British Lure Angling Championship Qualifier on Chew

On Tuesday April 29th 2014 I had the privilege to participate in the British Lure Angling Championshp Qualifier at Chew. I had heard a lot about this place from other lure anglers and read a lot about it too. If you have not heard about the Chew Valley let me tell you about it briefly.

Chew Valley is a renowned trout fishery in Bristol but more importantly it has a reputation for producing some really large hard fighting pike and the expectation is the next British record will come out of here. Why ? well It is a combination of things I think great fishery management and fantastic conditions which are conducive to the growth of pike. Ok, so why is lure fishing for pike on chew so good ? Well the shear amount of fishable water you can go at has to be the main reason from me, on most waters that I have fished in the UK there are certain well known areas that hold the populations of pike which account for approximately 5-10% of that total body of water and locating and catching pike outside of these areas can be very challenging. The difference with Chew is for a good 60-70% of the water you stand a very good chance of locating and luring a big pike as there is a huge area of water that has a depth range between 6-15ft and a very flat lake bed. Giving the pike more area to spread out over and not hold in areas where there is more structure. Obviously the pike do also have a good stock of fast food in the trout population and there is a limited window each year in which you can actually target pike on the lure, giving them all the opportunity to stay healthy and grow. It is just a fantastic water to lure fish for pike bottom line and holding the British Lure Angling Championship qualifier at Chew gave 68 anglers a really great opportunity to catch a PB.

To save time on the day our boat parnters were randomly selected beforehand and I was paired with Gzregoz Pawlek or Greg for short. On the morning of the British Lure Angling Championship qualifier at Chew I needed to wake up really early to make the 2hr45min journey across to Bristol to ensure that I would not get stuck in the early morning traffic because I left so early I had a couple of hours to burn before the competition started, I used this time to survey the water have a cup of coffee and send a few emails for work.

Once everyone had arrived and had a bite to eat Julian Chidgey gave a welcome speech and ran through some of the rules for the day. We were then allowed to load up our boats and wait for the claxon to sound before we could make our way to our first spots. Once the claxon had sounded we headed off and Greg and I agreed that we needed to go towards the Roman shallows to the right hand side of Woodford lodge and the boat dock. I had researched as much as I could before the qualifier I looked at reports where there had been good catches recently and even looked as far back as two years. From what I had seen the majority of good fish were taken out in the areas of Wick Green Point, Stratford Bay and Moreton. If needed a secondary area would be Villice Bay as there was reports of good catches around this area too. We were not the only ones with that idea as it seemed the majority of the other boats were headed in the same direction as us. As we arrived in the general area of Stratford bay we squeezed in between a couple of other boats and set the boat up to drift towards the bank.

What was a really pleasant surprise for me on the day was how the trout were attacking my lures anything that had a little bit of shine on it the trout were having a go and the first two fish of the day were large hard fighting rainbow trout one each both Greg and I let the fish unhook themselves so that we would not need to handle them in anyway. Letting the fish unhook themselves was easy as one of the major rules on Chew is you are not allowed to use barbed hooks. These two trout were lured by large spoons worked about 2-3 foot below the surface.

After about an hour of casting with nothing we moved the boat further into the body of water and took a longer drift over and area where my Hummingbird was picking up lots of activity. Sure enough Greg hooked into the first of his pike for the day and his smallest one, using a 15-18cm shad in a blue and white pattern. I am guessing Greg was fishing this in about 8ft of water as we were in 15ft of water at the time.

We drifted over this same spot a couple of times with no luck and needed to make a move as by now we had burned up another 1hr30min. I moved us towards Wick Green point to an area where I picked up a lot of activity on the Hummingbird and the trout were topping all around us, the depth ranged from 10-12ft and we started to drift about 50 yards off the bank. Within 30 mins of arriving Greg had hooked into something big as I heard line screening off his reel, at first Greg thought it was a large trout. This was not the case as I scooped up a lovely 17lb 90cm+ donkey into the boat. After a few photos we released the fish in good condition and discussed how the fish was caught. Greg explained to me that he was working his gold spoon about a foot below the surface and at speed. Greg also explained how he had built this spoon himself and showed me his handy work. I have to say I would be very pleased with a 17lber on a lure I made myself and to catch this fish on a home made lure in the British Lure Angling Championship qualifier at Chew an even bigger bonus.

