Rivers and things

NEW WEBSITE.........

2010-03-27T08:53:00.004Z

We are really excited about building our new, re designed, updated and growing website..........

With a huge amount of work from http://www.poogig.co.uk/

This blog site will now become dormant and our new blog will be run on the home page of our new website......

www.riverworks.co.uk

Riverfly gets going.....

2010-03-23T16:23:00.001Z

Hi All

Firstly a big thank you for turning out on Sunday morning for our first Riverfly get together.

I am pleased to say that we have our first meeting booked for Sunday 18th April 10am at the Dorset Wildlife HQ just outside of Dorchester.

We hope to put various sampling sites on the map for the Frome and the Piddle and hopefully come up with a rota, if you have any areas that you are concerned about please let us know.

If you know of any more helping hands please bring them along.

Dorset Wildlife Trust HQ

Dorset Wildlife TrustBrooklands FarmForstonDorchesterDT2 7AA> Location map

Look forward to seeing you all.

John Aplin

Riverfly Group

2010-03-22T13:33:00.001Z

Its been in the pipeline for far to long, but yesterday on the warmest day of the spring so far, we had our first Riverfly get together.

A great turn out of caring fisher persons prepared to give up their own valuable time to learn how to monitor water quality by looking at the invertebrate population.

We held this workshop on a small part of the river Piddle, and demonstrated a timed three minuite kick sample to collect your invertebrates, then how to wash, identify and record the various species that we found.

It was great to have a committed group form, and we will be sampling sites both on the Frome and Piddle on a regular basis, sites such as up stream and down stream of sewage works, cress beds, farms, and quarries and all results will be shared with the Environment Agency.

I know a lot of people expressed an interest but for one reason or another could not make this first get together, please get in touch and join in...... john@riverworks.co.uk

Spring clean

2010-03-19T16:51:00.003Z

That really cold NE wind crept around and came from the south, bringing some warmer air for a couple of days and now as always when this happens, here comes the rain....

We actually need it, the Frome has dropped at least six inches this week, so needs a top up before the season starts.
We are out in force now, its fishery spring clean time, there is weed to be cut (on the still waters) snags to be removed, fallen trees to deal with, meetings to attend, tackle to sort out, and don't forget your new rod licence.......This EA income gets ploughed strait back into fisheries!!!!!!!!

Gentle snag removal, leave the woody debris but remove the flood risk.

There has been a vast improvement to our Frome hatches thanks to the EA WLMP project, but some bright spark has decided it is fun to try to vandalize some of these structures, when your out fishing or walking if you see anything out of the ordinary please ring the EA number on your rod licence or give me a ring and I will pass on your details, oh and please remember any poaching that is taking place please ring the EA hot line on your licence immediately, when you get home or the following day is toooooooo late!

The DDAS have some cracking Coarse Fishing in Dorset and look after some lovely fishing, here we are helping them with a weed cut prior to the installation of some new disabled angler platforms, kindly funded by the EA.

There is a lot happening in Dorset on the fishing front, get out there and get involved!

Check out all the links from this blog.........

Check this little clip out, you could be wading, with a fly rod....dream.....

River Fly Morning

2010-03-13T09:04:00.005Z

River Fly monitoring, a reminder!

Lots of you have expressed an interest in being involved in our local river fly monitoring group, covering both the Frome and the Piddle.

We are moving forward with our first get together which is going to take place at-Richard Slococks “Wessex Fly Fishing” at Southover, Tolpuddle.

Sunday 21st March at 10.00am

Please bring a pair of boots or waders, and a notebook, why not bring the family it will be a fun couple of hours.

John Aplin 01305 257490 Richard Slocock 01305 848460

A great night

2010-03-13T08:46:00.003Z

Last night saw the Association of Ponds Lakes and Fisheries host an evening in Dorchester with the Wild Trout Trust and I have to say what a fabulous evening.

We had over eighty people attend, all with a serious passion for water and all that goes with it, folks from the Wild Trout Trust, Environment Agency, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Institute of Fishery Management, Association of Ponds, Lakes and Fisheries, Frome Piddle and West Dorset Fisheries Association, Wessex Water, Dorchester Fishing Club, and lots of Anglers.

I know of a few people who missed out because of other arrangements, but there is the FP&WDFA agm coming up in April and we need new members so please come along and support our worthy cause, please e mail me for details john@riverworks.co.uk

Result....

2010-03-12T17:30:00.004Z

Whilst all of us are out grafting in this delightful spring weather, Scott decided to make the most of a end of season trip to a river, thats all he would say.......

Well done mate....I didnt know you were scared of the dark......

India

2010-03-10T18:20:00.006Z

I have just grabbed this picture from Adrians album and I have to say this picture (and the ones of the CROCS) sums up fishing in Southern India, roll on the next trip......

Its behind you.......Health and safety, and a small risk assesment, no problem! Jungle Formula Croc repellant.....

Web cams

2010-03-10T13:35:00.002Z

Ive just had a chat with a guy called Glyn Howells, who runs some cracking fishing in Devon, not only this but his firm are running about installing webcams on rivers in your area......Check this site out http://www.execarnarvonfc.co.uk/menu_pages/exebridge-webcam_timeline.php

River blockage removal

2010-03-10T08:52:00.000Z

We are fortunate to have a great team working alongside us including building and logging firm Linee Builders Ltd

We try to always use specialists in every branch of our fishery work, we have more guys pushing for their chainsaw tickets over the next week or so, and we are running a Riverfly training day on the 21st of March so people can monitor water quality on their fishery using invertebrates as a model.

Watch this space for our new electric fishing page....

But the highlight for the moment is the use of the new dam buster, this awesome piece of kit can remove even the biggest of fallen trees from across the river!

On another note, whilst out Redd counting on the Tadnol Brook with Jim Allen from the EA we rattled off a few pictures of these fine Stags on the Heath, roll on spring........

Rods for sale

2010-03-08T10:55:00.001Z

I have decided to start thinning out my rod collection and have the following items for sale, please make me an offer on anything that takes your fancy.

Beach Rods

12ft 6in Century Fire blade Sport
12ft 6in Century Fire blade Match
Ziplex 12ft Beach?
12ft North Western Blanks Beach

More to be listed soon.....

Spring ?

2010-03-07T09:34:00.001Z

Despite the frosts there is a hint of spring in the air, but it is still hard to imagine that we will be fishing the rivers from the 1st of April, its hard to picture a dusting of Grannom and rising fish.......
BBC weather for Dorchester this coming week gives temperatures rocketing up to a balmy 10 degrees C..........

A little more of Poland

2010-03-02T09:58:00.004Z

Tomasz has sent in some more tempting pictures spey@vp.pl

India

2010-03-01T13:29:00.007Z

Adrian, Ben, John and myself have just returned from what can only be described as a mind blowing trip to southern India in search of the famous mighty mahseer.

We got stuck in as soon as we arrived!

We had all read "Somewhere down the crazy river" at some time in our angling careers, and a big pat on the back for Adrian for suggesting that we needed to go now rather than later!

Hot (40 degrees plus) and dusty.....

Someone shouted Chilwar....we all shouted Chilwar!

Ben and John just pondering over the sheer beauty of the Cauvery, and perhaps where next to cast that monster ball of soft raggi........

A little white water to contend with, on most days.......

We all caught our fair share of fish, one guy had fish of 66 and 77 pounds, the fishing was nothing short of fantastic, we all caught Mahseer within an hour of arriving!!!!!!!

A location with a surprise under every stone, around every corner and on most casts, not for those with a nervous disposition........

You can see a few more pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/Johneaplin/India2010#

A huge thanks to Dave Plumber for making this trip tick so many boxes!
http://www.anglingdirectholidays.com/

Poland

2010-03-01T12:16:00.005Z

Just before were off exploring parts of Aisa one of our visiting anglers Thomasz from Poland sent me a couple of fantastic pictures of his early season exploits in his home country, he followed these pictures up with an e mail talking about running a few trips to Poland where he guides on a some of his favorite venues.......tempting.

If you are interested please drop him an e mail spey@vp.pl

The Wild Trout Trust in Dorchester

2010-03-01T04:55:00.003Z

Shaun Leonard, Director of the Wild Trout Trust, will be presenting a talk on the work of the Wild Trout Trust, in particular demonstrating projects that have been undertaken by the Trust to restore valuable salmonid habitat on some of Britain's most challenged rivers ands streams. He will be illustrating his talk with examples of low cost restoration techniques which would be appropriate for many situations throughout the South West.

His talk will be of value to riparian owners, fishing clubs, keepers, anglers and anyone interested in the preservation of our west country rivers and streams. It will be followed by a Brains Trust question and answer session, with a panel comprising of some well known personalities including Sean Leonard and also Richard Slocock ("The Old Man of the Piddle"), John Aplin (Keeper on the River Frome and angler extraordinaire), Allan Frake (over 40 years experience of west country rivers), oh, and me (25 years of staying afloat!)

The talk will be hosted by the Association of Ponds, Lakes and Fisheries, an eclectic (but very friendly!) group, based mainly throughout Dorset, who have a common interest in all things watery.

The meeting will be taking place at The Brownsword Hall, Poundbury, Dorchester on Friday 12 March 2010, at 7.15pm for 7.30pm. Tickets are available booked through me (jc@kingcombe.com) , priced at the ridiculously good value of £8.00, to include for a glass of wine and a good plateful of refreshments. All proceeds shared between the Trust and the Association.

Wild Trout Trust

2010-02-19T13:47:00.005Z

We have a Wild Trout Trust evening in Dorchester on the 12th March at 7.30pm please read the poster and give Sue a shout for your tickets....... 01935 433358

Jump at the chance for a cracking evening in Dorchester and its all to do with Trout fishing.....See you there.

River Fly monitoring

2010-01-28T13:54:00.001Z

River Fly monitoring

Lots of you have expressed an interest in being involved in our local river fly monitoring group, covering both the Frome and the Piddle.

We are moving forward with our first get together which is going to take place at-

Richard Slococks “Wessex Fly Fishing” at Southover, Tolpuddle.
Sunday 21st March at 10.00am

Please bring a pair of boots or waders, and a notebook, why not bring the family it will be a fun couple of hours.

