Worth being tired!
I left you driving up the M1 at nearly 5.00 am on Friday morning, with my mind full of lost Barbel and incompetent fishing!
However, I was hardly depressed, as I had learned so much from that night and I had to look forward to meeting Archie Braddock tonight, together with his fishing companions Bob Roberts and Roger, who can be found here!
http://www.braddocksbaits.co.uk/dreamsession.html
I make no apologies for asking you to visit this site, although I have posted it before, as this is taken from Archies feature Magic Moments entitled Dream Session and relates to some fantastic fish that he and Bob caught from the Trent elsewhere, just less than a fortnight ago!
The relevance will become clear!
Now I love fishing of all forms and yet it depresses me to see posts referring disparagingly to Carpers or even more so fluff flingers (usually by the inverted snobs or envious have nots, who invariably associate fly fishermen with wealth and therefore attack that form of fishing)
In my experience of the trout season, the fly fishermen have offered me nothing but aid and advice, even though I was simply worming on their fly sections, and all helped wherever possible.
Some (on the Derby Railway ticket! How prosaic a title lol) guided me to other waters, with admonitions to take care! In dangerous areas, some simply pointed out unfishable swims for their art, but beneficial to mine!
I cannot afford the cost or time to learn fly-fishing, but if Nick Polepot (now converted to bagging carp!) and Stewart Bloor (an all round Specimen Hunter) can enjoy fly-fishing, I undoubtedly would too!
Similarly, John and Dave have taught me Piking, which is enormously enjoyable, Peter and Martin are match Anglers with a great variety of skills and MALC, with his bag up baits and feed, leave me fascinated!
BUT of all the attractions to fishing, Archie Braddocks single minded pursuit of better methods of catching specimen Barbel, Chub and Perch give me the greatest pleasure in reading, preparation and anticipation of fishing, that I have yet to encounter.
This is not to discount the Bream, Carp, Zander, Pike and Tench exploits that fill his amazingly dedicated life.
So, you can imagine that Friday was turning into a special day for me, since Mark had phoned me to invite me down to fish with them that evening!
So, to bed at 6.00 am!
Up at 8.00 to take my car in for a new exhaust!
Macmillans assessment at 1.00pm
And retrieve car, buy bait for Saturday mornings match! Flavour and prepare it, pack kit, and away!
I arrived at our PAD stretch at 6.30 pm!
Closing the gate behind me (Sheep are preparing the meadow for our Maggot-drowners Fish-in on 28th/29th Sept. and to make Wayne feel at home!) I drove down to where I could see Marks car, amongst the group of 4 that was all that were there.
Mark was talking to Bob Roberts and introduced me.
Bob, ex-editor of Advanced Carper and currently a Daiwa consultant, as well as holding down a job with a railway engineering Company AND currently commissioned to produce 10 articles for Angling Times! Proved to be a lot more relaxed than I would be under that workload!
Greeting me welcomingly, we proceeded to discuss the wonder boilies that I had received from him, via Mark and which had proved so instantly successful here on the Trent.
A friend and companion of Archies, Bob has many diverse theories to Archie, agreeing and disagreeing in something like equal proportion and I found the conversation eye-opening with regards to the moons influence on fishing, sensory perception of bait to fish, etc. etc.
He obviously had a great deal of respect and time for Archie, but had his own wealth of experience in fishing and I could have stayed all night listening, but was holding him up from preparing for his all night session in Peg1.
So, after an hour or so, we moved up the stretch, by-passing Roger, who was securely umbrellad at the foot of Peg 5 and I unfortunately never got to say even hello!
At Peg 6 I met Archie for the 1st time!
Warmly shaking my hand, he dismissed my thanks for introducing me to PAD and Mark by E-Mail, for which I am genuinely grateful! And within seconds was supplying me with information over methods, swims, baits, flavours and chatting away as though he had known me for ages!
Yes! I had my rods in the car, but they went unheeded as I curled up on the slope of Peg 6, behind his umbrella and he sat in the chair offering help and advice in a continuous stream!
I was fascinated as I saw his methods were exactly as he describes on the web site!
