SO Whats Next.................... 

Both myself and Steve had a break for the past year from running our website Reel Day Ticket, which it turns out was quite popular. We knew many people used it as the figures where reaching over 5k visits per month, but it was starting to cause us a few issues. We have always been very honest in our fishery opinions, if there was something we didn't like, we told it, and why not we thought, and was thanked by many fisheries for this, but when one fishery threatened to sue us unless we removed the truth. Couple this with fisheries going private and a lack of time we decided to take a year off the site, join a club and fish for ourselves.
So, its been a year since we put the website on standby, we enjoyed catching some great fish on the Godalming ticket, but what to do next...
I'm looking forward to some Day Ticket type fishing again, starting with probably the Canal for some Tench, Bream and maybe Perch, or as can happen with the Basingstoke Canal....nothing.
We will be having a meeting shortly to discuss what our plans are for the future of the site, one thing I do know is we plan to do a lot more videos, YouTube is the way forward, and use the Blogs more and more importantly get some more fishing in.
I have added a few pics from a few sessions on the Godaming Angling ticket.

 

Fishing with Ben Humber from Fox Rage.

Last year I met Ben from Fox at the Anglers Paradise Lure Weekend and was a great bloke, never laughed so much in my life.
Then a month or so later he ran a competition on his Facebook page "The journey of an all round angler" to have a day out fishing with him, and luckily I won the comp.
Due to my time restrictions it took a month or so to get out on the bank but I couldn't wait. 

So, Saturday 23rd January I left home at around 5:30am to meet Ben in stunning Somerset at 7:15am.
We met in a pub car park in the middle of nowhere and headed to the first stretch of River. 
Part of the competition was I could use all the Fox gear Ben uses, which was nice, saved bringing all my kit, although I use the same Fox Rage rod but Ben's reels are loaded with braid, which was all new for me.

Sadly due to some recent rain we did struggle on the first couple of venues but was really good fun, and getting used to Lure fishing as I don't do it a lot.
We moved onto another River after blanking, this one called the Huntspill River and looked incredible, just after arriving Ben landed a small Jack Pike and after continuing up a short while he had a call from a friend, a friend who just happened to have a Lake in his garden, and although Ben was allowed to fish it there was next to no access for anyone else so felt very privileged to be allowed on.
After a short drive we pulled up at house, and couldn't help but get very excited as the large wooden automatic gates parted and we drove along side the ultra modern house.
The lake was quite large, a fair few acres I would say, and absolutely stunning, tree lined on the far side and plenty of reeds in the near margin.

The lake was mainly stocked with hard fighting Rainbow Trout to over double figures along with a few Pike. We started by leap frogging each other casting 5g soft jigs across as far as they could go and sink and draw quite quickly. The bites started quite quickly with small Trout around a 1lb or so but soon slowed right up. We moved down onto the lawn swim and continued, we seem to have stumbled upon a pod of Trout as we couldn't stop catching and the odd Pike, some of the Trout were going 4-5lb and unbelievably good fun on these light setups. The bites started to slow right up so I burrowed a different lure from Ben and continued, soon I hooked something serious, a HUGE Trout came up then with a flick of the tail was off, gutted.

Shortly after I hooked another biggie, not quite as big but once landed went 8lb 8oz, easily a PB for me so over the moon.
With the time getting on we called it day, no idea how many Trout we caught and a few Pike each too, a truly amazing day and an amazing lake. The drive back to the car park where I left my van was spent remembering the incredible day we had just had and all things fishy.
After we said our goodbyes I started my journey home and was on such a high it seemed to sail by, an epic red letter day and one I will never forget.

End of 2015.

Wow, well 2015 was a shocker fishing wise. Literally only a few memorable sessions, and I know its not all about catching fish and don't get me wrong I enjoy every time I go out fishing but with limited time I do like to get a bend in the rod. 

One such memorable session was a day ticket to Bishops Green with good friend James, we had set up at the far end of the lake as most people had set up near the carpark. As always I baited quite heavy to start with pellet in the margins and continued to fish throughout the day using small solid bags of pellet with a 12mm pallet on the hair, and landed well in excess of 20 Carp to mid doubles, where down the other end there was only a handful of fish between them. 

I think the best sessions of the year were the three times I went to Angler Paradise, First in February for the Lure Weekend, Steve had won the weekend for naming the lake and was allowed a plus one, which was nice.
The long weekend flew by and was brilliant, fishing alongside experts such as Julian Chidgey and Nathen Edgell, was incredible. 

The second trip was a family one, me, the wife and kids, my sister and my and a family friend. Although a very different trip to AP as we had to entertain more than just me, we had to do family things like visit Bude and go to the Zoo but life's not all about fishing......sadly.
Still loads of fish were caught as usual and the weather was not overly bad, obviously it didn't rain, it never rains in Devon must us not forget.

Then the third trip to Anglers Paradise was the second Lure weekend, which if possible was even better than the last. Slight change of format as you didn't get to fish with all the pro's on different lakes, your team captain was a pro and you fished all the lakes with them.
Mine and Steve's Pro angler was Ben Humber from Fox Rage, which as someone who uses a lot of Fox gear this was great.

Ben was good fun on all the lakes and a very talented angler and I managed a few Fish.
Another brilliant addition to this Lure Weekend was that Matt Hayes was there, and I know many people say hes not approachable and a bit of a grump, but on this occasion they were wrong. Me and Steve sat down in the bar with Matt having dinner and literally chatted for hours, it was truly amazing.
So that wraps up my 2015, hopefully a few more fishing session next year with any luck.