John Aplin 01305 257490 Richard Slocock 01305 848460

January

2010-01-25T16:43:00.004Z

January can be funny month, not a lot happening springs to mind, winter species are nearly over and the summer ones are still a while off, months in fact, I am seriously looking forward to lots of kayak fishing this coming summer.
Ben managed to sneak one from the margins last weekend, and on a carp rod!

We are heading out to Thailand in a week or so to take in some jungle treking, and I have the feeling that I might get away with sneaking a travel 8 weight and a spinning rod into the deal, after all there are one or two strange fish out there, tempting!

Elliot and I built a rather large picnic table last week, to put a twist and a touch of class to any future fishing lunches, or dinners.

I know for a fact there have been a few people with those expensive red rods spending a little time around one of Dorset's most southerly points trying to catch something on a lure, they are keeping their results fairly quiet.....and I have seen no pictures......

January has been a month of meetings with various bodies, a huge amount of work in my role as vice chairman of the FP&WDFA raising funds for projects on Dorsets famous chalk streams, a great couple of weeks redd counting, and now planning for this coming year.

We have for the first time ever, placed an advert in the Dorset Life, trying to push the pond side of the company.

We (cheers to fellow GF director) have also, as previously mentioned launched a new fantastic website http://www.guidedfishing.co.uk/ and as part of our guiding service been asked to continue guiding for http://www.fishingbreaks.co.uk/ including the world famous One Fly compitition on the river Test.....How exciting.....Thanks to Jon Bond and all the test guides.

New Guided Fishing website

2010-01-13T14:49:00.005Z

Now you can all take a few minutes of your time to check out our new website, a site dedicated to the fishing guide, if you are a guide or simply fancy being a guide in a an area that you know well, please join us, its simple and its free.........

Just click on to http://www.guidedfishing.co.uk/ then go to add yourself, its that easy.

The website is in its early days, we aim to build it swiftly into one of the leading guide and fishing sites, we have many plans, so join us and grow with us!

http://www.guidedfishing.co.uk/

Cutting the Redd

2010-01-11T16:40:00.003Z

After spending a while laying on frozen ground we were lucky to capture a few clips of a Salmon cutting a Redd somewhere in the Frome valley.

The count goes on

2010-01-08T16:14:00.001Z

Again we started our redd counting at first light, and we both agreed that it was the coldest conditions we have ever worked in, so cold that the ink in all our pens froze, a balmy minus 4 !

I could not resist this picture of a swans landing pad on ice, and its exit route, we have seen lots of hungry creatures on our travels, including a fox chasing a pheasant during the middle of the day.

Our redd count is gradually improving in numbers, but the highlight of the day was spotting a huge hen fish sat on a redd, I say huge, she was well over 20 pounds, and not far away a dead cock fish of about fifteen pounds, great to see these big multi sea winter fish, but not in such worrying numbers, and such a shame that a percentage of them die.

On a very positive note, we only ran two hatchery boxes on the Frome this year but the hatch rate has been fantastic, I feel not only due to the amount of water but the cold water temperature has also helped.

On a much much warmer note, and with lots of Big fish check out the latest news at "Fish the Dream"

Redd counting

2010-01-06T19:37:00.002Z

I think Dorset has to be the best place in the UK to live, and what makes it even better at the moment is the simple fact that we are having proper seasons, a classic wet autumn and now a freezing winter, lets hope that this trend continues for the coming spring and summer.....

We have been out again over the last couple of days collecting valuable data on the Salmon spawning areas on the River Frome, this is an important aspect of all the work taking place, on going projects with the EA, NE, DWT, CEH, FP&WDFA.

Our Frome Salmon are simply in serious danger, we need lots more hard work and help with funding for further projects, please contact us at the Frome Piddle & West Dorset Fisheries Association if you can help.

Seriously chilly at the moment, and we have been starting before first light (great at this time of the year) and today we had horizontal snow, and marked a few more redds on the GPS.

We are out again at first light, lets keep our fingers crossed that we find a few more redds!

We have covered every square inch of the upper Frome and her tributary's and the results so far prove that these silver tourists need our help in a big way!

First day of Redd counting

2010-01-04T20:42:00.002Z

Having had a huge amount of steady rain in the months leading up to Christmas, a grand amount of gravel washing completed by November, a fish pass now into its second winter, no legal netting of Salmon in Poole harbour and a catch and return policy on the Frome, fingers crossed we could (should) be in for a record Salmon Redd count!

Today we headed far far up stream of Dorchester as far as the River Hooke, no Salmon redds but plenty of Trout redds, the furthest up stream Salmon redd we found was at Maiden Newton, but unfortunately this was a one off.

The next one was at Southover on some cleaned gravel that we helped the Dorset Wildlife Trust work on last year.

We covered quiet a few miles today, and we did find a few more redds, and watched some cracking Salmon doing their stuff, and Elliot still had the energy to skate back to the truck.....better add that one to our risk assessment!

A message from the darkside

2010-01-04T19:40:00.001Z

Birthday in Robe, South Australia - November 2009

A write-up I promised a while ago with a couple of pictures. As temperatures tipped 40+, timing was perfect for a trip south from Adelaide to small seaside town called Robe. Robe is famed for its sea crayfish, but also for its great beaches, one of which you can drive onto so no long hike.

For my birthday, I booked up for a morning boat fishing trip with John Stuart (johnbstuart@bigpond.com) who runs a local Charter Boat. Conditions were great, perfect weather and calm seas. We caught a few different species including snapper which had to be returned as they were in their closed season.

I have booked up for my next trip with John in mid-Jan 2010, so hopefully something a bit bigger then.

Happy New Year to all.

Simon

Cheers Simon, glad to see they are getting a bit bigger, I trust they made good eating!

Perch.....

2009-12-30T17:53:00.002Z

As the cold mornings rain eased, Ben A and I disapeared for a few hours float fishing.

Bites were few and far between, we talked about fishing and food as always, and the possibility of a Chub or even a Barbel from a river next summer.

Well to cut a long story in at least half, as day was turning to dusk Ben slipped the net under a rather fine Perch, a new PB of 2lb 14oz, beating my old one by a whole 5oz, what a great Christmas present!

Cold water Grayling

2009-12-29T10:50:00.001Z

A great way to get a little motivation after the Christmas fill, is to spend most of the day wading in freezing water, fishing with very heavy nymphs in search of Grayling or the "Lady of the stream".

John G and I headed north for an hour or so on some very icy roads, a car in front of us actually left the road and flipped on to its side, pretty scary stuff, we ran to the rescue and with a massive stroke of luck the occupant's of the car were not hurt just a tad shaken!

Glyn drove for a few hours south and made us laugh for most of the day, catching a few fish and constantly reminding John G and I of the things that could bite (other than fish) when fishing for Mahseer in the jungles of southern India.

Thanks to John for helping guide me through the art of nymphing on a short line, great fun, thats the fab thing about fishing, we are all still learning something.

Glyn supplied the sausage rolls and pickled garlic cloves, John, cold ish soup and Christmas cake and I russled up some sarnies out of "glow in the dark" smoked salmon.....

Christmas fishing continues

2009-12-22T21:29:00.002Z

This spell of seriously cold weather continues, we are up to date on all our river work, our ponds are a tad frozen, so on with the fishing......

Elliot and I had a few hours on the lower Frome in freezing conditions, we struggled, but we had a fish or two and I must say a great time.... and were fishing again tomorrow......

Elliot managed a good fish from a very difficult spot....He is a top angler in this region and a main player in the "Riverworks team" our thanks go him and his family this christmas! Not forgetting Tim Rob and Terry for all their support during 2009 onwards and upwards for 2010.....

Today we set off at 6.30am and headed to a fantastic Trout fishery ( Manningford, where else) in Wiltshire, a christmas get together with lots of friends ( Huge thanks Paul to of Chesil Beach Angling Centre ).

A slightly icy journey north of Dorset, we arrived, lots of hot coffee, then on with the fishing, a slow start, a break for a full english breakfast at the local pub, then all hell broke loose, the fishing was great, off the scale, sorry only lures scored on this trip!!!!!!!

We all caught fish in the snow, and I must say they are some of the finest eating Rainbow Trout in the UK....

We are already taking bookings for next year, so if you fancy a spot of fishing with a great bunch of guides give us a ring 01305 257490

Seriously cold.....

2009-12-20T17:46:00.001Z

we arrived at our swims on the upper Stour just before first light, a beautiful winter morning, and seriously cold!

We knew it would be tough going in these conditions and I have to say we moved swims just to stay in the SUN, we fished hard for one fish and a dropped run, I say we, I really ment Ben, he had the dropped run and the fish.

A lovely venue, great to go back and fish after probably twenty years!

We are all on Christmas wind down now, Grayling fishing tomorrow, and a jolly to Maningford Trout fishery near the upper Avon on Tuesday........Living the dream Ash.......

Twiddling stix

2009-12-19T19:02:00.001Z

I used to spend a huge amount of time Piking during the winter months on the rivers in Dorset, I never caught anything to go in any record books, but I did get a few!

Tomorrow for the first time in many years I am fishing the Stour for Pike and I cannot wait, but the little bit of kit that bought lots of great memories flooding back, was simply the "twiddling stick" the greatest bit of kit ever for making up your own Pike traces.

I have just made up a few using the fab VB doubles made by Partridge Hooks and Drennan 20lb seven strand wire and the whole lot "twiddled a treat" roll on first light!

If you have nothing better to do on a cold winters night why not stay in and watch River Cottage on the 23rd December, you might just recognise one or two of the local fishing characters making fools of themselves including one person catching a Dogfish..........

A very happy Christmas

2009-12-18T19:37:00.004Z

John, Andrea, Liberty and all of the "Riverworks Crew" would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you for all your custom and support over the last year and to wish you all a very, very........

"Happy Christmas and a Healthy

and Happy New Year"

May all your dreams come true in 2010!

We decided again this Christmas, that the decent and most obvious thing to do this year was to make a donation to the Joseph Weld Hospice instead of sending out lots of cards.

Our thoughts at this time of year are very much with Maria, our dearest friend who unfortunately lost her fight on December 28th the year before last xx

Eggs and Redds

2009-12-15T19:19:00.000Z

We placed our order for 40,000 Brown Trout eggs with Hooke Springs Trout Farm a little while ago,we then had nearly 50 days of rain (according the local news) which made things a little tricky!

