A couple of firsts on Last Blast. A Grass Carp and a Wels Catfish. Both caught on huge pieces of luncheon meat.
I have caught a couple of Golden Carp out of Last Blast before but the one above was the largest
This is my first ever Grass Carp. There are some 20lb+ Grass Carp in Last Blast, Bill and I are going to target these along with the large Cats.
Not a very good picture as the camera would not focus in the dark. Very small Wels Catfish that took an enormous piece of Luncheon Meat.
Decided to give the main lake a go as fish have been caught over the past week in the shallows. Jimmy gave us a few tips and by 7.30 we had set up three rods and a couple in Little Brooker. Plenty of weed growing so decided to fish zigs with pop-up dumbells tipped with corn and then glugged. Fed pellets into margin swims.
Bill was concentrating on Little Brooker fishing with a method feeder and pellet, also a float rod with maggots, sweetcorn and soft pellet fished mid water.
Bill got a run on the method feeder and caught this lovely dark coloured Golden Linear Koi style Carp
I then joined Bill after setting up the bivvy and hooked into a lovely Tench on the float fishing a banded pellet. There is two large Tench in Little Brooker and this is one of them
Bill also latched into a lovely Golden Ghostie, similar to the one’s that we have caught in the last blast. They fight like stink when you get them close to the margin.
Very little activity through the night, just a couple of knocks that could have been eels (Jimmy’s). The wildlife appears to have done well this year. Swan with its young tucking into my 6mm Pellets that we had just fed.
Bill went back onto Little Brooker and before long latched into a decent fish, not as punchy take so did not know what it was, then came to the surface and it was the exact same Tench that I had caught from the night before. It had lots of distinctive markings so no doubt that it was the same one.
Bill carried on fishing very well in the pond, feeding regularly and changing tactics. The weather was not ideal and the Carp were spawning heavily. However good fishing bought our first proper Goldfish from Borwick. Bit to big for the tank that Bill is getting this week.
All in all a good overnight fishing trip. No luck on the big lake but plenty of sport out of Little Brooker
Decided to fish for a couple of hours on Burn after a really successful session with Bill on Monday evening. Weather was still, sunny and hot so not ideal. Burn was quite coloured, probably from the recent rain. Burn is fed by an underground spring below the adjacent meadow and colours well after a bit of rain.
Fished a small method feeder with pellet and meat and a float with maggots and 2mm pellets. First fish was a take on the method feeder that bought this nice Ghostie.
Could not get through the Perch on the float rod at all depths on maggot. Until this small chub came along, you don’t know what is likely to come next on Burn.
Next up was a run on the method feeder that bought a Barbel !!
All in all a good couple of hours on Burn !
The path is now completed after a good couple of weekends work. Loads of digging completed and gravel barrowed. The path is almost straight as well which is not bad.
You will notice at the bottom of the path a pile of bricks, some cement and bags of sand. These are going to be transformed today into a brick BBQ by Alex a tall Bricklayer apprentice from Preston College.
Above you can see Alex the tall bricklayer starting the BBQ build. I was not trusted to complete a more delicate job, which is fair enough I have never laid a brick before and Alex is an award winning brick layer.
Completed pictures to follow
Longsands Community Primary School which is Bill’s school has had an excellent year in all sports but especially football. For the first time ever Longsands got to the final and won the Harold Slater Trophy in a nail biting final held at Preston North End. It was an excellent afternooon for the children. They were allowed to use the Proffessional footballers changing rooms. The game was also officiiated by FA referrees, linesman. St John’s Ambulance were also there just like a Championship football match.
Early action in the first half with a lovely un-defended header from a good corner which was cleared of the head of a defender.
The crowd go wild !!!!
A good clearance from Bill after some pressure.
Quality piece of defending by Bill taking the ball cleanly from their left winger.
The only goal in the match slipped in to the side of the net.
The team after presentation of the Harold Slater Trophy. Well done Longsands.
