29/06/13 - Tylers Lake (Brinsham Green)

Weight - 25lb
Catch - 37 Skimmers, 7 F1s, 7 Roach, 3 Tench
Weather - Warm

I had planned to fish a match today, but had too many things to do. Waking up early I wanted to go fishing for a short early morning session and decided to fish Tylers Lake, because it was only a short drive away. Since fishing here last time in December I had wanted to come back to try again and today seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Arriving at 6am I soon set up 2 rigs, a HB Chump 0.3g > .12 > 16 B911 to fish at 11.5m and a HB Billybob 0.2g > .14 > 16 B911 to fish the margin.

After feeding 2 cups of groundbait and mixture of pellet at 11.5m, I started in the margin with corn and caught a small tench straight away. But other than little knocks, no further fish came, so I switched to long line and soon caught skimmers and a couple of F1s on 4mm expander or corn. By feeding a large toss pot of 4s & 6s every 3rd fish I managed to keep the fish on the deck. After an hour another big pot of pellet & groundbait went in and whilst that settled another visit to the margin produced another tench, plus a skimmer and a few roach. The 2nd & 3rd hour followed a similar pattern.

As I said it was only a short 3.5hr session, but very enjoyable. Next time I fish here I hope to have a little more time on my hands. There was loads of fish moving around and a decent net of roach would be on the cards if you fished caster. For free fishing it a decent little venue.

27/06/13 - Leechpool

Weight - 57lb
Catch - 43 Carp, 6 Skimmers
Weather - Rain, rain, rain
Match - Wiltshire Angling Evening Float Only - 4th out of 5

After not being able to fish for nearly 2 weeks I was looking forward to this evenings sprint match at Leechpool. However the weather had other ideas, following a week or so of settled dry weather, it rained. In fact the rain front couldn’t have timed it better, starting an hour before the 5pm draw and finishing around the time the match finished at 9.15pm.

 

For various reasons there was only 5 of us tonight so plenty of room. I drew the cattle drink which is a peg I have never drawn and with the wind blowing into the bank I was hopefully of a few fish, although the rain didn’t make for a comfortable nights fishing. To my right was Tony Gilbert in his new Thatcher’s branded kit, but he was left regretting selling his Diawa Gore-Tex by the end of the night.

 

A text from Mark who was looking after the kids since his missus was enjoying herself at Glastonbury, confirmed what I needed to do. The peg itself is very shallow close in so the margins were out and I ended up setting up my box 3m out in the water. Even then you are set back, with the left bank running about 11m before the corner where there is a large tree. Under the tree the water depth is only 6-8in, but plumbing around I found where the bottom started to slope up at 11m and fished here – as instructed.

 

Initially I started on the paste, but it didn’t seem right, plus my paste was just getting wetter and wetter. So a quick change to 6mm expander (HB Chump > .14 > 16 B911) and I was soon catching, finding it best to catapult a pouch of 6s before shipping out. In the first 60mnins I had 18 carp and doing well, however Tony after a slow start was catching well short on small pieces of paste, a trick he picked up from fishing at White Acres.

 

The 2^nd hour slowed down and I was falling behind Tony. The issue I had was wasting time having to ship out to 11m, because the peg was so shallow close in. I had decided against setting up a back up swim, since  the intention was to stay focused on the 11m line and continue feed pellet, hoping for a good last hour or so when the bigger fish would turn up. Well that was the plan.

 

Half way though the match the skimmers started to show which is never a good thing, but I kept firing in the pellet and the carp did return.

 

Come the end of the match, it became obvious I was off the pace of those who fish here regularly. I think I did the right thing sticking to the one swim, however hindsight is a wonderful thing and I should have moved up the slope, because I was getting quite a few liners, so fishing in shallower water may have been a good idea. I did try to catch proper shallow, however without success.

 

Although I was off the pace, it was interesting watching those who do well here and the key seems to be fishing short to get the bait in the water as quickly as possible.

 

1^st 87lb – Tony Gilbert – p4

2^nd 82lb – Ian Willetts – p3

3^rd 75lb – Pete Neate – p2

4^th 57lb – Ken Rayner – p5

5^th 53lb – Darren – p1

Z Fish Report (6/28/13)

Left to right: Don, Mary, Lou, and Susan Grantges about to be served the
sierra they caught off the beach in front of the restaurant at Barra Potosi

The 84° blue water is basically following the 100 fathom curve, with clean water just off the beach. Offshore fishing took a bit of a beating this last week as tropical storm Cosme (later a hurricane) formed a couple of hundred miles out in front of us. As it headed westerly we were never threatened by the storm, but we did have a port closure, some rain, overcast skies, and a couple days of wind. Things were starting to get getting back to normal again by mid-day Thursday.  

