Lewy's Lines

Although Manor Farm in Biggleswade could be classed as a commercial fishery, the lakes we fished were a lot bigger and more natural in appearance. A fishery that my mate Mark had heard a lot about was Lawn Farm Fisheries  near Cambourne, Cambridge, which is more like your typical commercial fishery. Mark and I flip a coin for swim choice, I win and pick the swim indicated on the map.  We fished Cherry Tree lake, the smaller lake on the right handside. Mark picks the swim to my right, we do like our sociable fishing and mickey taking, so here are our two respective swims in a bit more detail.. I decide to again use the pole as I can reach the island and the ledge.  In fact since buying the pole I hardly ever get the waggler rod out, which I must sort out as I do miss launching a float with a rod and reel. Baits for the day, hemp as feed, micro pellet, white and red maggots, corn and new to me, banded pellets. Mark's swim to the right of me took advantage of the island to

My fishing mate, Mark called me and said that we should go Piking, especially with all the cold weather... So I couldn't refuse.  We picked a weekend and decided to tackle one of the many drains in the Fens around Cambridgshire. Chosen methods were dead baiting and spinning.  Having never caught a Pike I was a little apprehensive about landind one, but we went armed with a glove and long forceps just incase... when you see the pictures of the Pike, you'll wonder why I was nervous!!! We needed dead bait, so off to Peterborough market and a small Spanish fish stall... half a dozen sprats later and 70p lighter we set off for Ramsey Drain. Plan of attack was to spin and cover as much as of the drain as possible. Mark scored first with this little jack pike.  You can see that the weather wasn't the best, but hey, we were out fishing, thats what counts! Walking a bit further down the drain I switch lures to a small S and I'm loosing confidence, mainly as I'v

So, I turned 40 early in February and of course my parents had a tough time buying me a present. What do you get for the bloke that has everything he needs??? Well, my good lady, Emma was quizzing me in the way all women quiz their blokes... without us know what is going on.  Emma then let my Mum know what I woud love to do... So, a letter arrives for me from none other than Mr Bob Nudd, MBE!!! I've got a days masterclass with Bob.  I was over the moon, what a great present. After missing Bob's call, I emailed him and we decided to fish Decoy Lakes, Peterborough in July.  I cannot wait, plus I'll get to appear on Bob's blog .  One very happy 40 year old!  Thanks Mum and Mike ;-)

I joined Uxbridge Rovers Angling and Conservation Society  as they have some good local stillwaters and rivers. The Christmas period and the poor weather meant that some of the lakes I wanted to try were quite simply unfishable as there was a thick covering of ice, so at the first sign of a break in the weather I decided to try URACS Billet Lane. Saturday 22nd January Billet Lane is a 1.5 acre working irrigation reservoir and as such the water level can vary dependant on what the farmer has taken out. I set out to fish Billet Lane on the weekend of 22nd and 23rd of January with two separate approaches each day, both on the same peg, unlucky number 13. Saturday I opted to fish the pole.  16 years since I last fished the pole, this would be interesting! Here is the setup before I started to fish.  It did take me some time to get all the rollers set and to plumb up the depth, which ended up using my top 4 sections... that varying water level meant I only just had e

One of the first things I noticed has changed is some of the language used in angling... I was used to breaking strain and modern day anglers refer to the lines they use in diameters, which to start with is quite confusing. So, to help understand each line's true strength here a list showing the most commonly used line diameters and their average relative breaking strains... courtesy of gofishing.com Line diameter - Average breaking strain 0.06mm - 12oz 0.07mm - 1lb 2oz 0.08mm - 1lb 12oz  0.09mm - 2lb 0.10mm - 2lb 6oz 0.11mm - 2lb 14oz  0.12mm - 3lb 4oz 0.14mm - 4lb 12oz 0.16mm - 5lb 10oz 0.18mm - 6lb 8oz 0.20mm - 7lb 12oz 0.22mm - 9lb 0.24mm - 10lb 4oz 0.26mm - 11lb 6oz 

After the success of Manor Farm Fisheries, Mr Keightly and I headed to a local lake where Mark has had some good Carp success, Crystal Lakes in Fenstanton. They have three lakes to pick from, the Prize Lake, Lake "A" and Lake "B". We arrived early in the morning on Saturday 16th October, around 7am and had a walk around Lake's "A" and "B".  Mark knew exactly which swim I would want to fish...  maybe he should have picked his lottery numbers that day as he got it spot on... A lovely lilly lined swim face me with plenty of options, either far out or either side of the lillies.  I started feeding two main lines, the edge of the lillies in front of me, about one and a half rod lengths out and another swim straight ahead about three rod lengths out... We used the trusty bait from the previous day, namely red maggots, hemp, Mark's super secret groundbait, corn and meat. After balling in about 3 golf balls of the truste

I took Friday 15th October 2010 off work and headed down to Manor Farm Fisheries , to fish the Becks Lake with very good friend Mark Keightley, aka "matey".  I did borrow quite a bit of terminal tackle from Mark including something to sit on...  Thanks matey! We decided to fish a double swim, which was a lot more sociable than being in separate swims, plus we could help each other out in case of big fish... or birdlife... more about this later. We tackled up and started fishing about 8am.  Mr Keightley had brought us some red maggots, all sorts of bollies, hemp, sweetcorn, good old spam and his home made ground bait made from trout pellets and crumb plus other offerings. I decided to start with a simple insert waggler set-up and Mark set up the first of his Carp rods. Excuse the cheesy grin... but I was well happy! Plumbing the depth, I started with a couple of small golf balls of groundbait in a line about 3 rod lengths out.  Hookbait I went for a simple s