As our deadline arrived today, the last day to safely move the eggs, the river had just dropped to depths safe enough to put our egg boxes in.

The boxes were plumbed in below a nice head of clean spring water and a fair amount of gravel added to the egg box, firstly weighing it down and secondly providing the natural redd type environment for these little fellas to hatch out in to....welcome to the middle Frome!

Elliot carefully placing the Trout eggs into one of our boxes, today was a little colder than of late, and then it started raining!

On our journey around the Frome today we came across a couple of Salmon Redds, you can just make them out in this picture below, we begin our Redd count on the Frome just after Christmas, we hope for a bumper count this time, as a result of such a long wet spell, and fingers crossed for lots of Redds above Dorchester as a result of the excellent Louds Mill fish pass......

You can see here, even after a few days with only a little rain, the Frome is running clear but very high!
Cracking Grayling fishing with a 4oz gold head!

Last night Richard Slocock and I ( both now vice chairmen of the Frome Piddle and West Dorset Fisheries Association ) attended the Wessex - Fisheries Forum Meeting with the EA in Blandford and I have to say it was an outstanding meeting, I came out glowing, the works delivered in the Wessex region in terms of fishery improvements over the last twelve months is staggering.

* Fish passage improvements on the Brit and Asker
* Frome fish passage
* Cerne fish passage
* DWT upper Frome habitat work
* DFC middle Frome habitat work
* Woodsford habitat work...awesome....
* Further works on the Stour, Piddle, Avon, work on temperature, climate change, and a whole lot more!
Trust me there is a huge amount of behind the scene work that goes on out there so that you and I can go fishing, and nearly 70% of this fishery work is funded through our "ROD LICENCES".....

Red sky in the morning

2009-12-11T18:04:00.000Z

And then it rained really hard again, and again, and again.
We have one or two things to do on the river, like setting up Brown Trout egg boxes, a little tricky in flood conditions.

It is actually quiet handy to make the time to catch up with all the other jobs that we put on hold during the fine weather, but I have to agree its always better outdoors.

We have spent a fair amount of time office bound due to this weather, I have friends with charter boats that have not been to sea now for seven weeks, ouch!

Also a great time for making plans for the coming year and dreaming of warm sunny weather......

I had a great e mail from a friend of mine the a couple of weeks ago "Hi John not spoken in a while, fancy going after Mahseer?"..........Oh dear here we go again............

Devon and Dorset

2009-12-01T20:19:00.000Z

Two completely different locations in two days, Monday was exciting, I had never fished at Seaton, I was invited to fish for part of a program that River Cottage are making for Christmas, a great day out with a friendly bunch of anglers, Hugh cooked a cracking Pheasant curry, and I managed to catch two Dogfish before rushing east back to Dorset in time for the DFC AGM, a quiet pint and something else to eat....

Smile and try to say something sensible.....

Back in Dorset, Chesil beach still just fishable, I fished most of the day and the wind just got stronger and stronger, colder and colder, but at the end I did get a late Black Bream, no Cod!

Time to pack up, it was stupidly cold and I was the only one on the beach, "that must say something", called into Dennings tackle for a peak at Paul's new gun department, and to chat about the various patterns of chalk stream flies they will be stocking for next season, and to drink a very welcome cup of coffee!

Website update

2009-11-29T18:10:00.002Z

Due to a large amount of stormy weather in our county at the moment, ie flooded rivers and an unfishable sea, we have been updating our website ( http://www.riverworks.co.uk/ ) with one or two exciting additions for 2010, please take a look and begin booking your fishing adventures..........

The weather forcast is again unsettled for this coming week, great as we are Bass fishing and filming with "River Cottage" down in Axmouth tomorrow, then rushing back to Dorset for the DFC AGM in the evening.

Wild and stormy

2009-11-23T12:26:00.002Z

I must admit I have not ventured down to the river yet today, the rain is making quite a din on the office windows, but it is cracking conditions for migrating Salmonids!

We did explore the coast over the weekend, in pretty extreme conditions and not an angler in sight!

But out of the blue or should I say grey came a message from Ben A saying he had managed a couple of sizable Bass "respect" the conditions were tough, all I could manage was 20 mins of a Masheer dvd in the warm.

Choppy in Chesil Cove......

Tonight we are heading to Exeter to experience the Rise Fly Fishing Film Festival, it sounds great, if you scroll down to earlier entries about this event you can get your tickets on line and do something enjoyable on a particulary wet and miserable day.....

Boat handling, sun and big fish

2009-11-21T17:13:00.005Z

We are very fortunate to be doing slightly more and more with Fish the Dream out in the sunny Florida Keys, this last trip for me, was to be trained under the watchful eye of owner Rodney Goodship, in various boat handling skills, navigation, handling and safely releasing big fish, and some of the various methods used, from kite fishing to trolling and the use of down riggers, all are methods we are aware of and have been using with stagering results over the past five years!

"Living the dream" comes to mind, we had some cracking fishing, off shore, Florida Bay and up in the Everglades, the locations and marks are endless, and the weather a little kinder than what we have here in the UK at the moment, I have returned to gale force winds and flooding and to top that nobody I know has been fishing!

One of the many marks we use you are almost guaranteed to catch a fish over the magical one hundred pound mark, I think back to last week and I think we only managed six or so fish over that weight!

These fish give you serious serious back ache, this is an 80lb stand up rod, and after a bit of a tug of war I was pleased to release a PB Goliath Grouper of over 200 pounds!

There are so many variations in the fishing out there, and its great to spend time catching sensible sized fish as well as the others........

Take a look out the window at our winter weather, count the cash you have saved this year from cancelled boat trips, and get in touch about the fishing trip of a lifetime, I will be your guide on several trips next year, a Tarpon over 150lbs......could be yours..........

Water Level Management Plan

2009-10-30T10:34:00.003Z

We all heard about the Water Level Management Plan a year or so ago, sat in several meetings and to a degree there was a certain amount of head shaking and a lot question asking, one of the main questions being "will any of these plans actually reach the river"?

Well I can tell you that the Environment Agency have excelled themselves, and delivered some of the finest habitat improvement projects both on the river Avon and closer to home on the river Frome.

Yesterday we were kindly invited to view a WLMP engineering project just finished on the river Frome below Dorchester, and I have to say we were all blown away by the scale of this project and the results that we confidently feel it will achieve.

Some serious thought has gone into this project, using some new restoration practices, for example the use of whole very large trees as flow deflectors, a twenty tonne slew to, shall we say adjust the bed of the river, and a monster gravel washing machine to clean hundreds and hundreds of tonnes of previously dredged gravel, returning it to the bed of the river to restore much needed Salmonid spawning habitat.

A new method of "sliding" a grand term for narrowing the river by "sliding" the bankside into the river, causing it to narrow and at the same time extending the wet marginal habitat.

I think a huge thank you from us all is the order of the day, all this was completed by Environment Agency staff, the WLMP team, in particular Alasdair Maxwell and Allan Frake, slew driver Tony Frampton, and a profesional team of very competent machine drivers and ground staff, a credit to you all.

We have done the Redd counting on the Frome now for many years, And I can tell you, after all the work that has taken place over the last few months we are seriously looking forward to carefully monitoring all these new sites this coming winter, as the amount of Redd cutting in these now restored areas was practically nil.

Boat Fishing Monthly

2009-10-27T12:07:00.001Z

Here is the write up that Jim Whippy did in this months Boat Fishing Monthly.
If you double click on it, it could be big enough to read?

Press...

2009-10-27T07:50:00.002Z

I have just remembered the article "fixing the Frome" that Nick Fisher wrote for the Get Hooked Guide.

Click on HERE to have a quick read.

River Nadder

2009-10-23T19:06:00.000+01:00

We have had a cracking few days doing some in stream work for the Environment Agency on the river Nadder, with some great results, one of the reasons we all love the game we are all in is the pure and simple fact that you are always learning something NEW.........

I cannot wait to build some of these on the DFC water!

Simple tree trunk deflectors, with instant effect.

Add in an island or two and all of a sudden you have re- created a fishery!

We have had another cracking year, what a team, a monster thank you to Mum, Dad, Captain Elliot, Tim, Rob and Terry, onwards and upwards..................................

Yep it is all good fun!

You can take a glance at further works for the DFC here

And at last after a cracking trip with Jim Whippy to the Keys with Fish the Dream back in May, we have a stunning two pages in this issue of Boat Fishing Monthly, so if you need something to read by the fire on a wet evening, you could be tempted to a fishing trip to the tropic's this winter give me a ring and we can chat about monster fish.........

The Red Rod

2009-10-23T18:34:00.000+01:00

Oh I can promise that I did not buy one of these TENRYU Red Rods or Stradic reels, but Matt and Scott did and they have been slamming a fish or two on their new toys already, they called in after christening them last weekend, to make me green with envy, and that I am.

These rods have some serious reviews, just take a look at Henry Gilbeys blog!

Matt, with his early Xmas present.....

Scott's was for Xmas, two birthdays and another two Christmas's oh and better make that another birthday......

Well done folks keep up the good work, I am just getting myself excited about some serious nymph fishing for Grayling.....

Where next..........

2009-10-16T06:07:00.005+01:00

We are forever throwing ideas around as how to improve and expand our "Riverworks" company, and we do have some exciting plans in the pipeline for the early part of 2010, but at stupid o clock this morning I thought of the "Jurassic fishing centre" we could do everything to do with fishing, everyone could come on board, we all have different skills within this field and the untapped facilities down here in Dorset are second to none......I feel a plan coming together!

On a slightly more realistic note, other than the exciting work we are doing on the DFC water we have just spent a few days with the Dorset Wildlife Trust working on a chalk stream project designed by Sarah Williams, and a digger and driver from Kingcombe Aquacare----What a team.....

We have opened up and re created lots of superb Salmonid spawning gravels from a river bed that up until now was literally like concrete!

The compacted gravels had a serious shake up with the digger, we added some flow deflectors, and let in a little dappled sunlight as a result of felling one or two trees to obtain materials for our in stream work.

Here you can clearly see the flow deflectors in action, a slight pool followed by a seriously sexy riffle, lucky Salmon.........

A slight amount of erosion control, a little river bed re-profiling and as you can see some great Kingfisher habitat.