I knew we were in a good area 12 ft of water and lots of activity on the Hummingbird as well as trout topping all around us so I moved the boat to drift over the same spot, within another 15mins Greg was into another heavy fish as I heard line screening off his reel. This fish put up an impressive fight and had to be bigger than the first one, and so it was a beautiful 19lber lay in the bottom of the net as I shook Greg’s hand to congratulate him on a great fish. This time he caught this on the same shad he used to catch his first pike on. Soon after taking a few pictures and safely releasing the fish we had a moment of humour as I struck into what I thought was a pike…. there was a loud crack and in a flash I was left standing there with reel and rod handle in my hands with no rod. I had actually hit a snag and with all the excitement of landing Greg’s two big fish my adrenaline made me strike and any hint of a bite, unfortunately the snag did not give may and my favourite old spinning rod was now in two. I laughed out loud as Greg for a moment believed I had hooked into a big fish, I am sure I heard a few of the other boats having a laugh too.

Once all this excitement had passed it was soon time to head back in and get the results for the day. I had not had a great day with luring the pike but had a lot of follows from big fish right up to the boat which is a really good sign and has left a lasting impression on me. Greg on the other hand was again on the podium having won the second British Lure Angling Championship on the Kennet and Avon canal I think Greg came in third or forth for Chew. Well done Greg you are fast becoming a star of the BLAC tour and certainly did do a great job for at the British Lure Angling Championship qualifier at Chew.

Greg going up to accept his prize

Greg showing off to the boys

A special mention must go to Julian Chidgey and Fox for putting this tour together in my opinion it is what the sport of lure fishing needs here in the UK, a serious competition with serious prizes that gets more people involved from around the country. Well done guys and keep it up I look forward to fishing in more of these British Lure Angling Championship qualifiers and hopefully ensuring I gain my own berth at the finals later in the year.

Finally If you have not had the opportunity to lure fish at Chew I would recommend you make every effort too. It is a fantastic water with lots of fish so when those phone lines open for the pike fishing days in 2015 you can be sure I will be phoning in to book my days.

British Lure Angling Championship Qualifier on Chew

Team England Lure Trials Bewl Water

Team England Lure Squad Trials Bewl Water

In April I fished in the Team England Lure Trials Bewl Water click here for the official press release to summarise what happened over the weekend. Below is my summary of the weekend.

To start I arrived late as I did not set my alarm for the correct time so only arrived with about 15 minutes to spare before the Team England Lure Trials began, I hate being late for anything let alone the trials. After a mad rush and a broken rod tip ( don’t ask) I was in the boat with my new boat partner Jan Munnick. In the rush of meeting each other we decided to head to the western part of the lake at hook end where we had heard of good reports of Pike being caught on the lure.

We had great weather sunny spells and overcast periods with a pleasant breeze to help up drift around the swims.

Having arrived late and rushed to our spot I had not tied on any lures onto my rods as I was driving the boat. I went with the following combination to search the water 32 gram yellow holo DaBush spinnerbait on my Quantum Exo medium heavy rod, 15cm Quantum battleshad in Moonshine on my Quantum Smoke heavy rod, 3.5inch Zoom swimming fluke in smoke on my wife’s Quantum Lady Like drop shot rod ( it is a very good rod) and finally a heavy jerkbait. In my mind this combination of lures would allow me to cover water the best to locate the fish. We decided we would focus on finding the Pike as this would award us double points as a posed to focusing on trout and perch. When I say double points this competition was based on having the longest length of fish in total and how this was scored is every cm of length would = 1point therefore 1cm of length on a pike would = 2 points

Fishing started slow and then started to improve during the day, Jan caught two decent jacks in quick succession and after a move too what would be our prime spot I caught two jacks in quick succession. What was now apparent was of the 4 fish landed 3 of them had been caught on the spinnerbaits that were cast parallel to the tree lines. The pike were lying in wait in the tree lines and snapping up our lures as they came past. We moved to our third area where Jan landed another jack and shortly after this I landed a lovely brown trout of about 3.5lb which I safely released after landing it. What was frustrating for most of the day was we had a lot of follows with the pike not committing to taking our lures and when they were both Jan and I lost fish as they were not properly hooked as they were taking the lures under our rod tips. Day one ended with Jan leading the day with 4 Pike I was in 4th with 2 pike and one brown trout. It was evident that the other anglers had focused on trout and perch as Bewl is a recognised drop shot venue.