Barbel fishing with the Boilies that Bob had provided initially, he had a baitrunner rig set up, slightly beachcaster fashion.
Next door on Peg6, he had his famous Perch Paternoster rig, both with Buzzer alarms.
Sprightly and spry, for a man of his age, I could only envy his agility, (although it almost proved his undoing!)
We sat and discussed everything possible in such an all to short a time!
I mean discussed!
He listened to my observations, putting me right, or agreeing with me, patiently answering the millions of questions I asked and could not have been more helpful.
He guided me to simple access swims for all the species, suggested methods, expanded on his flavour theories, explained his reasonings and shared with me a portion of the vast knowledge he has built up.
I could have stayed all night!
However, the plan was for Archie and Roger to fish until an hour after dusk and Bob to fish all night, in relation to only his second double figure Barbel from the Trent and his AT articles.
So, I only had a limited time with him and I did not wish to impose too much.
He had already kindly remembered Mark asking him to bring some of the Barbel Summer magic flavour that I had run out of (At the PAD Fish-in discount!) and so I reluctantly went to say goodbye to Bob and Mark at about 9.30, to find Bob bivvied up securely, ready for his all-nighter!
Here he is and at about 611
, he only just fit into the bivvy!
The goodbyes took an hour and I was delighted to receive a double handful of the special Boilies that Bob had brought as a goodbye present, but even more delighted to learn that these will soon be commercially available from Mistral Baits!
In fact, Bob has asked me to report to Mistral on my success with the 1st few, presumably under the great advertising slogan that If Zippy can catch with these anyone can!
Bob expanded on his bait/sense/taste/flavour theory and I again could have stayed all night, but I had an 80 mile round trip to do in the next 10 hours before returning for our match at 8.00 am and so, promising to visit Bob on my return (When he would be packing away) I left.
Saying a final farewell to Archie, I was pleased and surprised when he too, pressed a plastic bag of those boilies into my hand and said he looked forward to meeting us all on the 28th.
AND so home, write the last post! Bed at 5.30 am and off to PAD at 7.15!
As I said, no wonder Im tired LOL
BUT WAIT
What about the fishing!
Do Archies methods work?
Well as I sat chatting with Archie, we discussed the Boilies he was using and he quickly revealed that he had tried them, but was currently on his own special cheese crust/paste bait tonight. (See The Way Forward on his website)
I had not been successful with the crust, but had with the paste.
He quickly put me right on that, pulling in, re-baiting and demonstrating for me and then recast.
After 20 minutes or so, he decided to switch to Mega meat (Again, see web-site) and put 2 huge chunks on his size 4 hook.
The wind had risen dramatically during the evening and rainsqualls occasionally peppered the umbrella as we sheltered behind!
It left a greasy slick on the platform and when after 15 minutes of the meat bait being set up, the alarm sounded!
Such was Archies speed to the rod, that he slipped and measured full-length on the platform, giving me a near heart attack!
Undeterred, he got up with no complaint, seized the rod and landed this fine chub, for which I was grateful when he happily agreed for me to photograph!
Around 3+ lbs, Archie was happy to return it quickly, without weighing, as his concern for fish welfare is paramount. (Although he has no compunction over using small livebait, his love of the Perch and its care are amazing)
He will be publishing a new Perch safety trace method soon and I urge you to look for it.
Re-baiting, again with his flavoured Mega Meat, it wasnt long before again the buzzer sounded!
Now I have told you of the specimen chub, barbel, perch and pike that inhabit our PAD stretch, so heres one extra to think about!
Yes Archie had caught, what Mark told me later, was the largest Bream he had seen in 2 years! from our stretch.
AND on Mega Meat! which certainly vindicated to me another of Archies theories!
Guesstimated at between 4 and 5 lbs, Archie was not surprised, as he has a habit of underestimating, that when we weighed it, it went 5lbs 14ozs!
Shortly after that. I said goodbye to all and was grateful for a quiet M1 as I went home, to find Elaine preparing for bed!
AND the sequel?
Yes, I arrived back at 8.05 am and made a bee-line for Bobs car as he sat in the back preparing to leave after his all nighter!
Had he too achieved success? Did the Boilies work for him?