Constructing another riffle at the same time as creating a back water to encourage various marginals to grow and of course good fry habitat.

I did manage to do a blog entry early yesterday and then for some reason posted it to the DFC site so if you would like to read it you can at http://www.grhe.co.uk/

The evenings are drawing in pretty quick now, it was getting dark when we finished last night, and even darker when I returned home after the Association of Ponds, Lakes and Fisheries AGM which was followed by a most interesting talk by the DWT on gardens and wildlife.

Ben rang late and talked me into a Cod trip later today, which meant having to be in the office at 4am this morning, its so quiet not even the birds are awake, but a great time to work, I tell you we are buzzing at the moment, and here is something to get excited about, some of the worlds top fly fishing film makers (Rise, fly fishing film festival) and photographers are putting on some films here in the UK our nearest cinema where this is happening is in Exeter, full details HERE

I know this will be a great evening but we need to get tickets pretty fast, I am just worried about being further tempted by these exotic fly fishing destinations.

Living the dream.....cheers Ash!

2009-10-09T21:13:00.002+01:00

"Living the dream" is a sort of private joke between all the folks in this area of the country that are involved within fishery industry, the saying evolved from a Kingcombe Aquacare site earlier this year and has spred as the aquatic moto, wet, cold, covered in mud and stinking of silt, late home,7 days a week, stuck in the office, "Living the Dream....."

Tim and Elliot weaving the willow......

The riverworks gang have been out in force this week, myself, Elliot and tim have been busy on the DFC water constructing more Willow islands, willow bank revetment, flow deflectors, and lots of tree trimming, whilst Terry and Rob, and Tim (poor Tim always in two places) have been putting in some serious hours jet washing spawning gravel on the Frome.

The Swans liked the slack water created by one of our new islands.......

Great to see Elliot enjoying his work, I cant repeat what he just called me!

Just after this picture was taken we paused for tea and cake..........

We finished our tree work earlier than planned today and sped to the beach in search of a Bass, John G missed one, but only just......

Next week, more of our habitat work, a project for the Dorset Wildlife Trust, and a trip to the River Nadder and a little research into a possible trip to Chile with a Fly company in Spain http://www.salvelinus.com/

Islands

2009-10-06T20:51:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned on my last blog, we had a day booked out on Top Cat, well yes the wind did get up and then dropped again the day after our cancelled trip, typical, either this fishing luck thing is with you or its against you, you just have to keep plodding away at it.

It really has been an outstanding year, we have all caught a few PBS, I have had a PB Tarpon and a PB Garfish and a PB Blonde....Nice.....

We have ended up on the famous Chesil bank on more than one occasion so far this autumn in search of a Cod (that everyone else seems to be catching) this weekend a few big fish were caught up until we arrived to fish the evening tide, I missed one rather good fish that nearly pulled the rod and tripod over, I picked up the rod, nothing there, how the hell do they do that, on a 4/0 pennell ?

Seconds after this picture was taken, Scott wound in, re baited and cast out.....

It pays to use lots of fresh bait....we made him put this little fella back!

We fished until late, and I caught one of my smallest Pout, then it was time to think about work....

One of the passions we all have is habitat improvement work on chalk streams, and we have a few projects on the go at the moment, and building willow islands on the Frome is one of our favorites, this adds a great deal to the flow variation, and also cleans and loosens the gravel making it better for Salmon, Sea Trout and Brown Trout spawning.

A lot of our habitat work is funded by the Environment Agency, a huge thank you from all involved in Dorsets chalk streams, so when you all buy your rod licence you now have some idea that at least some of the revenue raised is being used locally, and for very good causes, I was at a fantastic seminar last week with the EA and the IFM and there was a paper presented by the Barbel Society on some of the work done on the Dorset Stour, great stuff and all in the name of conservation.........

Indian summer

2009-09-27T20:28:00.001+01:00

What a cracking Indian summer we are having here in Dorset, truly spectacular weather, and even managing a fish or two from our Kayak.

The weekend began with Elliot and I repairing a leak in a dam on a local coarse fishery, and Terry, Tim and Rob out jet washing Salmon spawning areas on the Frome.

Bass Ben was some where on the Chesil bank claiming a flat fish grand slam!

We were today about half a mile away from mark x catching lots of Mackerel and Garfish on float fished sandeel, and one hooked up Garfish lept over the bow of the Kayak, great fun.

Scott on the other hand was fishing a little further in land, resulting in a rather fine Ghost Carp and another double figure Barbel, nice!

Long may this weather continue, we are all out fishing on Top Cat next Saturday, so the wind is bound to increase.

A seriously early start again tommorrow, and starting an exciting new habitat project on the Frome towards the end of the week.....

Electric fishing

2009-09-23T21:01:00.001+01:00

Last Friday we had a cracking days electric fishing with Kingcombe Aquacare on the Dorchester Fishing Club water, bottom line is the fish population is more than healthy, a great population of both juveniles and adult specimen fish, surely a result of lots of habitat improvement projects over the years, and we have a few more to complete before the end of October!!!!!

Did you see the size of that one.....

A fantastic day, a rather splendid curry and lots of fish, a huge thank you to all involved.

Saturday, just after first light, and with a flooding monster spring tide Matt and I found ourselves at Durdle door lure fishing for Bass, we had great fun with Pollack, Mackerel, and Garfish but the Bass stayed away!

A great sunrise.....

The rest of the weekend was juggled between the coast, river and family, this rather fine spell of warm weather has to be exploited to the full.

I took a budding Sea Trout angler out to fish one of the largest spring tides of the year, out we went on the Kayak in search of Bass, the weather was perfect, but all we managed was one Mackerel.

We tried later in the day and lost a big fish, well it is only the big ones that get away!

With all our work comitments, the whole of the "Riverworks" gang are now fully comitted to seven days a week until November, what a team we have, (as Elliot keeps reminding me)!

There are a few Cod being caught, my friend Bass Ben rang to see how work was going? "stuck in traffic in Hampshire mate" oh just had a Cod and a few Black Bream, can you fish tomorrow? "NO we have 100 tonnes of concrete coming!

We do have something to look forward to, as I mentioned we are going to be doing a little with "Fish the Dream"

Flights to Miami are booked for November to go out to see Rodney down in the Keys (hot tropical weather) who will be putting me through some pretty full on boat handling and navigation, in preperation for running one or two trips, watch this space, or better so get on to Rodney for some outstanding fishing this autumn, thats if your up to the extreme fishing!

Basstastic

2009-09-12T21:19:00.007+01:00

We have quiet a lot of exciting new projects planned for 2010.

One of these will be the introduction of Kayak fishing tours, extensively researched over the last year or so, by myself and others, we already have more than one or two good marks up our sleeves, today Adam and I tried a new method on one of the marks, with outstanding results!

Great on extra light gear!

Fishing with really light spinning gear made the whole experience seriously good fun, in fact we aim to go even lighter, the takes were pretty savage, and the fight these fish put up on such light gear leaves even hardened anglers slightly shaky.......we were like kids on Christmas eve!

Awesome fun.......watch this space.

Kayak fishing is something completly different, another angle of the sport I have been wanting to get involved with for a while, well the wait was worth it.

Fresh Bass with a drizzel of lemon..............

I know that yesterday was the best summers day of the summer, and today is looking good so far, I have to say I felt slightly guilty, Tim rang at 5 ish to say they were just finishing working on the river (cheers folks another cracking job), and asked if I was in the office, sorry Tim we are on the beach eating freshly cooked Bass and Mackerel!

So far this week

2009-09-08T19:59:00.007+01:00

We had a fairly busy weekend weed cutting on a local coarse fishery, cutting and removing well over ten tonnes of Elodea, (Canadian Pond Weed) hand cutting is really the only option as the use of any aquatic herbicides are severely restricted, and weed cutting boat access to this particular venue could cause a few problems.

Clearing out a few new swims.

As always huge thanks to Elliot and Tim for their hard work and sense of humour over the weekend, and another early start on Monday.

Oops no fishing and to help matters slightly worse a friend of ours rang to say he had caught and returned 14 Bass, from the shore........

After a fairly long day on the river, yesterday evening I took a new day ticket angler down to the lower beat on the rather fine DFC water, to show off some of the fishing, we saw one or two good fish and plenty of fly, a rather pleasant evening, warm with a few fish moving, 8.42 pm now and its dark, very dark! (Another season well on its way)

After exploring the river I dropped our fishing guest at the Keepers Cottage guest House that we highly recommend, and its only a few yards from the river.

A great B&B

An hour or two in the office, a great feed of Pike fish pie and were off to the Avon before it gets light !

I received a nice e mail from a gentleman who fished the DFC water on Tuesday telling me the tale of catching a three pounder on a small CDC, and another visiting angler who in one day caught Trout and Grayling but also saw a huge pike, and the icing on cake a monster Salmon this a little further down stream.

We are blessed with some fine angling weather at the moment, and the weather is looking good for the weekend, the Frome looks absolutely awesome at this moment and with only a month left of the Trout season, might I suggest we all get out and make the most of it.......

Varied work

2009-09-02T20:44:00.002+01:00

One of the greatest things about our work is the huge amount of variation that it offers, a short entry it might be, today we rescued some nice fish with Kingcombe Aquacare prior to some hatch restoration works.

Chubby.......

A waiting game

2009-08-30T13:00:00.004+01:00

The weather was fairly kind to us over the last 24 hours, and we managed a few high doubles between us on a variety of methods, we fished hard but still made the time to consume some fine food washed down with a glass or two of wine.

Tasty Carp treats

The fishing was fairly slow during the day, typically picking up about three in the morning, great ten years ago!

Elliot "margin fishing"

As today unfolded the cloud built, it started raining and got cold, that put pay to spending a sunny day Bass fishing! I am off down the river to do my rounds.........

where is the wind

2009-08-29T07:38:00.005+01:00

To say it has been windy is an understatement, in fact it blew all of last August and our local Weymouth charter fleet struggled to get out.

More dates to come....

Yesterday was gusting force EIGHT, we were due out on Top Cat but between us decided to arrange it for another day, typically this morning the wind has dropped and the sky is blue.......

Luckily we have a plan B.........

We are due a fish or two between us, watch this space...