 

Jan Munnick with one of his better fish of the weekend.

Another of Jan’s fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For day two of the Team England Lure Trials at Bewl Jan and I agreed we would fish our prime spot where we had the day before lost a couple of fish and I had recognised a lot of activity on the sonar between 15 and 18ft of water. The weather on day two was very different the wind had picked up making it hard to drift at a suitable pace and the clouds had moved in. I started the day with my usual positive mind set but that quickly changed as on one of my very first casts with my lucky bait from the day before, Jan and I did not communicate well and Jan had cast out behind me and on my back swing my line which was 17lb Quantum Quattron fluro coated line caught on Jan’s braid and inevitably cut the line when I pulled forward to cast. I remember seeing my lure flying towards the hot spot and and watching my Exo reel scream into a giant birds nest as you could understand we had just arrived at our key spot and my key rod had key bait were out of action it was frustrating. Whilst I was sorting out my reel and cutting the massive birds nest out Jan hooked a decent fish off the key spot. We were on the board for the day. We had to make a couple of drifts over our spot as the wind was pulling us over our key spot too quickly. We over came this challenge by making longer drifts over our spots. As the day went on It was apparent it was going to be a harder day with the weather and the fish not biting at regularly as on day one.

The day ended with Jan landing another 4 fish and I landing 2 we had several follows during the day but could just not convert anymore. All in all the weekend was a good weekend I had gained a new fishing buddie, and did what I loved doing and thats catch fish on the lure.

Team England Lure Trials Bewl Water

Team England Lure Squad Trials Esthwaite Water

The first round of the Team England Lure Squad Trials at Esthwaite was held over the weekend of the 29th and 30th of March. I had arranged to travel up to Manchester with my wife on the Friday evening to stay with our good friends Heath and Sheri Taylor, Heath would also be my boat partner for the weekend. On the Friday night Heath and I sat down over a cold beer to finalise our preparations for the trials. What we did know was because of the mild winter that we were coming out of the seasonal patterns of fish would likely change and our expectations of how to approach the water would need to be flexible. It is relatively common knowledge as to the prime holding areas for pike on Esthwaite but what would be variables would be, could the pike be getting ready to spawn and if this was the case would the trout be on the bite and the shoals of Perch easy to find, these questions would be answered in the morning.

The morning came and we were in the car and on the way, I remember feeling very excited at the prospect of attending the inaugural Team England Lure Squad Trials knowing that there would be a possibility of qualifying for the final squad trials to be held at Llangorse at the end of May and then the possibility of being selected for the National England Lure Squad to fish in France later in the year. Not only was there the excitement of selection but I really enjoy the competition, I was looking forward to testing myself against the rest of the field and knowing how good or bad I am at the sport I love. Heath and I arrived and had to wait for a couple of hours whilst we waited for the other competitors, this gave us a chance to scan the waters and get a feel for the local conditions. The time went by quickly and the other competitors started arriving Daniel Brackley, Jan Porter, Mike Skipper and Ashley Hockham. I was really surprised to see that there would only be six competitors this weekend including myself and Heath. Honestly I though there would be more people interested in wanting to qualify for the national team. Speaking to Mike Skipper the national team manager about this before we set off on the first day it was clear that he was very disappointed with this fact too, as there was only six of us this meant that we all would automatically qualify for the final qualification round at Llangorse.

