12th & 13th August

Arrived at just past 3.00pm for another 24 hours over at Mapperley.
Even though the wind was blowing up toward the dam wall I still walked down to the shallows to have a look. The pads had grown since I fished there and it looked a bit touch and go as a viable place to fish with cane rods. Mind made up I made my way back to the car to organise getting the gear round to swim 44 on the far side.

There are only two swims on the southern bank,...

11th August

Having got all my jobs for the day cleared up by mid afternoon I decided to head over to the secret little carp pool for a few hours. I only take a few basics along with me as I like to keep things simple here. As usual I found the pool empty, of anglers that is. I don’t know whether its busier on a weekend as I normally only visit midweek evenings.

As the pool is only an acre and a quarter its more a case of where I fancy fishing than finding the fish...

31st July to 2nd August

A phone call on the day before this year’s fundraising social had me heading to the lake dreading what I might find waiting for me. One of the members had called to explain that the camou tarpaulin that covered the social area was holding what looked like a couple of tons of water and the structure itself was starting to bow and bend under the pressure.

Every year about this time we have a fundraising social down at the lake. It’s a chance...

23rd/24th July

As I was fishing Mapperley I mentioned to a friend that I was planning to be there on the 24th of July for sure as this would be the 79th anniversary of Albert Buckley’s record capture. I explained to him that I was fishing the lake with traditional old tackle and using traditional methods and bait in order to attempt to catch a carp in a manner befitting the age when the lake gained it’s notoriety.
He liked the idea behind all that, especially as some way...

21st July

As I'd got two types of Bread and Honey paste with me, made up to hopefully withstand a stiff chuck, I headed down to the shallow end too see if I could get a bait to a far tree line intact with a S/U MKIV.

All of a 60 yard chuck!

As it was the mark 2 paste with icing sugar and flour and flour and egg and more flour seemed to be the harder of the two. I didn't plan on burying the hook so I started with that.

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