BLAC Q3 2015 River Thames Report

On the 7th March I participated in the BLAC Q3 2015 river Thames qualifier which promised to be a great event with the stretch of river being chosen known for throwing up big perch and sizeable pike.

As a reminder BLAC stands for British Lure Angling Championship, which is an annual tournament in its second year put together by founder Julian Chidgey and sponsored by Fox Rage and the Angling Times. In my view it is the best lure fishing competition in the country at the moment. You can find out more about BLAC on their website link below or follow them on Facebook.

BLAC website

BLAC facebook

 

As usual it was an 8am arrival which was great on this occasion as I only had about an hours drive compared to the usual 2+ hours. I did also have a passenger with me in the shape of my mate Ziyaad, another chap originally from Zimbabwe and a great all round angler. The drive was over quickly and we were in the club house having a cup of coffee and catching up with other anglers whilst we waited for the draw to take place.

I was lucky enough to get drawn with a real gentleman of an angler in Gareth Finney who has already qualified for the grand final on the Gloucester Canal. Both of us having not fished this stretch of river before had decided to target both perch and pike.

I took with me three rods and reels to cover my bases some would consider this over the top but I am lucky enough to have a really handy rod tote that I brought from the Bass Pro store in Las Vegas in 2014 whilst on holiday. This rod tote allows me to easily transport 4 made up rods when walking the banks. The rods I had with me were my Quantun Exo spinning combo, Quantum smoke spinning combo and finally my Quantum Tour MG and Quantum Exo bait casting set up. Both the spinning set ups were going to be my main tools for the day to target the perch and the bait casting set up to target pike.  Gareth and I moved to an area that looked promising and I began to pick the swim apart with my small lures for perch with in about half an hour I had my first fish, a perch on a 1inch Kopyto in Chartreuse tight to the far bank on a 3.5g jig head fished as slow as I could.

Having landed this first fish of the day measuring a healthy 34cm I thought I was going to have a good day but as the hours started to pass I began getting more and more frustrated as I heard of anglers catching numbers of fish and I could not buy a bite. Until just after 1pm where I struck into what looked like a 10lb+ pike which took a Quantum Crawling Jack in 10cm rigged on a weedless jig head also from Quantum. The line was coming of my bait caster and after about 10 seconds of fighting this fish I had a glimpse of what looked like a good 80cm+ fish no sooner had I started stretching for my net did I get the dreaded slack feeling in my rod…. I had lost the fish I fell to the ground on my back swearing with frustration. I had just lost a big fish that could have really helped me. I remember telling myself I would catch him again I just needed to get a different lure in the water so I changed the lure to a smaller 8cm Quantum Battleshad  in Salt n Pepper pattern. And sure enough 10 minutes later I was into another fish but this was much smaller that the one I had originally hooked I made sure that I struck properly this time and had the net at the ready. As I leant down to easily slip the decent jack into the net my line went slack and I watched the fish make a splash and swim away. I could not believe it dropping my rod and net as I sunk to my knees swearing in frustration asking what I had done to deserve this. I do apologise to the anglers near me who witnessed this I hope you can understand loosing 2 decent fish in the space of 10-20 minutes in one swim during a competition can be soul destroying.

It took me until the end of the day to get over loosing those 2 fish, which would have probably  seen me qualifying for the grand final.  If I am honest with myself I am still mad about the whole thing I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well and practise as hard as I can to do well in these events and I have lost fish at key times on more than one occasion that would have seen my qualify. Is it bad luck or is it a sign? I don’t think I am a bad angler but it seems I have a lot to learn to catch up with some of the best anglers on the circuit at the moment.

A stretch of the River Thames from BLAC Q3 2015

34cm Perch

 

Its back to the drawing board for me and the next qualifier which will be the mighty Chew.

Well done to Paul Parnell and all the other anglers that qualified for the final very well deserved. Thanks to Julian Chidgey for organising the event as usual it was very well attended and great to see the other anglers.

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BLAC Q3 2015 River Thames Report

BOBCO Open Tackle Day

BOBCO Open Tackle Day

Bass Fishing Cyprus

In February 2015 I had the chance to go out for a days Bass Fishing Cyprus.