Getting to our spots

Day one, 10am we all sat in our boats ready for Mike to give us the official signal to start the trials. The all clear was given and we set off to our respective spots. Looking at the water temperature on my Hummingbird it was 48ºF only 2ºf of the magical temperature that triggers the pike spawning period at Esthwaite. I remember Daniel and Jan headed into the popular car park bay, Mike and Ashley headed into weather bay and Heath and I made our way to the to the set of buoys via the Strickland Bay point where we made a few casts with jerk baits with no success. At the buoys we planned to fish the ledges between 8-20ft of water. I was picking up lots of activity a couple of foot off the lake bead on my Hummingbird which made me try small crankbaits, dropshot and small shads on jigs with the hope that the activity I was seeing was perch. Well hope as I might these were no perch it must have been bream or roach, after about half an hour we made a move to the swimming pool a shallower bay ranging from about 1ft – 8ft of water, it did not take us much time to get there using my Rhino VX54 electric outboard an electric motor with a lot of power that runs very efficiently on the battery. Our approach to the bay was to come from the lower part and work our way to the upper point. Heath was casting a Quantum Battleshad in Dusk to Dawn 15cm and I had a Savage gear Da bush tied on to my Quantum Exo. After a couple of casts towards the deeper part of the bay Heath had a hit on the Battle shad and unfortunately he missed the strike,I immediately casted in the area where I though Heath missed the fish…… I remember my reaction was perfect, as if I had fished every other day in my life to make this one strike.Wham FISH ON it was a heavy fish I felt it pull and turn as I reeled in, my adrenaline was going. I do not know what I was thinking at the time but a nauseating feeling came over me as I watched the large fish role a couple of times shake her massive head and eject my bait excitement turned to dismay as the realisation of what had just happened dawned over me, I reeled in the now slack line. She was on for a few seconds then she came unbuttoned what had happened, what went wrong? If only I could rewind time for a few seconds what could I do differently. I cursed out loud this was a big fish in a competition and I had let her off the hook.

Quantum Battle Shad – Dusk to Dawn

I needed to sit down gather my thoughts and check my equipment to work out what had gone wrong. The spinner bait was bent out of shape but the hook was as sharp as anything, my trace was all in good order with no kinks or twists. By now I had started to replay the series of events in my head that lead up to, during and just after the brief encounter I started to work out what I did wrong. It was not the equipment that was to blame it was my own careless error and lesson 1 in competitive UK lure fishing for me. What I worked out to be my error was the way I was trying to fight the fish into the boat. I had my drag set far to high and tried to muscle a very big fish straight into the boat. Why was this wrong you ask? Well I have seen this several times and it mostly happens to new anglers. I should have learnt from it myself as it has happened to me enough times when I started out. It comes from excitement and adrenaline When you first start out fishing every time you get a bite your bodies instinct is to strike and reel as hard as you can to land the fish, right? well this is what I did on this occasion the excitement and adrenaline got the better of me and I tried to reel the fish in not thinking about the amount of tension I was creating between my line lure and the pikes mouth, I did not give the pike a chance to fight the drag and swim away from the boat instead I helped the pike unhook itself because of the tension created. Not only was it my fishing skills on this occasion that let me down but in my experience if a pike is going to unbutton itself from any lure I would bet on it being the single hook of a spinner bait and thats lesson 2 of competitive UK lure fishing for me always have trailer hooks on spinnerbaits to avoid this type of disappointment. Now that I had worked out the error in my ways I refocused quickly on the task at hand and that was to re-catch this fish and her friends. I lay down the spinnerbait rod and casted out a few times with a 16cm Jerkbait the Quantum Specialist Spooky Jerk in fire tiger pattern a great suspending bait with awesome hang time making it irresistible for pike not to bite. We worked that water to a froth with all the lures at our disposal but could not attract a follow let alone a bite this went on for another hour with no change. The time was now approximately 1:30pm meaning we only had another 2.5 hrs worth of fishing remaining to us. We needed to make a move and fished a close bay in the hope that our absence from the Swimming pool bay would allow the fish time to recharge and when we fished the Swimming Pool again they would bite. This was not the case they did not bite for a further half hour. We decided to move on to fresh water we jammed the Rhino VX54 into high and zoomed down Esthwaite water to the reed bed on the way to the boat house. We passed the reed line with no luck the lures were just not doing the business today. We started fishing the carpark bay where Dan and Jan had been fishing all day and I took this opportunity to shout over to them to see if they had any luck. Dan had a few follows and had lost one at the boat on the Quantum Battle Shad in the Thunderstorm pattern but had not landed anything. By now as you could imagine having not landed a fish in 5hrs things were getting desperate and as an angler you start to doubt yourself and your skills. Lesson 3 of competitive UK Lure fishing don’t ever doubt yourself keep confident and don’t give up. Keep on casting keep on changing up until you find what makes the fish bite. After fishing for a further hour without any luck it was time to call it a day. We motored our way back to the dock to unload and see where the scores stood.