Well at 11.45pm, yes! He had landed a Barbel of 8lb 10 ozs, perhaps the 8lb 11oz one I had last week? [J]
But no photo!
Mainly because it was eclipsed at 4.15 am, when his 2nd run produced this 10lbs 8 oz double!
YES success 100% and pinched my double!
He also then confessed, that on recasting, he had unknowingly hooked into the tree, but hearing the bomb hit the water, had assumed the cast was OK and therefore, for 3 hours, had missed prime fishing time!
No secrets, and a typical Zippy experience, but well done to a genuinely helpful and nice guy!
Things can change so quickly.
After these success stories, the increased wind I mentioned earlier put the river down!
I drew peg 6 in the match, where Archie fished and caught just 1 10oz Barbel on the stick and 2 worm fed Perch for 1lb 6ozs and still came 2nd to 1lb 10 ozs with 4 fish, next door at Peg 5!
Arriving home at 5.30 pm, I collapsed on the sofa and have only just awoken to write this!
I hope that I have justified your Roving Reporter tag and brought you a story that is one quarter of interest to you as it was to me.
Archie and Bob, Great experience to meet you, see you in action and hope it happens again.
MDs,
Just 2 places left on the Trent Fish-in, a chance to meet Archie, see him in action and enjoy some real fishing!
Dont miss it!
Cheers
Trev
Ziptrev
Enough! I'm off!
I left you driving up the M1 at nearly 5.00 am on Friday morning, with my mind full of lost Barbel and incompetent fishing!
However, I was hardly depressed, as I had learned so much from that night and I had to look forward to meeting Archie Braddock tonight, together with his fishing companions Bob Roberts and Roger, who can be found here!
http://www.braddocksbaits.co.uk/dreamsession.html
I make no apologies for asking you to visit this site, although I have posted it before, as this is taken from Archies feature Magic Moments entitled Dream Session and relates to some fantastic fish that he and Bob caught from the Trent elsewhere, just less than a fortnight ago!
The relevance will become clear!
Now I love fishing of all forms and yet it depresses me to see posts referring disparagingly to Carpers or even more so fluff flingers (usually by the inverted snobs or envious have nots, who invariably associate fly fishermen with wealth and therefore attack that form of fishing)
In my experience of the trout season, the fly fishermen have offered me nothing but aid and advice, even though I was simply worming on their fly sections, and all helped wherever possible.
Some (on the Derby Railway ticket! How prosaic a title lol) guided me to other waters, with admonitions to take care! In dangerous areas, some simply pointed out unfishable swims for their art, but beneficial to mine!
I cannot afford the cost or time to learn fly-fishing, but if Nick Polepot (now converted to bagging carp!) and Stewart Bloor (an all round Specimen Hunter) can enjoy fly-fishing, I undoubtedly would too!
Similarly, John and Dave have taught me Piking, which is enormously enjoyable, Peter and Martin are match Anglers with a great variety of skills and MALC, with his bag up baits and feed, leave me fascinated!
BUT of all the attractions to fishing, Archie Braddocks single minded pursuit of better methods of catching specimen Barbel, Chub and Perch give me the greatest pleasure in reading, preparation and anticipation of fishing, that I have yet to encounter.
This is not to discount the Bream, Carp, Zander, Pike and Tench exploits that fill his amazingly dedicated life.
So, you can imagine that Friday was turning into a special day for me, since Mark had phoned me to invite me down to fish with them that evening!
So, to bed at 6.00 am!
Up at 8.00 to take my car in for a new exhaust!
Macmillans assessment at 1.00pm
And retrieve car, buy bait for Saturday mornings match! Flavour and prepare it, pack kit, and away!
I arrived at our PAD stretch at 6.30 pm!
Closing the gate behind me (Sheep are preparing the meadow for our Maggot-drowners Fish-in on 28th/29th Sept. and to make Wayne feel at home!) I drove down to where I could see Marks car, amongst the group of 4 that was all that were there.
Mark was talking to Bob Roberts and introduced me.
Bob, ex-editor of Advanced Carper and currently a Daiwa consultant, as well as holding down a job with a railway engineering Company AND currently commissioned to produce 10 articles for Angling Times! Proved to be a lot more relaxed than I would be under that workload!
