River Roach - My Quest for the Magic Two - Maverick Decisions

I love fishing the river at Stratford-upon-Avon. Not only does it contain some of the largest fish of the many species that it is possible to catch along the whole river, it also has tons of character and the whole gamut of river fishing possibilities going for it.

My first love is fishing the weir-pools at Lucy's Mill. You never know what's coming along next

Roach - My Quest for the Magic Two - Cold Start

What with one thing and another my traditional winter specimen roach campaign, a pursuit that should have been well under way by mid-December at the very latest, has been postponed and delayed, deferred and waylaid to the point where half of its potential has already been spent leaving just two months in which to attempt to scale the slippery peak that all British coarse anglers with a soul call, 'The Magic Two.'

River Roach - Small Stream Adventures - Pastures New

The mild spell is over. The forecast for the next five days is for temperatures in the West Midlands to hardly rise above zero by day and at night to stay well below, which means a frozen canal no doubt, and no fishing to be had in it for some time to come. They even say that a little snow is possible today...

River Roach - Small Stream Adventures - The Money Shot

Keith's comment on my last post requests that I gather together a number of ingredients that could be cooked up to provide the perfect angling video moment...

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - Tough Luck Piking

I got out last night for a couple of hours but only managed to catch yet more tiny zeds - where all the larger zander have gone, I haven't a clue - and tonight I got out for a few hours more at the now legendary Marina Peg, but the fishing was not good, and so I ended up messing about with the camera, again...

Silver Bream - Breaking the Back of the Big Blank

Since the freeze thawed and temperatures soared to the heady 10, 12 even 13 that degrees we are currently experiencing during daylight and to a lesser degree, nightlight hours, this month has been an awful one for anglers, for no-one is catching much, or even at all. The blogs may give the impression that here and there, now and then, some level of success is being achieved but the truth is that more blanks are happening than are being reported. The fish have been knocked for six by the sudden and rapid change in their habitat and are sulking their squamous little heads off...

The Grandness and the Blandness of Coombe Pool

In the 1770's gangs of Irish Navvies set to work digging massive holes in the ground all over the country. The largest hole they excavated in what is now the City of Coventry is a moot point. It is the near five miles of canal between the centre of town and Longford junction, or else it is Lancelot 'Capability' Brown's masterpiece of a lake at Coombe Abbey.

Canal Roach - Is it Just Me...?

Or has the fishing got really bloody hard since the weather warmed up?

I see the rivers are full of brown water at the moment as all that subsurface H20 that was locked up in a frozen landscape has slowly melted and trickled into the watercourses. I'll wait a while more before having a go for a pound plus roach on the local stream.

Bass 'n' Chips

Bass is expensive, especially wild, fresh, line caught bass which is prohibitively so - the exclusive reserve of millionaires, seals and anglers - so why anyone would want to make fish 'n' chips instead of some TV chef franglais concoction out of such a dainty may be beyond comprehension, until that is, you have tried it. There's no need for us Brits to be shy here, a good old fashioned fish 'n' chip supper properly cooked is a world class dish. This is a variation on the classic theme...

A Cache of Secret Bass

For no good reason at all I decided that I would resurrect my long established but never used, Facebook account. I went on, clicked a few buttons and before I knew what I'd done I'd invited half the world to be a friend of mine. Now I've more friends than I know what to do with - many of them are people I haven't a clue about them being friends of the friends of others, but who I'm now feeling liable for!

That Sinking Feeling....

I've been cursing the boats that have pestered my local canal and middle Avon fishing for the past couple of years, and so, I'd guess, have many, many other anglers up and down the country. Therefore it's really no surprise to me that all that hex throwing should ultimately be answered from time to time by the laying to waste of the aforementioned offending articles...

River Roach - The Eternal Shoal

This new year's fishing challenge is warming up even before it's really began. I've entered six scores (for five species, roach twice) in three days and am for the time being, in first place. I don't expect to stay there long... Most of the 16, yes 16, contestants have yet to enter a thing on Keith's all-singing, all-dancing, shared and interactive wunderkind spreadsheet, the like of which I have never encountered in all my days. This is not documents, this is Keith's Finest documents.

Dace, But No Ace

Monday afternoon Keith & I went dace fishing down at the Saxon Mill on the Wark's Avon, a place renowned for its large head of said fish, shoals so vast that they have to be seen to be believed — in summer they inhabit the top layers of water and a low flying coot can cause a massive surface eruption of spooked fish. They can get respectably large too, eleven or twelve ounces being the target with half pounders a likelihood.

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - A Big Fat Mamma

This series has to end here - if ever there was a thing deserving of an alternative moniker, this is it - it's a misnomer!

I can no longer pretend to be fishing the canal for 'a big cut zed' because since I began 'my quest for' such a fish, the fish that I have been catching mostly, and in the size range I was looking for when I began, have been of the species, Esox lucius, and, I'll freely admit that for some time now I have really been hoping to get a big 'un of those and have neglected to think of zeds completely.