Daniel Brackley and Jan Porter

On exchanging stories with Mike Skipper at the end of the day it turns our Ashley was the only angler on day one to land a fish caught with a jerkbait. In the car on the way home Heath and I discussed the days events what we had tried and what we had not tried. What was concerning and Heath agreed was all the other anglers had reported having fish follow right up to the boat and we had seen nothing of the sort the only fish we had come across were in the Swimming pool bay and in shallow water of about 6-8ft of water on long casts and no follows to the boat. As you could imagine this put a lot of doubt in my head, why did everyone else get follows and we did not or could it just be Fisherman’s Tales ? With my battery on charge for the night Heath and I discussed our tactics for the following day.

On the second day of competitive lure fishing we agreed we were going to fish shallower as we felt the pike could be moving up from deeper water in preparation to spawn with the water temps close to 10ºc. We had agreed the day before that we would head straight to the Swimming pool bay as we knew the fish would be here it was just a matter of getting there and staying there until we got them to bite. Unfortunately events would prevent us from being able to fish this bay as planned. We arrived on the second day slightly later at about 8am and started loading up our boat. Whilst we were loading the boat Ashley and his boat partner came in as they had already been out fishing in the car park bay. Speaking to Ashley they had only had a couple of follows but were going to be heading straight out again as they felt that the best chance of catching fish would be getting them early. To my dismay they had decided they were going to head to the Swimming pool bay, I have to be honest I would be lying if I said I was happy about this. They now had an advantage over all the other anglers in the fact that none of us had even loaded our boats and 3 of the competitors had not even arrived including Mike Skipper. Ashley did explain that they had paid a lot of money and wanted to give themselves the best opportunity to catch a fish and fair point fishing is generally better first thing in the morning. Had we not all already qualified I am sure I would have objected to this. Nevertheless Heath and I needed to go top plan B which was to head into weather bay and try the shallow reed lines here. Once the other anglers arrived we all packed our boats and head out with the agreement that we could fish until 4:30. Well the second day was no better than the first day for us and all the other anglers. We tried everything dropshot, jig, crankbait, swimbait, jerkbait and spinnerbaits short of throwing out a stick of dynamite the fish just were not interested. At the end of the day the theory was the fish we spawning the water temp reached the 10ºc and the pike were not interested. All in all the weekend was a great experience for me I had taught myself a few lessons in competitive lure fishing which is a big thing for me to continue to learn and get better at the sport I love and I got to meet some new anglers who are as passionate about lure fishing as I am. A big thank you must go to Mike Skipper for arranging the whole weekend and for showing such commitment I do not know many other people who would be willing to organise and fish in a two day competitive environment and then take a mammoth train ride home lasting 6+ hours with stops, getting home at 2am and then going to do their day job at 8am. Now that is showing commitment for the sport you love.

Mike Skipper surveying the the water

 

You can see the official Team England Lure Trials results by clicking here

Team England Lure Squad Trials Esthwaite Water

Team England Lure Squad Trials - Llangors Lake - The Grand Final

I made it ! I am really pleased to be able to say I have made it to the grand final for the Team England Lure trials. I fished in both the Esthwaite and Bewl trials along some other great anglers and am really looking forward to this final. On the day there is going to be 20 anglers in total including the 2013 national team. Not only is there the potential to land a fish of a life time on this water but the other 19 anglers that will be there are a brilliant bunch of guys with some big names, as this is over a two day period it should be a great chance to learn a lot about the other guys and possibly learn a few new tricks that I can use in the future. I have started doing my homework on the water and the techniques that  are working and have started formulating my plans all that left now is to get on the water and battle it out for my place in the team. All the best to the other 19 anglers tight lines

All the details for the Team England Lure Squad Trials at Llangors lake can be found by visiting the official website by clicking here

Team England Lure Squad Trials - Llangors Lake - The Grand Final

British Lure Angling Championship qualifier - Round 4 - Grand Union Canal Lemington Spa

 

Round 4 of the British Lure Angling Championship qualifiers by Fox Rage will see me fishing the famous Grand Union Canal vs all the rest running through Lemington Spa for the first time. From the reports that I have seen Zander are on the cards for this event and popular meathods on this water would be jigging and dropshot. I am looking forward to this event as this will be a new water for me to fish. Bring on round 4 of the British Lure Angling Championship by Fox Rage.