My wife payed me a slight complement earlier, when asking me to fetch the wetsuits off the washing line, told me that all I had done so far was eat and talk about fishing!

BST

2009-08-26T18:16:00.007+01:00

May and June were fantastic text book months, great weather, great fly hatches and great fishing, so what went wrong, not so long ago with the so called onset of global warming we should have been setting up the first Tarpon camp in Poole harbour within a few years, looks like we will have to put those plans on hold for a while.......

We did have a cracking evening last week when John G and I put on a river picnic with the Association of Ponds Lakes and Fisheries, a great turn out as we did a grand tour of some of the work that we have completed on our beloved river Frome.

New riffles and more......

While on the subject of "looking forward to things" we had a trip up to the Test Valley Angling Fair, I have to say we were a little disappointed, there was nothing to buy......or look at!

On our return journey we swung into Stockbridge to feed the fish in the high street.....

Quick get a rod..........

The Sunday turned out nice and warm, partly to make up for the show, and something I have given a little thought to over the years, we ended up on the beach and I went to look at angling kayaks and as a result of finding another angle of the sport to play about with the weather has again turned against us.........

Look out Bass......

A bank holiday and a chance for a little fishing before we start seven days a week to fit in all our in river works by the end of October dead line, a long day in the office tying up all the paperwork for various consents and plans.....

To finish off with, I have had a few e mails from a guy who used to come into my tackle shop many years ago, who now runs Large mouth Bass tournaments in South Africa, check out his websites..... kickboatclassic and a lure site lunkerbay

Frome

2009-08-18T05:29:00.003+01:00

A week or so ago the Frome burst its banks, a huge amount of rain fell in a very short amount of time, this gave the whole river a grand clean up, and flushed out all the dead weed.

Three of the team were out working in very damp conditions, the first time ever having to ware life jackets for bank work!

The river is now fishing really well and looks in its prime, there has been some huge fish caught, and with the evenings drawing in the day time fishing is getting a bit more exciting.

An early start for those of us working on the Avon, and a good day for the rest of the gang pressing on in Dorset, and with that good old November 1st working in the river dead line, not that far away, we have a hell of a lot to do..............

Notable captures

2009-08-16T13:02:00.009+01:00

The week before last we headed south across the channel for a family break, we loaded the camping gear into the back of the truck in the heaviest rain of the year and not long after we arrived in France the Frome burst its banks, possibly a good time to get away for a few days.

I spent a little time baiting a couple of spots on a river which held some good Carp and Bream, fished for only a few hours before the urge to cook some more Mussles and open a bottle of wine overtook the need to catch a fish!

A mixed bag of Carp food

A cracking little swim, if only I gave it a little longer....

We arrived back in the UK late on the Sunday then surfaced at 5am ready for work on the Monday, fortunately we are very very busy at the moment, in fact were having to work a few weekends.

Next weekend is the Test Valley Angling Show, we hope to be there on the Saturday for a spot of shopping.

Scott with a cracking Barbel.....

On a serious note some friends have been out catching a few fish, some huge Barbel, Duncan caught and returned a rather fine 37lb Salmon in Russia, and a particularly fine angler caught himself a 4lb 40z 4dr Grayling on the fly!

With a little more work these huge multi sea winter fish could return to the Frome........

We had better crack on with all this work and make some time for some serious fishing this coming autumn.

We have a river picnic at Bockhampton on Thursday the 20th of August looking at habitat improvement work on the river Frome, please give me a ring if you would like to come along, we are meeting at 6.30pm.

I was just taking a peak at Henry Gilbeys blog and for any of you that are remotely concerned about our fish stocks, please check out this link to "The End of the Line"

Fishing in south Australia

2009-08-04T10:34:00.005+01:00

I have just received a cracking e mail from my brother highlighting some of the fishing available on the otherside of our planet.......

Having moved the family many thousands of miles away, to fish on deserted beaches.......

Just moments after the above picture was taken, one of the rods hooped over, and after a brief struggle..................................

Rivers and things

2009-08-02T17:59:00.007+01:00

Another couple of weeks that have flown by, here we are in August already......

We have been pretty busy as always on the Frome, stocking, weed cutting, and mowing, keeping everything looking smart.

We are pleased to be doing some more chalk stream restoration work with Kingcombe Aquacare on the river Avon, (I have never seen so many large Chub).

The day tickets for the DFC have run out for this season, the ruling is that only 45 tickets can be issued, due to the standard of the fishery they seem to go fairly quickly, so you had better get your tickets booked for the 2010 season.

Saturday we had a cracking days weed cutting on the river Allen, a great number of members turned out on a particularly wet and dark day, they were so good at removing all the cut weed we had a job cutting enough to keep them busy, a big thank you to all involved.

We made a serious bit of chalk stream fishable again.........

On a warmer dryer note I have just received an e mail from Rodney out in the Florida Keys attaching a photograph of a Hammerhead Shark of over a THOUSAND pounds caught and released by regular angler Lee Jasper earlier this year.

Look at the size of that dorsal..... a 1000lb+ Hammerhead

The fishing out there is quiet unbelievable, this picture was followed by another e mail offering some great deals.

Hi John

Just to let you know of deals and offers, we have cut our prices on some weeks to just £85 per person per day for b+b car and boat based on four sharing to get the feel good factor back in this current hard time and with the less than summery weather, people need to contact me phone or email for me to explain the details, some pics to wet appetites.

Cheers

Rodney Goodship

"Fish the Dream"

Rodney is in the uk for the rest of the summer, you can reach him on 01668 216173

Kind words from a visiting angler......

2009-07-30T17:07:00.001+01:00

Hello John

Please accept my apologies for a very delayed response to your email.I would like to thank you for a really enjoyable days fishing on the beat at Bockhampton on 14th July - it was a really memorable day on your magical stretch of the Frome and it was a real privilege to fish this lovely stretch of river.Although the day had its challenges - a fairly persistent wind and occasional rain, I had a really brilliant day. Your advice for a 7'6" #4 rod was spot on and although I only "landed" 3 fish (all safely returned) all on a GRHE Nymph (14), I did manage to get a number of rises to my dry fly in some of the slower pools and glimpsed a few dark monsters in various lies along the beat!I thought that you had achieved just the right balance of vegetation and access both on the banks and in the river itself and the rough areas away from the bank were a wonderful natural setting for wildlife. The fish were excellent sport, quick and feisty but not impossible to catch and a good number were evident throughout the beat.I can only say how envious I am of your members who are able to fish this beat on a regular basis - it was a real pleasure and a privilege to be able to fish this beat myself.Many thanks for a really enjoyable day - I hope I will be able to visit you again soon. Keep up the good work.

Kind regards,Kim Benniman

PS the Pub was an excellent recommendation - great lunch!

Fish tales

2009-07-26T10:54:00.008+01:00

An incredibly varied week, we have seen most of southern England on various watery projects.

One client e mailed through some photographs of some willow bank revetment that Elliot and I did back in the winter, what a transformation!

Elliot hard at it back in the winter

Six or so months later

A bit of mowing on Saturday morning, whilst I was grafting Libs sneaked off and caught a 4lb Chub!
Whilst on the subject of fishing, next year I will be running a couple of trips during prime Tarpon season to the Florida Keys with "Fish the Dream" there is some availibility during June, so if you need something to look forward to this is most definitly the one thing to do.......
I decided that it would be a good idea to make some Pike fish pie, great until you start taking the bones out, and the bones out, then go through it and take the bloody bones out........ nightmare, but well worth it in the end, also boiled up what was left and made some cracking Pike soup!

No Mullet

2009-07-15T18:43:00.003+01:00

Yesterday after a long days tree trimming and weed cutting, and getting stung by a wasp, we decided on a hours fishing in Weymouth harbour could be a fitting end to a good day.

We arrived just after the heavens opened, and the Crabs stole all our bait.

Not giving up, and after some careful feeding we enticed some cracking Mullet into a feeding frenzy, including one or two lunkers, just as a possible PB swam up to my hook bait.......A bright spark jumped down onto the jetty "any luck mate"?**** nope nothing!!!!!!! I politely replied, it was time to head home for a glass of wine.

The inner harbour

Today was great we constructed a large Gazebo using nothing but live Willow!

Crabbing in Weymouth

2009-07-13T21:18:00.004+01:00

We had rain last weekend that lasted for well over 24 hours, I got up early on the Sunday to go and take some pictures of my predicted flooded river....... NO change not even a splash of colour!

A couple of days off fishing with the girls was great, after a long day getting wet in the river, the highlight was tonight, crabbing in Weymouth harbour, Libs and I went for a couple of hours and she caught 11 in a drop net (all returned) what fun!

Mackerel is the top bait.

Catching up on a little fishing

2009-07-10T13:33:00.005+01:00

Some how this week Elliot and I have succeeded in getting all the river beats we maintain looking immaculate, all the paperwork is done, so at last we have a day or two to catch up on some fishing time.

We did head out after Tench for a couple of hours last weekend, no Tench, I managed a Bream and Elliot had a good carp off the surface in a very snaggy area.....well angled....on an old Avon rod.

On a red bait....

Wednesday evening on a flooding tide Ben and I fished in the Fleet and caught a couple of Bass, I caught my smallest yet!

Back you go........

Last night in some very shallow water, not far from Portland, we were surrounded by Mullet, great to watch these fish, I forgot my camera, typical there was lots to photograph, but these fish were a little tricky to say the least....

Andrea and I went co catch a few Mackerel after dropping Libs at school, we had enough for tea, and Andrea had a 2 pounder it was huge!

Flaming June

2009-07-05T09:31:00.006+01:00

What a cracking month June was, superb weather, amazing Mayfly hatches and tales of lot's of people catching fish, Trout, Bass, summer Cod and even the odd Salmon, released of course!

We are into July now, and post Mayfly we depend on our smaller up winged flies such as the Blue Winged Olive to allow us to continue our chalk stream fishing on through the summer.

Last week we finished repairing a leaky dam on a small lake, a tough week that all came good, the leaks stopped and now it will top up with spring water to it's required level.

We worked on late to get the job finished......

I did manage to catch up with an old friend at Ringstead one evening and we fished in lots of weed at low water on a neap..........We did see the odd small Mullet working through the weed on a very hot muggy evening.

We need to be here in another 4 hours, but who cares.......

