Tingrith 24hr Match 9am Sat 12th July to Sun 13th July 2008

Chris and I decided to enter the 24hr match being held on the Orchid specimen lake at the Tingrith coarse fishery.

Neither of us had any illusions of coming anywhere in the money stakes but as the regulars taking part are a great bunch we knew the fun would be in taking part.

As much as we had our rods all but ready to cast in to our respective swims at the time of the starting whistle we were not as well rehersed at getting our swims as organised and ready as we had hoped. We therefore were the last two anglers to cast in at our respective swims.

After a hearty breakfast at the onsite cafe and a certain amount of running back and forth to the car for missed bait and tackle, we eventually cast into our swims about 45 mintes later than our fellow competitors.

Chris had drawn the peg next to Lee which was oppersite the island and I had drawn peg 14 the far beach swim.

Chris was using pineapple and the source boilies close to the island but unusually the fish were not taking at all. The only bites from that part of the lake were being taken by a guy fishing the pole who was using a large amount of chopped worm. He was beginning to empty the lake at a rather alarming rate.

At my end of the lake I had managed to get the carp on the feed by using the method with paste on the hook.

As the match went on my tactics luckly began to bring the fish to the net.

The guy with the pole continued to catch, but others round the lake seemed to be struggling.

Included with the price of entry was an evening meal and breakfast on the Sunday morning both of which was hungrily and gratefully received by all competitors shortly after the whistles blew.

Luckily, I continued to catch fish through the night through the misty dawn and right up till half an hour to the finishing whistle.

I had caught 7 Carp between 7 - 14lb, 3 small Catfish, and 2 Tench giving me a score of 105lb, but how had the others fared? and where would I come?

Alas no, the chopped worm pole fished by the guy on the other side of the lake won the match with a weight of 128lb. On a pressured specimen water that really was really good fishing and he was a worthy winner of the trophy and the prize money for first place.

Amazingly and very luckily, I managed to come in second place.

Chris unfortunately caught only 1 fish but many anglers fared worse and blanked. However, his luck was to change at the next match.

A Fisherman's Cake

I was asked by my surrogate daughter, (my work colleagues daughter who calls me her deputy mum), if I would make a birthday cake for her partner.

In all honesty I didn't really have much of a clue as to what to do but I thought I'd give it a try.

My idea was to bake a round cake and attach to that a little jetty on which a marzipan fisherman would sit with a rod in his hand with a fish attached. The cakeboard itself already being covered in icing which was washed with blue food colouring to look like water.

I made a fruit cake a few weeks before the party and had pierced the cake and had been brushing the cake with brandy then allowed it to dry.

I was worried about the icing, but as Jo, my surrogate daughter loved marzipan I decided to colour the marzipan and just use that instead.

At about the same time as I cooked the cake I modelled the fisherman out of coloured marzipan and in order to prevent it from sagging or falling forward I used spaghetti through several points on the body to hold the parts in place. I also modelled the jetty out of marzipan, 4 fish, several trees, bullrushes, a No Fishing sign and flowers and left them time to dry before they were needed.

I was very worried about the rolling of the marzipan and covering the cake and so I decided to cheat and after colouring the marzipan I placed the flattened lump between two sheets of greasproof paper then rolled it as thinly as it needed to be then unpeeled one side of the paper then placed this uncovered side onto the surface of the cake that I had previously brushed with melted apricot jam. It worked a treat!

The final decorations were placed on the cake at the hall so that the trees and No Fishing sign would not pull out of the cake (thet were held in place with spaghetti which were inserted into the models when they were made.

Barbel fishing on the Ouse near Bedford

For as long as I could remember, my other half Chris, had wanted to catch a barbel.

With this in mind in late July we had visited our local tackle shop and after seeking their advice we bought a club book some well stocked lakes, canals and a stretch of the Great Ouse just outside Bedford that was known to hold a good head of prime Barbel.

The prefered bait was to be a Dynamite Baits 10mm drilled halibut pellet attached by a hair rig with a paste made from crushed halibut pellet and fish oil moulded round the hair rigged pellet.

A few weeks previously we had seen a great deal of rain which had seen the river levels rise and throught the evident weed and mud in the trees lining the river, the level had fallen noticably by at least 3 foot.

The river was still running freely and was fairly coloured only allowing the occasional glimpse of weed obscuring the gravel bottom of the glide.

Before casting out I had made up a small pva mesh bag (no larger than a golf ball) which I had filled with a mixture of smaller halibut pellets. The hook I used was a size 8 Kamasan barbless which was nicked to the small pva bag in order to cast out which allowed for the free offerings to scatter near the hook when the pva bag melted.

The rod was then placed in a vertical position against a bank stick with a screwed in horizontal rod rest attached and my eyes began to careful scrutinise the soft quivertip to check for any evidence of the tentative attentions of a barbel.

After several nods on the rod tip which resulted in catching a few small chub the rod started to nod violently before whipping round and nearly being pulled from the rest. After a spirited fight my first barbel, a pristine specimen weighing 13lbs was on the unhooking mat.