Going back to the start of January 2015 my wife and I decided to book a weeks holiday to Cyprus in mid February. Unknown to me at the time Cyprus has a really great network of reservoirs constructed   in order to combat the harsh dry seasons that they have. These reservoirs over the years have been stocked with a good number of fresh water species of fish including my favourite species the large mouth bass. Which I had no idea about until about two weeks before the holiday when I googled fishing in Cyprus to pick up a link  directing me to Cyprus Freshwater Angling Association where I found out they had bass in their waters and to be able to fish I would only need to take some kit out with me and purchase an annual licence on arrival. I was set to go Bass Fishing Cyprus. I am sure most fishermen can relate to the feeling of excitement  I had, its that feeling you get when you are a kid and christmas is the next day. Well thats how it is for me anyway.

The day we arrived we had some really promising weather with high sun and the temperature in the early twenties, I remember thinking if the weather kept up like that I would really be able to smash them out the park. Well when I woke up on day 2 of our trip after enjoying my first day of holiday I was greeted with thunder storms and a cold front dropping the temperature down to the low teens. In my experience cold fronts are a fisherman’s worst nightmare as when these role in the fish bit roles out. I investigated the extended weather forecast and the cold front was due to hang around for 3-4 days with the temperature gradually building back up to the twenties. Not leaving me with much time I decided to go out fishing on the Thursday.

When Thursday morning came I was up at the crack of dawn drinking a cup of coffee overlooking the ocean and the hotel swimming pool waiting for my wife to wake up so we could have our breakfast and hit the road straight away. Kouris Reservoir was our destination about  30-35 minute drive from our hotel, this is the largest and oldest of the reservoirs on Cyprus and has the best head of Bass I understand. Our hire car a little Suzuki Jimmy 4×4 was already packed with the three rods and tackle I had taken with me to target these Bass.

It seemed like we were only on the road for five minutes when we arrived at the Kouris reservoir dam wall, where we stopped to take a couple pictures of the scenery and admire another elderly motorist take a leasuerly drive past us with their huge dog on a leash running next to the car for some exercise. Honestly this dog looked as though it was enjoying itself running along side the car and the owner smiling at us as we stared in shock. Before we had left for Kouris I had researched a few spots where I thought the fish were likely to be and headed for a spot where two rivers feed into the reservoir. This turned out to be a great decision as with in my first couple of casts I had a very light take on my rattle trap but could not connect. The Rattle Trap is a great lure for searching out bass in cold water it is a lipless crank bait with a rattle that can be fished as deep or as shallow as you want.

After about 10 minutes of focusing on this area I decided to move closer to the mouth of the small river where the water colour was a little dirtier from the rain water feeding the rivers and where there was a bit more structure in the way of dead trees, old reed beds, and slightly shallower water. I did also swap the Rattle trap up to a Strike King KVD spinnerbait in Chartreuse and BOOM with in 4 casts I had my first fish on a lovely 2lb 2oz fish.  I was over the moon high fiving my wife and acting like Mike Iaconelli when he lands a fish ( Mike is one of my favourite anglers I follow from the very popular Elite BASS series in America) he is well known for his fits of celebration when he lands a tournament BASS the man is just very very passionate about fishing as am I.

I moved slightly down to an area that looked promising and after pointing out to my wife where I thought the bass would be I made 2 casts and hooked into my second fish another 2lber after releasing this fish I made another cast and caught the biggest fish of the day a beautiful 3lb 2oz fish in the exact same spot. I thought I was onto something catching two fish in as many casts unfortunately the wind had really picked up and the water was not as calm as it was when I first started out. This wind made it hard to control my casts and fish the spinnerbait as effectively.

I swapped over to a BOOYAH Jig with a big bite trailer so that I could swim as well as bottom hop the bait. I also moved over to an arm of the reservoir I thought would be sheltered from the wind with was not the case the wind was blowing even harder. I made two casts fishing the steep drop offs where I found the biggest rip raps and BOOM fish on. That was 4 fish with in the space of only a couple of hours. On a body of water I had not fished before and for a species of fish I had not fished for in a very long time I would have been doing very well in any tournament. With those 4 fish I decided to call it a day and take my wife back to the hotel for a spot of lunch.

What fantastic memories I have from bass fishing Cyprus, if you are going to visit Cypress I would recommend getting in touch with the guys at the Cypress Freshwater Angling Association on their Facebook page they were great with telling me where I could arrange my fishing license and best waters to try. A big thank you to my wife for spending that day with me even though I know you would have preferred doing something else you really are a one in a million.

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Bass Fishing Cyprus