The weather is a little cooler now, nearly finished in the office, then off Tench fishing!

HOT

2009-07-01T18:02:00.009+01:00

As my last blog entry stated, "we had some serious rain" that night, but much to my surprise the Frome showed absolutely no change, in fact I fished with a friend for a couple of hours in bright hot sunshine on the Friday afternoon and between us we managed to rise a few small ones, as always it was good to get out, (with something other than a mower).

Nick covering a spooky fish.....

I absolutely love hot tropical weather, but I have to say we have now had three days of the most fabulous "sitting on the beach weather", where we have struggled a little to keep going, working in the water in waders, completely sheltered from any breeze (on a lovely project in North Dorset)!

Spacing out the posts.... Prior to willow weaving

All our work takes us to some fantastic places, today we found a little shade to eat our lunch, which we managed to share with one or two Chub.....
Our risk assessment for this job very seriously includes all sun and heat factors....Seriously!

A little more willow revetment, again to make a lake bank safe.

Long may our summer last, but could we have a little more rain (at night) to top up our rivers.
Check out the FP&WDFA website and get joined up to help us protect and improve our local rivers.
And just to prove the sun has not got to me, I saw a huge fish, 30-50lbs shaped like a King Mackerel jump three times off the Chesil beach last Sunday!
I glanced at Lib's own outdoor thermo meter and I know it is in the sun, but it is nearly 8pm and it reads 34 degrees C we had better take a cool box and a large fan to work tomorrow!

We need it

2009-06-26T08:54:00.004+01:00

I had the feeling as I wrote my blog about the sunny weather, that it could induce a drop of rain, and rain it did, all night and its still raining now, perfect, our river's were in almost desperate need for a post Mayfly freshen up!

If you double left click on the slideshow you can view all the pictures almost full screen, how exciting is that..........

Summer

2009-06-25T20:18:00.009+01:00

Who do I need to thank for this fabulous spell of fine weather, or may be its just what we deserve after a few duff summers.

We did have a hint of rain today, and I hate to say it but our rivers could do with a drop, just to freshen things up before the BWO come into their own, on those balmy evenings to come.....

I was chatting to a friend about fishing, and the luck involved, simply being in the right place etc, or even using the right size lures!.........I think the poppers I have been using could be a little on the LARGE side, and Elliot tells me I wind them in to fast, well that works for Cuda s ....

I forgot but I did catch a 15lb Mirror at the weekend, on a piece of freelined paste intended for a big Rudd, on an avon rod, a Cardinal 54 and 6lb line.

Busy as always, we work stupidly hard, but along the way we have a good time, the guys are so dedicated and enjoy their way of life, I mean work......

Time for a spot of weed cutting

A little easier to fish now.

The girls and I went and fished for a few Mackerel on Chesil last night, great fun along with a few tangles.

Always take a spare reel!

Nows the time to head home for a fish supper.....

Finally tonight, page two and three of this weeks angling times "1000 pound record shark" a Six gilled shark caught off of Ireland, and through no fault of its own hung up amd weighed on a fork lift truck back at dock!................ I would love to hear your comments?

Sunburnt.....

2009-06-23T14:25:00.005+01:00

Having spent a huge amount of time working outdoors, we should have at least some idea that it is fairly sensible to slap a bit of sun cream on from time to time, several days weed cutting and a bit of time afloat with little or no sun cream and its pay back time......a stupidly red nose, and face, ouch.....

Saturday, we had a challenging day guiding for "Fishing Breaks" on the Wrackleford Estate, a cold overcast morning soon changed into a bright hot, tough fish catching day, a few fish were caught, but most importantly we had a great day and a fab barbecue on the river.

Yesterday, purely by chance ended up out on Tony Kings Boston Whaler, with his new 115hp engine, yes we flew in search of a Bass on the fly......we worked extremely hard all day but the fish did not want to play, we caught a Pollack or two, hopefully a start as the Bass season picks up, check out his Bass Trips at fishing breaks website.

Right I have been stuck in the office for far to long on this beautiful day, I had better get down to the river and find out what is happening.

Late supper

2009-06-17T21:16:00.003+01:00

A stupidly long day of meetings and looking at plans!

We were just finishing our dinner, the phone rang " hi mate its Scott, lots of fishing chat.........that Venison you cooked up the pond was cracking, what did you have for dinner tonight?......Venison mate, "did you take a picture of it? yep " better put it on your blog! "OK "

Yum, and enough for the rest of the week.....

Weed cutting for the rest of the week!

Another great day

2009-06-16T21:21:00.005+01:00

I was up at about 5.30 am catching up on a little FPWDFA work, high lighting a recent observation of an influx of an alien species of Azolla that I discovered on the middle reaches of the Frome, watch this space.

Also recent tagging of Sea Trout in Poole harbour, various incidents of Salmon poaching, meetings with the EA trust me its all go, all due to my new roll as vice chairman of the FPWDFA a position that I am very proud of... lets crack on with the job in hand.....

As the sun grew in strength I had just the most fantastic day along the DFC water, chatting to angler's and pushing a mower for the best part of ten hours.

I heard of both Trout and Grayling of over 2lbs today!

Fishing not catching

2009-06-16T06:46:00.007+01:00

Yesterday was one that can be described as being "good for the soul", and the weather was fantastic.

We started off as planned lure fishing for the Bass in Portland harbour, plenty of follows but we could not get a Bass to take a lure of any description, it was fantastic to watch fish in two feet of water just sitting still hiding in the weed, typical no fly rod, these fish just looked like they wanted to be Bonefish, I will be back with some shrimp pattern's very soon.

Great for fish spotting, stalking Bass...........

Once we had lost what little tide we had, we climbed over the Chesil bank to spin for a Mackerel, to no avail so we headed off to buy lunch.

We spent the early evening on a tiny chalk stream and managed a hand full of little wild Brown trout, there was a flurry of small Olive's and one or two of the last Mayfly.

Great start to the week

2009-06-15T07:17:00.005+01:00

What a cracking weekend, everyone caught fish except me ! We ate Mackerel barbequed on the beach with the bonus of some Venison marinated in red wine for three days, awesome!

Monday Morning
I donated a day's guiding to the FP&WDFA to put in a fund raising auction. Fortunately, it did sell and today that lucky guy get's to be taken on a little Bass fishing journey, a late lunch and an evening on a little very overgrown chalk stream.

Not a bad way to start the week I am now thinking, so let's hope the Bass are back from spawning and there just may be one or two spent Mayfly for the evening "fingers crossed".

Fish, Ducks and weed cutting

2009-06-10T15:31:00.008+01:00

Well after a bit of a struggle we have managed to move our office, go fishing, and fit in a huge amount of work.

Strimming and oh yes strimming....

Firstly was our last trip out with captain Ivan, a couple of weeks ago, blessed with flat calm seas, glorious sunshine and a few good fish to make for a great day out.

Codtastic.......

Simon (the Cod) as he is now known, started the day off Mackerel fishing only to catch a Cod, we then went Cod fishing and he caught a few more, and to round the day off we went in search of a Turbot, and yes you guessed it, Simon had another Cod.

We all had Cod for tea, but Eddie had family for supper and took a large Turbot home with him, seriously well angled on his carp rod!

Turbot time.....

The weed growth has been outstanding this summer, in all fairness we have only just kept up with it all, rewarding but hard work!

At least we can chat about our work to like minded people, the cows just presume we are all slightly bonkers.

The Mayfly fishing this year has been outstanding, massive hatches, truly huge falls of spinners in the late evenings, could this be a result of the extra silt we are all so very concerned about???

We have been planting a new conservation lake with native plants, helping out with a duck race with the DDAS raising money for the Air Ambulance, that was a fun day!

The Ducks on the left were just going over a pod of 2lb Grayling.

Duck Race

2009-06-06T08:46:00.000+01:00

Today from 2.00pm at Frome Terrace, Dorchester is the DDAS DUCK RACE in aid of the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, a great opertunity for a family afternoon by the river, so head on down and have some fun......

Not only will you have the chance of seeing a thousand yellow ducks on the river, you could also spot lots of wild Trout or even a 2lb + Grayling!

See you all there.

Blog updates

2009-06-03T22:43:00.002+01:00

I feel slightly guilty of the lack of blog updates, this is only due to the fact that this is a particularly busy period for us all at "Riverworks".

The team are flat out with all the weed cutting, and fishery maintenance tasks that our clients are presenting us, we are also in the process of moving our office, which is tricky at this time of year, as we are being asked to tender and price a large amount of new projects for new clients, all exciting stuff.

We hope to be fully caught up in the next week or two, meanwhile I wish you all good fishing during this particulary fine Mayfly hatch......

Regards

John

Weed cutting

2009-05-24T09:04:00.005+01:00

The weekend just keeps getting better, and to top it all the weather is spot on!

We did a little light weed cutting on the DFC water on Saturday morning, bathed in warm sunshine and a fair few Mayfly hatching.

Creating just enough room to cast a fly....

The weed growth has gone a little mad over the last couple of weeks and I am hoping we can catch up with our cutting this coming week!

With the prospects of an increasing hatch of fly, on my return home I persuaded the girls to grab a picnic and within an hour we arrived at a tiny stream in the middle of I don't know where!

Back you go.....

It was a great afternoon, we managed a few small ones on a Yellow Wulff, but my predicted hatch quickly dwindled to nothing.......There were clouds of spinners in the trees....

Picture's and a few words

2009-05-22T21:42:00.006+01:00

Its a true fact, if I don't update my blog at least a couple of times a week people get a little twitchy, especially my mate Scott who is desperate for one or two more Florida pictures, its late and its a Friday night.

What a view, from the resturant....

Bull Shark!!!!!

We are pretty busy to say the least, I suppose we have now been involved in this fishy world for nearly twenty five years, so we must be doing something right!

A spot of guiding for "Fishing Breaks"

In this tough economic climate we are receiving new client enquiries most days, onwards and upwards as they say.......

Oh well here we go, a glass of wine, a few pictures and a days weed cutting tomorrow.....

New Personal Best......

2009-05-15T20:49:00.007+01:00

We were blessed with fabulous weather for our last trip to Florida, another trip out with "Fish the Dream" I tell you this operation just keeps getting better!

