2015 - A Year in Review

Well, 2015, what can I say? Certainly a very enjoyable year targeting some new species, making new friends and some memorable collaboration trips. It has also been very enjoyable to have fished some new venues thanks to some very kind invitations, as well as enjoying and sharing the sport in my neck of the woods.

One of the very enjoyable summer trips!

The year started slowly in terms of getting out, due to the fact that I spent the remainder of the last Christmas holidays in Japan seeing my relatives, therefore I was jet lagged after this. January was only odd 'bits and pieces' here and there, catching a few little jack pike on lures and a single trotting trip for grayling with my good friend Mark Pilley. February was a time where I found the opportunity to get out a few more times. A couple of parallel trips which stood out to me, were on my favourite little Thames tributary, taking my good mate Oscar Bates out to see if we could catch some nice chub and dace. It was job done for Oscar on the first trip with a couple of pristine chub to 4-2 (a new PB for Oscar) and a few quality dace for us the trip the weekend after.

Couple of enjoyable sessions!

As February continued I did a session on another Thames Tributary where I have rubbed shoulders with Mark Erdwin, managing some vividly coloured perch to 2-4 and a few nice chub for good measure. This led onto another river and area we have done collaborated groundwork on, a few weeks later, and I had an absolute red letter session on the river with some stunning 4lb chub with a lovely one at 4lb 8oz on feeder-fished bread. The sport throughout that session was absolutely fantastic!

Lovely couple of fish caught roving!

February was gone in an absolute blink and this left me with the last half month of the river season. It was an absolute honour in early March, to be given special dispensation for a one-off fishing session on a very exclusive section of my local River Itchen. The target species were roach and it was nice to have a very relaxed trot for the day with no one bothering me at all, landing some quality roach to 1-10 and some lovely looking grayling to 2lb. Big thanks goes to Mark Sankey, the river keeper, for giving me this fantastic opportunity and Robin Chute who co-ordinated it. I did do a few more sessions on the free stretches after this session, and managed a few more roach towards the pound mark.

Very enjoyable session!

The final session of the season saw me head to the same Thames tributary section, where I had the red letter day, after more quality chub. Although this session had a bit of a wounding start losing a river carp right by the bank. I continued on and fished roving methods and in the final swim a bait and wait approach. The roving paid off on a switch to the luncheon meat which resulted in what was then, a venue Personal Best at 5lb exactly with a couple more much better stamped chub at 4lb and 4-12 (caught over the pre-baited spot).

Target achieved!

After the season ended it was head down on college work, and I took the opportunity to finish March with a little session after some carp on my local club water - this resulted in what was my PB tench at 4-10. The weather started to warm up in April and I did a bit of stalking for carp on my local club lake. The best result being a nice, lean double figure Common off the surface. Over this period though, it was only the odd night trip and stalking session due to the demands of college work. I also had a fantastic trip on invite from Duncan Charman, where he showed me the effectiveness of helicopter rigs when targeting bream.

Some good sport in April!

College work continued to be hectic at this point with various mocks, scraps of coursework and all sorts of tasks emerging, therefore finding the time to seriously go out fishing and target anything was a real effort. It got to a point where I felt it was critical to get out, and it was massive thanks to my mate, Lee Chatfield, for an invite to a little lake in Surrey where he has managed some very large Golden Orfe. He has become an expert on these amazing looking fish and he kindly offered to take me and my friend Mark Pilley along to impart his expert knowledge on the species and waggler fishing. A big thank you also goes to Mark Pilley for coming down to pick me up which meant that we could get a good day out of it. We all managed some nice looking tench and a trio of stunning Orfe, with Mark breaking his Personal Best at 5-2, Lee managing yet another stunner at 4-11 and I also managed to break my PB with a lovely fish of 4-10. All in all a great trip!

What a trio of swimming carrots!

Exams started to approach and the only time I got out was a few trips walking the riverbank, meeting with Mark again to explore one of the areas of river we have done some pioneering on. The rest of the time was fly fishing with a couple of enjoyable sessions with Chris Purdie and a few trips on my own on the local river. Huge thanks goes to Chris for such enjoyable trips wading some beautiful miles of chalkstream and being great company.

Bliss!

It was then full on exams and very little fishing time apart from the odd hour here and there... The next main trip was after my exams and is probably my favourite day of the year, June 16th. I spent it this year with my friend Hannah who was keen to give fishing a go and I thought what better way to get a taster of the sport than trying a bit of Summer Chub fishing... It was thoroughly enjoyable, despite the chub being very finicky at first, we managed some nice ones with Hannah managing the largest at 3-14, a lovely roach, some lovely little dace, as well as some gate-crashing trout! I realised two days after that, my afternoon lessons at college were cancelled on this given day, therefore I headed out with a substantial feeder rod and 8lb line hoping to stalk some chub and river carp. This is the session that stood out most for me, as I managed a cracking venue Personal Best chub at 6lb 1oz on simply a free-lined piece of fluffy breadflake - think it's fair to say that this is so far my fish of the river season!

Summer Chubbing!

After a final effort of college it was the Summer holiday I'd been waiting for. It was a nice break spending time on the river bank, collaborating with friends and generally having a nice Summer. There a quite a few trips which happened in the Summer with thanks going to Duncan Charman, Simon Daley, Steve Dedman, Paul Greenacre, Ollie Johnson, Mark Lindsay and Roman Vann.

Couple of red-finned beauties

With the Summer ending nicely with a couple of roach sessions, one of which with Mark Lindsay, it was time to go back to college for the second year of A levels. I only at this time managed a few trips on my local river and a great few hours fishing on Ollie's local stretch catching a couple of nicely marked pike. For my birthday, in October, I had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend on the Middle Severn with local expert, Robert Mitchell. It was a very enjoyable way to spend my birthday weekend and made for a memorable one with a birthday barbel!

Birthday barbel!

A bit more time working hard at college and it was half term. The highlights being a great trip on Ollie Johnson's local river on his kind invite resulted in a couple of cracking looking pike to 18-8 which levelled my Personal Best. Another fantastic trip was my urban river mission with Mark Lindsay on this secret little urban gem that he has had an exceptional season so far on. The best fish of the day being a lovely 1-10 roach, and Mark managing a corking 5-8 chub.

What a couple of sessions!

I finished the year with various Small stream chub trips and managed plenty of lovely looking chub with the biggest going 5-10, a hollow recapture of my 6-1 from Summer. It was a nice way to spend the Christmas holiday, after a tough term at college, it was also nice to fish with Mark again and it was very kind of him to share another beautiful little waterway. All in all a very enjoyable year and thanks goes to all those who I have collaborated with who have been there to help me out and be in general great people and company...

One of the highlights of the small river chub trips!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tom