All the details and rules for the British Lure Angling Championship by Fox Rage can be found on the official website by clicking here

British Lure Angling Championship qualifier - Round 4 - Grand Union Canal Lemington Spa

Bass Fishing in Las Vegas

Bass fishing in Las Vegas with lures is what I was doing 4 weeks ago and what I would love to be doing now. Instead I am back in the UK and preparing for the finals of the Team England Lure trials but more of that later.

I travelled to Las Vegas Nevada to visit family and have a holiday for a couple of weeks  and whilst I was there I planned to take advantage of the great Bass fishing that is available only 30 mins drive from the strip to a place called Lake Mead. This lake is know better for its fantastic stripped bass population but I was after my favourite Large mouth Bass or the small mouth. I had originally planned to go fishing on March the 7th but whilst I was there a cold front came through so for those of you that do not know what this means for fishing conditions,  weather patterns really effects where the Bass are located most often a cold front will push bass deeper and make them more lethargic making them harder to catch with lures. As this was going to be a one day fishing experience I needed to make sure I gave myself every opportunity to catch my target fish so the date was put back a week to the 14th so that hopefully the cold front would have passed and the bass moved shallower. Not only did I push the day back but I also employed the services of a local guide for the day to ensure I really did maximise on all the resources available to me.

Our guide for the day was Captain Jesse of Las Vegas fishing tours who comes highly recommended by the staff at BassPro stores and now me. Captain Jesse collected my wife and I at around 11am from the lobby of Paris hotel on the way to the lake we stopped over at every fisherman’s dream store the BassPro store to buy the Nevada Department of wildlife fishing license. Not only can you buy the local fishing licenses you can buy every lure, rod, reel, line, hook sinker, float right up to a boat from this store. A place that I spent at least a day and a half in drooling over the goods and at how cheap fishing tackle is in the US in comparison to the UK. We then made the short drive over to Lake Mead to launch the boat. I must mention that any angler taking up the services of Captain Jesse BEWARE there is a strict “no bananas on the boat” policy including any product with the name banana in it. Why ? you ask, well according to Captain Jesse he has a superstition bourn out of an old seaman’s tale where bananas bring bad luck, I have to say listening to the tale I agree with captain Jesse NO BANANAS ON THE FISHING BOAT PLEASE. If you want to know this shocking tale please get in touch with Captain Jesse via his website.  After capt Jesse demonstrated his skills in launching the boat he showed me around his 22 foot boat and passed me my weapon for the day a Quantum medium heavy baitcasting rod on which I put my Quantum Exo 101 lefty loaded with the new Exofil 10lb line we were ready to speed over to the first spot approximately 20 minutes away.

When we arrived it was decided that we would need to use small surface crank baits that mimicked   the small fish in the water as the day before Jesse had been out and had an OK day on these. I need to explain to you before I tell you about my Fisherman’s Tale how clear this water is, you can literally do a coin toss in 20  foot of water and tell if the coin has landed on heads or tails once it hits the bottom, it really is crystal clear. We started the fishing or so I tried, I admit for the first 45 minutes or so I demonstrated all the ways of how not to use a baitcasting set up. Overwind after overwind, line striping due to the top eyelet of the rod having a small crack in it and casting into the wind with a light lure. Honestly It was really bad for a fisherman of any sort of experience. I blame the excitement of being bass fishing again after a 7 year forced absence from the sport. We were working depths of about 4-15 foot of water casting between submerged trees rock piles and humps. The fish were boiling all around us smashing the fry in the area and we could not entice the fish to take our lures. Frustratingly we had several follows from large fish but could not get the bass to commit to taking the lures, I changed my retrieve action, I went slow, I went fast but just could not get them to bite. You will know that as a fisherman the worst feeling in the word is seeing the fish all around you and not being able to to get them to bite, I was really doubting myself and had to keep reminding myself that Bass fishing is a lot different to what I was used too so the fish will behave differently. Before I knew it we had fished the first bay for a good couple of hours back and forth but just no luck. We moved to a second spot a bay that captain Jesse advised would have a good population of small mouth.