Our guide Rodney Goodship (owner of Fish the Dream) was on top form, and it is always a pleasure to spend time fishing with him, this guy works 24/7, all the hours available, to make your stay a memorable one...

This trip was awesome, I shared it with Jim Whippy and we both went on to catch and release a couple of personal best fish each, I was over the moon to beat my Tarpon record by five pounds with a fish of 175 pounds, yep chuffed!!!!!!

Float fishing with a spinning rod......Hang on.....

Jim also had a personal best fish, another species and a whole lot bigger, you need to keep a watchful eye on "Boat Fishing Monthly" over the next few months and then you can read all about it, trust me it was huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a mixture of species, including five or six fish over the magical hundred pounds...EACH
To sum it up in the words of my good mate Scott (who has caught bigger Tarpon out with Rodney) "World class fishing at a sensible price"

Bird song

2009-05-01T05:58:00.006+01:00

I woke stupidly early, the bird's were singing their little heads off, thinking of a beautiful spring morning I got up to nip down to the river for a walk, only to find it grey and chilly, so far I have made a pot of coffee, put on another jumper and turned on the computer!

I have been working on rivers all my life and to wake up and be excited about going to work is an awesome feeling, my wife many years ago asked me what I might do when I retire, well I am going to find a bit of river and look after it!

We are stocking Brown Trout today which is always great fun, and a good turn out of volunteer's is expected.

I am going to put one under my favorite tree....

We use floating cages, which we place the fish in, starting upstream of the beat we then walk downstream spreading the fish out as we go.

I was guilty of watching fishing on the telly on a Friday night instead of actually going, now I seem to spend more time on the computer, its great you can fish all around the globe, any time you like, check out some of these sites. Fish the Dream, Henry Gilbey, Catch Magazine, Fishing Wild, Drake Magazine, and Midcurrent, and when your feeling inspired get out fishing!

Kellys Bridge

2009-04-30T19:56:00.004+01:00

On a slightly fun note we decided that due to the wind being of the chilly variety it would pay to take Elliot's Kelly Kettle on all work days from now on!(apart from two days already this week due to heavy rain...)

Do not boil with cork in!

So far this week we have mown ten miles of river bank, woven willow, painted fishing huts, built bridges, drempt of catching fish from all round the world, had a suprise visit from the
"Accidental Angler", and had Rainbow Trout for tea............... tomorrow we are stocking and attending various meetings!
Next week I leave Elliot and the gang in charge...oops lots of weed cutting....Whilst I end up in the Key's in search of giant Tarpon with "Fish the Dream"

Just wide enough for a mower....

Lot's of rising fish, Grannom and Olives.
Adam saw a Mayfly on the Frome on Monday I saw one on Tuesday, and today we saw three on the Allen, if only we could slow time down a little...........

DDAS Duck race

2009-04-30T19:08:00.002+01:00

Hi all, the DDAS is organising a fund rasing event for the "Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance" looks like a lot of fun for a very good cause, especially for all of us who spend a lot of time chucking spinners from rocky out crops along the jurasic coast!

Click here for more details

Willow

2009-04-28T20:11:00.004+01:00

One of the most rewarding materials to work with is live willow................

The willow revetment we did here is about 18 months old and has protected this garden from further erosion, we came back to weave in all the new growth, adding to the stability of the project.

As nature intended....

You can naturally protect your property.....

We carefully harvest all our own willow.

Mackerel

2009-04-26T20:03:00.005+01:00

They have arrived.....................

Scott and his lovely wife Alex caught a few today, then Lib's and I turned up and on my second cast I lost all his gear, "sorry mate", it must be one of those weekends!

Stunning, which ever way you cook them.....

Scott was so pleased with his catch and cook afternoon he sent me a picture of their supper....Respect....

Our work is published

2009-04-22T09:57:00.005+01:00

We are very proud to say that some of our willow revetment work has been featured in the new "Wild Trout Trust" river restoration handbook!

Have a look here.

Here are one or two examples of our work.

Willow revetment.....

A personal best Blonde

2009-04-20T19:11:00.007+01:00

The odds that the sea will stay calm, and the sun will be out are usually stacked against planning a day at sea in search of a fish or two, but as luck would have it we all had a great day out on Top Cat over the weekend.....

Eight of the gang met for breakfast on Weymouth quay then headed out with captain Ivan in search of Blonde Rays, after anchoring Shaun said "it will be about 15 mins before we get any bites...." so I hung on till then, and Ivan netted a personal best Ray for me 24lbs, Not bad for a first!

Good job they made me ware a lucky hat......

We had a few more Rays, moved and we all caught Conger and Bull huss. (all fish released so far)

Mike had one, and wiped everyone out....

To round off the day Ivan took us somewhere for an early Cod, which certainly made John G happy, Ivan said something about a cheshire cat....... and something else about my lucky hat!

The pirks of the trade....

A claim to fame I have even made it on to the Top Cat web site, check it out......

River invertebrate monitoring for anglers

2009-04-20T14:38:00.004+01:00

Richard Slocock and I recently attended a course run by the "Riverfly Partnership" and the "Wessex Salmon and Rivers Trust", in fact John G and I have had our fair share of training over the last ten years in basic entomology, and I feel that now is the time to get you all on board.

As we are all aware invertebrates are valuable indicators of water quality and this course trained us in the population study of various indicator species, not only fascinating for us anglers, but more importantly, easy to do and simple to record.

This work is equally important for coarse fish and the rivers they live in, as all fish live on invertebrates!

Training with Dr Cyril Bennett, in the Avon valley.
(Outdoor practical)

And a little classroom work....

We are setting up a group to closely monitor the Frome, Piddle and various little local streams, with myself as coordinator (with backing and full support from the Riverfly Partnership and the Frome Piddle and West Dorset Fisheries association)

This monitoring group is going to be set up with the help of lots of anglers to help look after our rivers, its great fun for families, and kids love it!

If any of you are interested in helping out, and getting trained up can you please get in touch with me........

Dorset....

2009-04-05T22:02:00.007+01:00

A great weekend, and a couple of pictures to sum it up.......

We spent all week working on various river beats, only to do exactly the same on Saturday. Sunday the girls and I headed west, and found a huge shoal of Mediterranean sized Mullet in a tiny harbour.

Chalkstream obsession....

True words from Lyme Regis, oh how lucky we are to fish....

And a fishy lunch.....

Good to have some spring weather, but not for long, typical we have more river beats to mow this week.

Keep an eye on the tides could be a chance of an early Bass towards the end of the week....

April fools

2009-04-01T20:34:00.006+01:00

The only April fool's were the ones not out celebrating the first day of the Trout season.

The weather was on our side, despite a chilly easterly breeze.

John G managed a fish or two....

When you found a sunny sheltered spot there was a flurry of Grannom and a handful of rising fish....I even managed a couple myself!

It was good to see a few keen rods out on the first day, a number of Trout caught and a personal best Grayling for one lucky angler, I say lucky, wrong word really, caught on a dry fly after lots of fly changes.....

And to round it off Nick invited me for a curry lunch.

The Tarpon have arrived.

2009-03-22T12:05:00.002Z

For those of you who are interested in Tarpon in the Florida Keys, there is a web cam under the famous Bahia honda bridge, I looked by chance only to see a pod of Tarpon take a look HERE....

Still water Trout

2009-03-22T09:38:00.011Z

It has been a while since I have found Trout fishing on a still water's to be fun for more than half a day. (after lunch I still wanted more stalking)

Ben A talked me into a trip up the Avon valley to fish Manningford Trout Fishery .

Hooked on a very short cast..

Matching sunglasses

We arrived early on a fabulous spring morning, to be greeted with warm sunshine and rising fish, a great looking interesting fishery, and a sensible size, islands, overhanging trees and very clear water, making this venue great for stalking!

A colourful fish on a similar fly....

All the fish we saw and caught were over 3 pounds in weight, and Bens largest was over 6 pounds, and to make a full day of it, when you have caught your bag limit you can go onto the catch and release lake.

We carried on after a long lunch!

Time to go home for tea....

I hooked a fish that was well over ten pounds, my first UK fish in a long time to take all the fly line and a fair bit of backing, before throwing the hook!!!!

The fishery is managed by Malcom Hunt, who seriously knows his stuff and in my opinion is running a first class set up.

Keep your eye on this venue, go and give it a try, Malcom has got it right, and still he wants to improve on it!!!

We will be back.........

Photo diary

2009-03-20T21:14:00.010Z

"Pictures speak a thousand words", well that's what they say, and I feel that there is a lot of truth in that, especially late on a Friday night after a glass of wine and a seafood stir fry! Or stew fry if its been cooked for too long, the words of fly guru and friend Tony K.

Great spring weather, and I hear on the grapevine that there could be the odd Bass about now?

Spent a day helping the EA electric fishing for some important research work to do fish migration and the new fish pass at Louds Mill.

"A small Frome Grayling"....

Today was sunny and warm, a brisk easterly wind, not so good for fishing but spot on for spending a day with great FRIENDS working on the DFC water, ready for the start of the season, inc a surprise birthday cake.....

Trust me its good for the soul.....

A card and a hand tied Tarpon Fly from my fishing friends....

At some stage in the day we got a hell of a lot done......

Thanks to all involved, A great day with great people and a cake.......

Sunny

2009-03-19T07:44:00.005Z

The weather has been fantastic over this past week, and is set to continue over the weekend and on well in to November!

Its now Pike and Grayling spawning time.

A father and daughter casting lesson! (thanks dad)

Andrea has taken so many "spring photos" the computer has slowed right down!

This is good news as were off to Maningford Trout fishery on Saturday fishing, a work party on the Frome on Friday with a curry lunch, what a way to spend a birthday.............

Fish and Fish

2009-03-15T20:52:00.010Z

After clocking up a few silly hours, and hand forking many tons of pond weed over the last week, a lazy start to Saturday was in order, that was until 7am when the phone rings and my good mate Scott is on the other end gibbering about a double figure Barbel and a load of Chub, fair play! I will let him carry on with his "last day of the season story".

Well are we sitting comfortably, ... then I shall begin!

I had decided that I really needed to catch a big Bristol Avon barbel and time was running out! The weather was forecast to be overcast with light rain for the last day of the river season and as I left the house at 4.15am there was a light drizzle, Ideal I thought as I drove the truck through the twisty roads to Limpley Stoke.

