Ilfracombe, Day Two: Come Hell or High Water

"Lundy, southwesterly, 3 to 4, increasing 5 or 6 at times. later increasing 7 to gale 8, veering south Easterly, moderate or rough, occasionally very rough later, rain or showers, fog patches, moderate to poor, occasionally very poor."

That's what we didn't know...

Ilfracombe, Day One: On and Off the Rocks

Fishing is all about weather.

It doesn't matter where you are headed, be it tarn, brook, lake or loch, cut, drain, reservoir, lake, stream or pond, the weather is either with you, or against. Of course, usually you can still fish if the weather becomes inclement, just so long as you have some way or means that enables you to carry on in relative comfort. However, I failed to mention the sea, which is, if you'll forgive me, a very large and very different kettle of fish from all the rest.

Ilfracombe Bound

We dropped into the pub early friday evening for a couple of drinks, and when we came out I was bound to Ilfracombe on a sea fishing trip with one of my drinking pals, Monday morning through Wednesday evening.

Shit happens...

Fishing Challenge Wake Up Call

After messing around all of the first half of the year and not taking the challenge so seriously that I couldn't fish for whatever I wanted, whenever and wherever I wanted, I now know that I must pull my finger out of my hole if I want to end the year on anything like a respectable footing. It reminds me a little of the second year at uni.

The Autodidact's Guide to Fly Casting - Step 1 : The Limp Wristed Thrash

I received my prize for the Fishing Magic Forum photo competition a few weeks ago - an entry level fly outfit from Game Fishing Supplies of Northumberland. This was the second time I had won this prize, the first time I got myself a pair of ABU reels but this time I couldn't find anything in the way of coarse tackle on the company's website so I plumped to buy a Shakespeare 6-7 weight rod and a Scierra wide arbor reel with my £50 winnings.

Coming Apart at the Seams

I had just three hours from 2pm onwards in which to build a swim at Lucy's Mill that would provide enough fat bream for a challenge point. I needed nineteen pounds and ten ounces of them; a seemingly impossible target in such a short time scale especially as it would probably take an hour or so to get the first results...

Operation Albernus Albernus

The holiday break at Anchor Meadow may not have been particularly successful in terms of sheer quantities of challenge points gained, in fact it was an unmitigated disaster to be frank, with nuls points gained whatsoever out of the many feasible and possible points on offer, but it was the greatest fun in the trying, and that is what really matters with fishing, surely?

Holiday on the Wark's Avon, Day 4 - Bleak Prospects

This damnable fishing challenge wreaks the most peculiar effects in a fisherman's perceptions of the natural order in things of importance. Last year at this very spot I was chasing the bewhiskered royalty of the river, now I was battling to locate the pearly kings of the stream, the ever so umble bleak, and not only that, I was pursuing them in deadly earnest. Strange days...

Holiday on the Wark's Avon, Day 3 - A Monstrous Intrusion

Day three of my ever diminishing challenge chances dawned and I was up on the point gunning after the curiously elusive bleak, as early as possible. There simply had to be some bleak somewhere in the mighty breadth of water out front, Kev had caught plenty of them last year right here and under the rod top, so they should be still be out there somewhere, surely?

Holiday on the Wark's Avon, Day 2 - Expect the Unexpected

Quite unintentionally we'd pitched the tent with the opening directly in line with the rising sun. I woke with the first sunbeams burning my eyes out and unwillingly dragged myself out of bed to go fish, and as I'd had only just finished a weird dream of bream, I would go fish for them.

Holiday on the Wark's Avon, Day 1 - Reconnaissance is Never Wasted Time

We arrived last night, just as light faded, but pitched the tent all the same, in relative comfort. This year, we pitched on the camp site rather than on the island, when the owner expressed his wishes that we didn't.... Complaints apparently, from boat people, most probably...

I took a reacquaintancing walk down to the river and saw a few white vans parked behind swims which can only mean the one thing at Anchor Meadow - barbel anglers hoping to capitalise upon the ten till midnight feeding spell. I decided not to join them but stayed at camp and sank a few beers.