At this point I was getting desperate I was feeling as though I could not catch a fish if it was thrown at me ! even my wife  noticed my normally buoyant behaviour had changed to a quiet, focused and determined demeanour. I am embarrassed to say I even resorted to poaching my wives casting area to which Captain Jesse was not very impressed as he had manoeuvred the boat so that Justine could cast at a great spot and fair enough, it is just bad manners to poach someones area.

Enough was enough I  needed to make a change and made the decision to tie on one of the spinner baits I had brought from the BassPro store it was a 1/2 ounce KVD scorcher in chartreuse and white. On my third cast like a bat out of hell a torpedo shot out from about 15 foot of water and smashed the spinnerbait lure I struck…. BOOM TIME BABY fish on. I remember feeling the mixed emotions of joy and relief at landing this beautiful small mouth of 1-2 pounds with its red eyes and brilliant markings. I cant remember another fish that has brought me that much joy, all catches are great but this one was extra special because of the pressure I put on myself. After a couple of quick photos I released the fish to rejoin his mates. I was hoping that by treating this fish so well he would call all the rest of his mates to join the party, this did not happen. After parting ways with the smallie  I realised I had been fishing for nearly 3 hours without a drink in the mid afternoon heat.  Another little bit of joy crept in when I opened the cooler Captain Jesse had only gone and stocked the best fishing drink in the world Mountain Dew and there is a saying that goes with this “You aint gonna do the do if you aint got the Dew,  So you just got to Do the Dew”  All the frustration and pent up tension had immediately left me once I had caught this bass on my own lure and sat down sipping my Mountain Dew. I had remembered to enjoy myself again. I need to mention how brilliant Captain Jesse was in keeping us entertained through out the day there was plenty of laughter on board the different accents made things interesting with Jesse making fun of Justine or I for a laugh.  In all seriousness captain Jesse of Las Vegas Fishing Tours knew what he was talking about when we were fishing. I would really recommend anyone going fishing to Lake Mead get in touch with and employ the skills and knowledge that Jesse has to offer you will really have a good day out.

We decided to move from our second spot to the opposite end of the lake as the sun started to near the horizon and the views were better on this side of the lake, the days fishing was now done.  You forget to look at the land surroundings when you are trying to catch fish. WOW the views in the early evening at lake mead are really spectacular we had clear blue sky and the bright sunshine the whole day which made for some really great photos.  On the way back to the launch bay Captain Jesse let Justine drive the boat which I think was the highlight of the day for her, try as she might she could not land a fish and I have to hand it to her she really did fish her heart out trying to catch a bigger fish than me.  After we hitched up the boat and waited for the water to drain from it we chatted about the various different lures that Captain Jesse had in his boat and thats when he broke out his secret  home made hand crafted lures that he uses to catch large striped bass with.  Captain Jesse if you are reading this please don’t forget to send me my special edition lure cause man I can see a giant reservoir pike smashing one of those.

 

Captain Jesse and me having a laugh at the end of the day

 

 

At the end of the day I thought to myself “what a lucky man I am, the most patient supportive wife a fisherman could ask for a fantastic fishing guide/entertainer the beautiful scenery and finally that small mouth bass of no more that 2 pounds that took my lure earlier in the day. Not bad for A Fisherman’s Tale of Bass fishing in Las Vegas if you ask me.

Bass Fishing in Las Vegas

British Lure Angling Championship - Round 3 - Chew Valley Reservoir

The British Lure Angling Championship at Chew Valley Reservoir will be the start of this competition for me and what a fantastic location to kick it off. This is the third major for me this year and one that I am really looking forward to fishing as I have expectations that this place will afford most anglers fantastic fishing I can imagine quite a few personal bests will be beaten during this day.  I myself will be doing my best to ensure I beat my own PB.

All the details and rules for the British Lure Angling Championship by Fox Rage can be found on the official website by clicking here

 

British Lure Angling Championship - Round 3 - Chew Valley Reservoir