As I parked up I was glad to see that I was the first to get to the river. On arriving at my chosen swim I decided to attach a small PVA bag of crushed boilies and small pellets to each paste wrapped hookbait rather than get busy with the bait dropper. I could always fill it in during daylight if this failed to produce but i had confidence in my bait and felt that if fish were already in the swim I might spook them.

As I sat back and poured a coffee the right hand rod banged round and I knew that a small chub had found my bait. After releasing the small chub I noticed some chaffing on the hook link next to the hook so I decided to change it. Another small PVA bag nicked to the hook and out it went, and sat down in my chair to finish my coffee.

At about 5.45am the same rod signaled a different kind of take, the isotope had gone round and stayed round accompanied by the sound of my trusty baitrunner as the fish took off downstream. I managed to get the second rod cleared as the fish fought doggedly in mid river. I was hoping this was the big girl that I had been waiting for and that she didn't find any unseen snags.

As the fish began to succumb to heavy side strain it moved up level with my position and broke the surface and dived again. The steep banks make netting fish difficult but slowly she began to tire and slipped over the drawstring. At this point I heard a voice in the darkness behind me, " That's worth getting out of bed for!" he said.

I had better ring my mate....

My new friend Alan, helped me weigh my new personal best and only my second Barb from the BA at 12lbs exactly, with the photos done I slipped the fish into the landing net to recover before returning her to the river. As the morning sun began to light the Avon valley I sat grinning on my fishing chair at what had happened, finally finishing my coffee and casting the rod back out into position.

I had some more chub activity when the the same rod whacked round as another fish took line, after short but spirited fight the fish was in the net and I realised that it might be another double and only the scales would tell. As I lifted the sling from the ground it wasn't to be at 9.2lbs. An few photos were taken of the fish on the mat and then as I returned it I realised that it had only just turned 7 o'clock.

I stuck to the same method but apart from the odd suicide chub no more barbel came my way, the weather turned sunny and although waiting until last knockings not much else happened. Maybe the double double will have to wait until next season.

The last day for grayling fishing on the Frome also resulted in a fish of a life time for a guest angler Ian a cracking fish of 3lb 10oz as seen in this weeks Angling Times, well done Ian, can you send me a picture.....

Today was a fantastic spring day, and to mark it the Grannon started to hatch, as did a few Olives, the King Cups are out and the Frome looks as good as she always looks in the early spring, only a few days to go now folks......

Better mend the zip on my boot.

I love the spring!

Time to purchase a new rod licence, make some plans for this comming season, and stick to them....

Snow....

2009-03-05T20:07:00.007Z

OK, hands up who did not make it into work today?

A small part of Dorset was hit in the early hours by a large amount of snow. Very exciting I have not seen snow like this since I was at school, perhaps I should have gone sledging with Lib's, but Chiv and I were on a mission, to go and work with water!

Maybe we should turn back.........

It had to be, we were working away today which meant an early start, I made some fresh coffee at 4.15am and noticed it was snowing fairly heavily, by 5am we had a couple of inches so I set off for Crewkerne, met up with my buddy Chivers in Maiden Newton, by now there was eight plus inches......

My fault, I wanted to take a picture...

We were like a couple of kids and it was a further couple of hours before we reached our destination, but we made it to work!

Picture postcard stuff

A couple of hours later we were working by a lake in t shirts in warm sunshine, know wonder us Brit's talk about the weather so much!

Global warming

2009-03-04T21:32:00.009Z

The last two weeks have been frantic to say the least. All the gang, including me, have been putting in some serious hours, Tony and Elliot working hard for Kingcombe Aquacare on a lake restoration project in Devon.

Rob and I have been catching up on all our river duties. We are so very privileged to have management contracts on some of the most beautiful chalk stream fishing in southern England. (now only three weeks till Trout season !)

In the heart of Hardy country...

We had a great day with the IFM looking at behind the scenes at Bristol Zoo, especially their aquarium. Many thanks to all involved, we even had time for an ice cream!

Fish of all shapes and sizes....

I also attended the "What lies ahead for the UK's chalk streams" seminar this week. Some very interesting points were raised throughout the day, thought provoking lectures including that of global warming, (a temperature rise of three degrees could affect our Salmonid population) and valuable workshops. It was great to see over a hundred like minded people under one roof, hopefully another step forward for the future of our chalk rivers.

The media has had a fairly negative approach towards the "credit crunch", but thanks to all of you, we are the busiest we have ever been. We look forward to a very positive future and an exciting one looking after our passion, that being fishing and all that goes with it!

Trust me its far from doom and gloom, the whole fishing/conservation scene is at its strongest, the future looks GREAT, lets get on with it...........

PS a great picture of a Grayling on the lower Frome DDAS

Tarpon Time

2009-02-20T22:14:00.005Z

Rodney from "Fish the Dream" rang earlier with some great tales from the Florida Key's.

Rodney with a cracking Permit....

For one reason or another the fish won on our last trip, but the folks after us cleaned up on some monster Amberjack and huge African Pompano!!!!!!!

The reason for his call was that some clients have let him down for two weeks during April (Prime Tarpon time) so if you fancy a week or two of some of the best fishing in the world, at a slight discount, I would get in touch, trust me you won't be disappointed......

Late tonight, Frome meetings and an early start for an IFM meeting in Bristol tomorrow....

Cuba

2009-02-20T11:52:00.011Z

The cold snap that we were having in the UK some how followed us to Cuba and for the first four days of our family holiday, the wind blew at 40 kph with the temp barely reaching 18 degrees, a spot of fishing was just a dream........

Andrea in the tropics..

Gradually the weather improved as did the window's of fishing options, although any offshore trips were out of the question, there was a chance of a little shore fishing, and if the wind dropped enough a chance to fly fish on the Flats.

Choppy again!

We had a few days doing what tourists do, horse riding (fish spotting on horse back) along the beach and see who can get the coldest in the swimming pool competitions!

The wind died, the sun came out and it got really hot, great, missed a fish on a popper from the beach, probably a Cuda, that was the only take in a couple of evenings fishing.

I love the tropic's.....

Things were looking up and I contacted fly fishing guides Abel and Orlando
(e mail: orlandofishinguide@yahoo.es) to arrange a couple of days fishing on the flats.

This is the first time that I had fished proper flats in search of Bone fish on the fly, those of you that have experienced it will know just how addictive it could become, chasing invisible fish in the clearest water on this planet that's only six inches deep spread out over hundreds of miles, trust me its a challenge, but one of the most amazing ones!

Just off fishing....

An exciting drive that just went on and on into the middle of no where, dropped off with my guide Abel, then walk through mangroves to our chosen flat, eight of hours walking in search of tailing Bone fish.

There's one, over there.....

Another fishing obsession is born..... This flats fishing is something else, my guide Abel knew his stuff, we found plenty of Bone fish only for me to not quiet get it right on a number of occasions, stripping a fly only to run out of line, fish too close to cast to, and the three I hooked just seemed to fall off!

A toothy Bone fish...

Great to be back, a big thank you to the team for keeping things going here, now its on with some work, we have lots to do as the Trout season is only a number of weeks away!

Florida Keys

2009-01-31T12:31:00.007Z

This time, I am sure there was a little luck involved, but I ended up on the right road out of Miami and ended up in Marathon Key in record time.

It was great to be back out for a visit and to fish with Rodney and Helen of "Fish the Dream" this time with the company of Simon Everett, a freelance journalist, out to collect some stories for various publications including Total Sea Fishing and the Field so watch this space!

Martin hooked up, (50lb class rod) only to have it eaten by something a lot bigger!

Apart from a cool first day the weather was on our side, it is fantastic to have some warmth in January, and on top of this it is Sailfish time, we saw a lot jump, usually a long way from the boat, the wind was only right for us to fish for them on a couple of occasions!

The fishing as always was full on, lots of fish on the FLY including my first FLY caught Shark, loads of Black Tips to 20 pounds, float fishing dead baits on light spinning rods!

A floating line and a Shark fly.

We lost an untold number of monster fish, usually grabbed by huge Mako and Bull Sharks, so luck was not on our side!

I also hooked my first Sailfish ( and missed a take), which quickly ended in tears, on this occasion the wind was perfect for using a Kite to present a surface bait a long way down the Chum slick, there seemed to be fish all over.

Largest fish of the trip was a 200 plus pound Bull Shark.... Result.....

Lots of sharp teeth....

We finished the trip at the IGFA headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and a spot of shopping in the huge Worldwide Sportsman superstore.......

IGFA.... all that way to buy a 7' 6" 3wt.......

Logs/firewood

2009-01-20T10:46:00.004Z

Rob, Tim and Terry are currently producing some of the finest fire wood, from locally scourced seasoned wood inc Birch, Ash,Oak and Sycamore, this fine product can be collected or delivered within a ten mile radius of Dorchester, give them a ring on 01305 262307 or 07971 626027

Available in 40 pound sacks @ £4.00 per sack or 3 for £10.00

Frost then Floods

2009-01-18T18:46:00.007Z

I always find the month of January a little disjointed, firstly it was to cold to fish and now its to flooded to do anything, let alone fish!

Looks like a much needed day in the office tomorrow, not just in front of the computer but trying to get used to using reading glasses, eyes tested for the first time since school, strange, but being able to tie a small fly onto fine line again, great....

A spot of clay shooting on Saturday, great fun up to the time my stupid gun decides to fire both cartridges, or "missiles" as Ben calls them at the same time, ouch!

Look there's a Blue winged Olive....

We missed our fair share of clays to start off with and Nick said the cartridges I took didn't work properly!

Then we got our eye in and nailed a few, a great morning.

John G is getting excited about catching a monster Tarpon this spring and has already started tying a few flies, and a few more........

Can't wait to try one of John's

Cheers Glyn for the pattern advice...

On top of a busy week I have to sort out the gear for a trip out to the Keys on Friday, at the moment it's cold and windy out there, not good, it needs to pick up a lot if were going to be in with a chance of a big shark on a fly..........

All about fish

2009-01-13T20:53:00.002Z

Hi I am liberty
and i am crazy about fish like my dad, i have caught Little fish and big fish.
They have 1,000000000 scales all over their bodies and Little lines on there fins but they also have 1000 tiny dots in their eyes and a strange mouth .