirror. This was duly followed up with numerous smaller fish before I packed away for the day.

A stunning scaley torpedo!

This weekend should be a little interesting as Mathew O'neill and I have a day booked in together chasing river brown trout on the fly on the upper reaches of the beautiful River Taff in Brecon. Mat's only done a little fly fishing on lakes for carp and never river fished, so it should be a good giggle watching him learning the ropes on the little upper Taff! Fingers crossed for a decent day out and lets hope the weather holds up a bit.

I haven't as yet made any decisions on my whereabouts with regards to my fishing this coming season.  I really wanted to rejoin Farnham Angling AC but in all honesty I can't see me having the time or money to do the 320 mile round trip there and back once a fortnight like I would have liked to have done. Times aren't as free as they used to be and until the kids are slightly older I'm tied up to family daddy duties etc until then. I guess until then I'll make do with waters closer to home with smaller fish in but vary my angling as I have in the last 36 months or so.

Good fish welfare, Mat, sling and kept low to the ground. Standard

My club waters have reared ugly heads again this week and on our club FaceBook page there was a picture a chap had uploaded with himself and a small mirror carp. Nothing wrong with that and lovely to see him enjoying his angling. What was wrong with the picture though was the fact that said fella was stood up with the fish pushed out towards the camera at arms length some 5 feet from the ground. I made a comment on the fish welfare aspect and had my head bitten off for it....Apparently it was all because the guy has a bad back....He managed to sit there all day though holding his rod and fishing, so quite why he needed to stand for the picture because of a back problem is a bit of a poor excuse I'm afraid.

Please guys, think about how you approach weighing, netting and photographing fish. If your not sure about something then ask someone for help or advice! Look it up on the net or get a free DVD from the tackle shops. There is NO excuse for poor fish welfare skills and ANYBODY I see treating fish poorly will have a piece of my mind. Education is the key to all the recent issues I've raised on here with regards to poor rigs etc etc etc. Lets hope that some people start to see sense.

Tight lines guys
Love ya
Keith