Early in the week and before the weather turned foul, Gary Whyte of British Columbia fished with John Lorenz out of Casa Bahia Tortuga in Puerto Vicente Guerrero and discovered the tuna are still here. They caught several nice ones, plus he got a couple of sailfish.

Gary Whyte with a nice yellowfin tuna

The inshore action also took a beating from the waves and wind. The waves were huge a couple of days, making for tough roosterfish fishing. But, the small 4 to 6 pound dorado we have a short distance off the beach are still around, and are great on light gear or the fly rod. The waves started to cooperate in Zihuatanejo around mid-morning Thursday, with Jeff Brite of New York fishing with Cheva on the panga Dos Hermanos II, catching 4 roosterfish down by Play Larga. And Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos, had a great day at Buena Vista and Pantla with 10 roosters for his clients.

Fly fisherman Daniel Weiss of Seattle went with me down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero, where the area was still getting the westward swell and high waves. Under the conditions we were fishing Dan was doing excellent casting the 9wt and 10wt rods, with the leaning post on the bow of my panga helping considerably. We ended up the day with a 25 pound class rooster, and raised about 5 others, a 5 pound dorado we had for dinner, and a large jack crevalle which came undone after a prolonged fight.  

Ed Kunze (IGFA Representative) 

Susan Grantges with one of her small dorado on the spin rod

Drummin' again!

Y'all didn't know I did the drums so well, did ya?  Ha!  Well we're drummin’ on the West Coast again this week with Capt. Billy Henderson.  This episode was fun to shoot because Billy's one of my favorite people to fish with and Crystal River, FL is such a beautiful fishery.  Capt. Billy made his very first television debut on Addictive Fishing years ago when we just begun shooting the show.  It's been so many years ago that I can't remember how we actually met? Billly, help me out here!  Well, anywho, he called me up and said, “You’ve got to get up here, we’re catching some big, fat black drum and it’ll make for a great show.”  So I called up Mr. Producerman and booked the shoot.  We had fun, got some pretty cool lookin’ black drum to show you, and it was definitely good to catch up with Capt. Billy Henderson.  Check out this week’s episode “Crystal Drum” – Friday at 10:30 a.m. ET on Fox Sun Sports (replays Sunday 9:30 p.m. ET / Tuesday 6:00 a.m. ET).

Me and the AF Crew want to say a BIG thanks to everyone at 
the Dick's Sporting Goods in Pensacola who came out to see us last weekend.  We had a great time meeting y'all and catching up with some familiar faces as well.  The "Buy a Flats Blue rod and get a Sabalos reel free" sale was insane and those blue rods were all you could see when you looked out into the new Dick's store at all the shoppers.  I guess you could say it was a sea of blue.  Ha!  



Another big thank you to the Pensacola store employees who
took good care of us and helped us all day long . . . make sure you stop in and check out the new store at the Cordova Mall when you get the chance.  I think you're really gonna like it.

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty crazy for me as I cross the country again from Pensacola, to Stuart, to Tampa, to Houston, to California, to Las Vegas, back to Texas and then finally home.  I'll be doing a combination of fishing, driving, flying, shaking hands and kissin' babies.  Not complaining, just letting you know in case I start to slurrrrr my words in my blog. It's because I've got jet lag.   

I'm picking another winner in the "Show Your Mogan" contest next week, so get your photos in!  If you want a chance to win some cool AF stuff, here’s how you enter:    Facebookers must submit their photo within the “Show Your Mogan” photo contest Event Page.  Instagramers must upload photos with hashtag #showyourmogan to enter.

I'll see ya next week and until then . . . tight lines,

Blair Wiggins

Tropical Fiji Snorkeling

Our first snorkel trip with Derek and Carly from Indiana USA.

They had a great time and the visibility was great. Lots of fish and great visibility.

Coral of all types

Shallow water makes it very safe.

Loads of fish of all types

Nemo makes an appearance

A bit of reef fishing after the snorkel.

Derek with a nice snapper.

A highlight for their trip to Fiji. Derek and Carly have vowed to return and we can't wait to take them out again.

Tight Lines

Lack Of Creativity

BUY PURLOINED ?

Our Wallpapers Not Commercial

enjoy the caper

-------

.. Can You believe that a commercial venture would steal one of our pictures without asking? And, without a thank you?
.. Sure you would. It's in the nature of merchants without conscience. Click on over to the site that tries to tell you all about fly fishing gear. Would you buy a used car from these folks? Can you follow their advice? Why would they do it?
.. At least they are reading the straight poop from an ad-free blog. We are designed to tell you about what is. What is their message?

LINK

.. The original from October, 2010.

Good Tool