Lewy's Lines

Something a little different for the blog. My good mate Dave Speller, most of you will know him as Shedders or those that attend the Withy weekend; Spiderman, enjoys a bit of river fishing for Barbel and whatever else comes along.  He can be often found with the other gentleman, Jaap Stam "of West Ham", either on the river or playing darts! So, as I wasn't travelling with work this week I thought I'd sent Shedders a text to see if he would kindly take me Barbel fishing one night this week.  My chance came earlier than expected and we set a date, time and place.  I met Shedders down on the River Thames near Shepperton Lock. Now, it has been over 20 years since I fished a river and I've never caught a river Barbel before, so I was looking forward to the evening's events. The Set-Up No need to lug all the match gear around and Shedders had kindly offered to bring a rod set-up for me.  I decided to take my small spinning rod that was purchased when I lived ...

What a great night, the BBQ was going, there was CO2 "nuggets" cooling peoples beer and often freezing it, gazeboo gate 1 where the gazebos blew over and new ones put up in there place. Football won by MFS, luckily no injuries, plenty of beer, wine and spirits flowing.  Shedders bringing midnight snacks.  Professor Colbrad picking up and sleeping in the wrong sleeping bag, coupled together with plenty of laughing and DJ Dum Dum, music for young people. You can imagine there were a few sore heads in the morning! Day 2 was upon us.  Today I'd be fishing Yasi's and with a great result yesterday I was hoping to back it up. The Draw Peg 10 on Yasi's came out of the drawbag for me, another great peg with the aerator.  Alan, my fishing partner for the weekend gave me some good advice on how to fish the peg.  3 foot depth, fish on the slope for the barbel towards the aerator, don't both about going over to the far bank. Once again I was pegged next to Pe...

 Another event that is a regular date in the diary, the How End vs MFS two dayer.  Last year was a blast, not only the fishing but the craic with the lads and the hospitality of Pebs, Tarnya and the family.  Day 1 and I arrived a little late with plenty of the lads already in the car park unpacking their gear. Weather was pretty good although the forecast was predicting showers later in the day, but that wouldn't dampen anybodies spirits!  Mistake one for me as I was getting my gear together, I'd forgotten to bring some socks... oops, Pete Bailey stepped in a with a clean pair of Nike socks... cheers matey, they have now been washed, but not ironed ;-) The Draw So as we were waiting for the draw and Pebs was giving his rules speech, Simon from How End handed me what looked like a car key remote which I though would make some funny noise.  Pressing the button I got an electric shock akin to an electric cattle fence.  Well the lads were laughing away and...