Unfortunately, Chris failed to catch on that day, but a few days later we returned to the same stretch just before dawn and as we made our way towards the mist rolling river we followed in the tracks of a pair of scampering otters than ran past the weirpool and along the bank until they disappeared from sight.

Within a few moments of Chris casting in his rod which barely had chance of settling on its rest was rattled violently by the attentions of an Ouse barbel which weighed in at 8lb 6oz.

He had at last caught his quarry.

209lb Catfish Easter Monday 2007 River Segre Mequinenza, Spain

My husband, Chris and I had decided to book up for a weeks catfishing in Spain targeting the rivers Ebro and Segre both home to monster Wells Catfish (Silurus Glanis).

The Wells Catfish are not an indigenous species to the Spanish river system but were in fact stocked back in the 1970's and since that short passage of time have managed to establish themselves with nowadays making the capture of specimens 100lb + fairly commomplace.

Hubby Chris and I searched the web looking for the guiding services available and decided to go with Catmaster Tours run by Colin Bunn operating in the town of Mequinenza which stands at the confluence of the Ebro and Segre rivers both noted for their monster catfish.

We had booked up the holiday just before Christmas but since booking it I had suffered from 'Golfers elbow' -basically the inflamation of the tendons - the other side of the tendon than 'Tennis elbow'. But in preparation of the holiday, I had taken the precaution of having steriod injections and was dosed up to the eyeballs with Ibuprofen as per my doctors instructions

We flew from Luton to Barcelona and there was met by Colin who then drove us for just under 2 hours through some of the most spectacular Spanish scenery to arrive at the small town of Mequinenza and onto our apartment which was to be our home for the week ahead.

After freshening up from our journey and taking a short walk along the river we later met Colin in the Bar Ebro to discuss the fishing and tactics for the week ahead.

We were a little anxious at the sight of the river as it seemed to be in full flow with a great deal of weed being swept through in thick rafts along the water’s surface and wondered whether we would in fact catch anything during the forthcoming week.

Colin said that although the fishing might be hard going he was still quietly confident that all 4 of our party would catch.

The following day we were collected from our apartment at 6.30am by Gareth who drove us a few miles outside the town to the pumping station to meet our guide for the day Danny Davies who had already set up camp.

When we arrived conditions on the Segre were far from ideal as there was a lot of water rushing through with branches and even trees coming down in the flow and we had been warned that fishing would be tough.

Danny showed us the equipment, and rigs that we would be using and demonstrated the baiting up of the 22 mm halibut pellets, 7 of which were loaded onto each elongated hair rig. Soon we had mastered the setting up of the rods and waited for the cats to hopefully come on the feed.

The first of us to catch was a young lad by the name of Jonathon who after a very spirited battle landed a catfish equal of his size.

Considering the length of the Johnathon’s fight and the exertion I was extremely concerned as to how my golfer’s elbows would stand up to the rigors and thrashing of such a leviathan. Within a few hours I was to find out!

Danny had just kindly gone back into the town to pick up dinner for us all but had shown us how to safely hand and land Johnathon’s fish on the bank it so we know what to do. He had also given us his mobile number if we needed him to return sooner.

Shortly after he left, the alarm screemed off and the vertical tip of the 7lb test curve rod began to violently nod in it rest.

“Fish on! Fish on! HIT IT!!” within seconds I had the rod snatched from its cradle pushed forward the ratchet clip, wound down and hit it hard with all my might. It sure felt different than my previous best catfish which weighed in at 16lb!

The pain in my elbow and shoulder was excruciating and I must admit I thought I was feeling that the pain was due to my infirmity and not the fish (as I couldn't see it at that point) and felt that this would be my first and probably my last fish of the trip and my dreams would be in tatters and my holiday ruined due to my gammy elbow.

I fought the fish for about 25 minutes, and on several occasions was fully convinced that I was going to be dragged into the murky depths of the Segre to join my newly attached piscatorial friend. When I first saw the fish I must admit I was’nt sure I wanted to be attached to that monster! but at the same time was relieved as I realised that nothing else would test my arms again that week or perhaps ever again to the same extent as that fish of a lifetime had done!

Hubby Chris wadded into the water and grabbed the bottom jaw of the fish with his gloved hand as Danny our guide had shown us, then Chris and Ron then secured the fish as Danny arrived back, (having received a somewhat frantic request for him to do so), and as he looked at the fish for the first time he congratulated me saying that he believed it to be in excess of 200lbs.

After a lot of heaving and repositioning by the 3 men, the giant fish was placed into the weighing sling and when held above the ground the needle settled at 209lb. A moment I will never forget for as long as I live.

I've since been informed that at 209lb, it is the largest Wels Catfish caught by a woman, and most probably the largest freshwater fish caught by a woman too!

During the week in total I caught 5 Catfish: 103lb, 117lb, 124lb, 150lb & 209lb, managing to lose one other fish that I felt was a very good one to a snag, whilst hubby caught 4 catfish ranging from 85lb - 166lb and his new PB carp of 35lb 2oz.