Weather not at its best for fishing. High pressure at 1030mb, temperature at 25 degrees plus. Decision made to wait for the temperature to drop and head of to Borwick at about 5.30. Decided on the way with Bill that we would bivvy on Griffiths and catch a few dinner plate shaped mirrors and then head over to Gatenby with a couple of float rods to see what we could catch. Gatenby is the smallest of the ponds at Borwick and contains a wide variety of stocked fish. We were fishing corn for anything that may bite.
Was not long before Bill had a small Rudd that just dropped off as he was bringing it to hand. There were lots of Ghost Carp, Golden Carp, Goldfish patrolling around the margins. There is also a huge 20lb+ common carp. Caught a sight of it as it cruised past following two large ghost carp, biggest fish I have seen at Borwick. Bill then latched into a better fish that at first we thought was a large goldfish, turned out to be a Golden Tench. Incredible colours, caught on corn on an 18’s hook.
Caught four in all, this one was a deeper colour, all of them are very individual.
Plenty of carp out of Griffiths. Biggest one below.
Excellent party, thanks to all for making the night such a success. I have uploaded all of the pictures to pages that can be followed using the links to the right of the page. The pages will be slow to load, I have intentionally loaded the pictures at full size and maximum resolution. This will mean that if people do wish to print them out then they will extend to full A4 size without losing any resolution or clarity.
To download the pictures to keep them on your computer then right click on the image and select save pictures as, you can then save using your own naming conventions. I have purposely not named the pictures in any way.
Hope the pictures are worth waiting for. I tried during the evening to get shots of everyone. If I have missed anyone then I apologise, there were lots of other camera’s going around though so I am sure that images will spread via Facebook and such.
Great night.
Another overnight on Dewhurst. Jimmy told us that the carp are starting to shoal up in the more shallower waters, so we decided to take his advice and fish in the more shallow pegs. Dewhurst is also ideal for setting up and packing back up quickly as you can practically fish from the car.
Bill decided to use some dumbells that came free with this months edition of Total Carp Fishing. A cocktail fished with an 8mm pellet on his tiny margin rod !!
Skies were quite moody with a North Easterly blowing, which is not ideal at all for the fishing. Bivvy was up quickly just in case it rained.
Bill won the evening match 7 – 3. I fished through until about 3.00am. Plenty of Carp through the night and two eels which I would rather have avoided.
Took the opportunity to get a couple of hours fishing on Dewhurst. Pellet, Meat, Sweetcorn and Glugged Monster Crab Boilies were the order of the day with crumb and 2mm pellet being fed. Bill decided to go with a huge lump of Meat to start with !!
And can you believe it, well I can. Bill hits into the first fish with his oversize meat bait. Nicely coloured Mirror, smaller than the usual stamp of fish in Dewhurst.
Watching the float, sitting on box, method feeder in the margin and bottle of lucozade in hand. Not bad.
Bill getting a bend in the float rod after catching hold of it at the Butt before it was dragged in !!
Which resulted in this nice Common
It was a race to five and Bill won and beat me 5-3. Bill also had the largest fish !! Caught on sweetcorn, meat and pellet, which proves that when they are feeding they will take anything on the hook !!
Second caravan holiday of the year. Started with me making a complete mess of the booking. Arrived at Grin Low to find out that I had booked in for the wrong week. Luckily there was pitches at Blackshaw Moor available which is just along the road. They had lots of cancellations due to the forecasts of poor weather. The Blackshaw Moor site it closer to Tittersworth Reservoir and the Roaches walks. You can see Hen Cloud in the background on the picture below.
Blackshaw Moor
Went for a walk later on in the afternoon to Manifold Valley at Ecton. Walked along side the river and stopped to look at the fossils in the Limestone outcrops at the side of the old railway path. Smo is pointing towards a very well shaped round fossil of some sort.
Walked along the path to the tunnel at Swythemley and then back along the road. Stopped to take a look at one of the many old mine entrances.
Inside the cave was cold, very still and damp. Did not venture in very far as we had not got a proper torch and could not really see very far ahead, did not want to end up falling down a huge mine shaft.
