Result....

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

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

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

Rods for sale

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.....

A little more of Poland

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

India

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

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

January

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

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/

A message from the darkside

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.....

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

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

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.....

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

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..........

Devon and Dorset

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

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

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

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..........