Walthamstow - generally up until end of May

Has continued to fish very well and I have caught on average 5 fish a go, mainly on boobies and the odd one on buzzers and very odd one on a dry.

The best method has been a very long leader on a shooting head Di7. One booby at 4' from the line, a cormorant or cruncher 10' and then another booby ay 15'. Cast as far as poss, alot of the fish have been a distance from the bank, although have had quite a few as the join between the backing and the head appears through the water. This equates to where the fish have been feeding on large snails on one of the slopes of the shelves. best boobies were: black and green and cats.

Took Rory from work and he managed 4 fish on his first outing and Mick the following week had 1!

Rory left a section of my rod on the bank that must have rolled in to the resevoir that I had to replace,a nd while casting out with my 7-piece for Mick, it became an 8-piece!!! Caught a tree previously and this must of put a stress in to the rod.

The Great Ebru - 15/05/08

Was on holiday at Port Aventura, staying at the El Paso Hotel. Weather was shite, and we all got food poisoning in the hotel which was a bit worrying as Mel was 6 months pregnant.

Anyway, noticed a guiding service to the Ebru fro carp and cat fishing in the Trafalgar pub. Met up with a great bloke called Andy who took me out for the day (Andys website: The Carp Angler). We went to Flix and the water was flooding through as they had opened the dam right up. We therefore went back on the road for another 0.5 an hour and ended up at Rio Roca. Found a really nice bay to the edge of the dam, and Andy set up 2 rods each for us. Within a few minutes we had a run, all in all, we had about 10 runs and 6 fish on the bank.

Two of the fish I manged to catch on a fly rod, with a copper thorax pheasent tail nymph. Found a few pods of fish around the bay feeding on swarms of daphnia, with a bit of stealth and plenty of time I had my piece travel rod bent in action.

Walthamstow - 22/05/08 Rory's first trip

Arrived around 4:30, took Rory from work along whom had never fished before, but shoots (rabbits with a water pistol).

Wind had warmed a bit but was still coming from the East. Had been stocked on Tuesdy. Made are way to the causeway and i set Rory up with a Di7 and 2 Boobies (black and green and a cats). I had 3 buzzers on a floater.

Cast out for Rory each time to give him a chance of catching and he had 3 takes and snapped one of within an hour from #4. I cast in to #5 for him and he had a fish on first cast, meanwhile a shoal of fish were showing in the corner of #5 and I put a cdc on the point and started to get plenty of interest but had to help Rory land his fish. When he finally got it in, it was a a beauty of nearly 3lb.

Essex Geezer with h'is trat

In the end he managed 4 fish, and I had one on a cruncher.

Not bad for his first time (although expert tutition helped)!!

Farmoor 1 - 5/04/08 Opening day

Weather was a bit blustery, but the expectaions were high.

Found out that the flies had to be international rules which was a bit of a bugger.

We fished hard all day and I managed 9 on various flies (mainly cormorants) and the biggest was 5lb and the smallest just over a pound.

Marco struggled and only caught one just over a pound. Very dissapointing day for him, he fished to whole way round the place and only had the one fish/take.