Greeting me welcomingly, we proceeded to discuss the wonder boilies that I had received from him, via Mark and which had proved so instantly successful here on the Trent.
A friend and companion of Archies, Bob has many diverse theories to Archie, agreeing and disagreeing in something like equal proportion and I found the conversation eye-opening with regards to the moons influence on fishing, sensory perception of bait to fish, etc. etc.
He obviously had a great deal of respect and time for Archie, but had his own wealth of experience in fishing and I could have stayed all night listening, but was holding him up from preparing for his all night session in Peg1.
So, after an hour or so, we moved up the stretch, by-passing Roger, who was securely umbrellad at the foot of Peg 5 and I unfortunately never got to say even hello!
At Peg 6 I met Archie for the 1st time!
Warmly shaking my hand, he dismissed my thanks for introducing me to PAD and Mark by E-Mail, for which I am genuinely grateful! And within seconds was supplying me with information over methods, swims, baits, flavours and chatting away as though he had known me for ages!
Yes! I had my rods in the car, but they went unheeded as I curled up on the slope of Peg 6, behind his umbrella and he sat in the chair offering help and advice in a continuous stream!
I was fascinated as I saw his methods were exactly as he describes on the web site!
Barbel fishing with the Boilies that Bob had provided initially, he had a baitrunner rig set up, slightly beachcaster fashion.
Next door on Peg6, he had his famous Perch Paternoster rig, both with Buzzer alarms.
Sprightly and spry, for a man of his age, I could only envy his agility, (although it almost proved his undoing!)
We sat and discussed everything possible in such an all to short a time!
I mean discussed!
He listened to my observations, putting me right, or agreeing with me, patiently answering the millions of questions I asked and could not have been more helpful.
He guided me to simple access swims for all the species, suggested methods, expanded on his flavour theories, explained his reasonings and shared with me a portion of the vast knowledge he has built up.
I could have stayed all night!
However, the plan was for Archie and Roger to fish until an hour after dusk and Bob to fish all night, in relation to only his second double figure Barbel from the Trent and his AT articles.
So, I only had a limited time with him and I did not wish to impose too much.
He had already kindly remembered Mark asking him to bring some of the Barbel Summer magic flavour that I had run out of (At the PAD Fish-in discount!) and so I reluctantly went to say goodbye to Bob and Mark at about 9.30, to find Bob bivvied up securely, ready for his all-nighter!
Here he is and at about 611
The goodbyes took an hour and I was delighted to receive a double handful of the special Boilies that Bob had brought as a goodbye present, but even more delighted to learn that these will soon be commercially available from Mistral Baits!
In fact, Bob has asked me to report to Mistral on my success with the 1st few, presumably under the great advertising slogan that If Zippy can catch with these anyone can!
Bob expanded on his bait/sense/taste/flavour theory and I again could have stayed all night, but I had an 80 mile round trip to do in the next 10 hours before returning for our match at 8.00 am and so, promising to visit Bob on my return (When he would be packing away) I left.
Saying a final farewell to Archie, I was pleased and surprised when he too, pressed a plastic bag of those boilies into my hand and said he looked forward to meeting us all on the 28th.
AND so home, write the last post! Bed at 5.30 am and off to PAD at 7.15!
As I said, no wonder Im tired LOL
BUT WAIT
What about the fishing!
Do Archies methods work?
Well as I sat chatting with Archie, we discussed the Boilies he was using and he quickly revealed that he had tried them, but was currently on his own special cheese crust/paste bait tonight. (See The Way Forward on his website)
I had not been successful with the crust, but had with the paste.
He quickly put me right on that, pulling in, re-baiting and demonstrating for me and then recast.
After 20 minutes or so, he decided to switch to Mega meat (Again, see web-site) and put 2 huge chunks on his size 4 hook.
The wind had risen dramatically during the evening and rainsqualls occasionally peppered the umbrella as we sheltered behind!
It left a greasy slick on the platform and when after 15 minutes of the meat bait being set up, the alarm sounded!
Such was Archies speed to the rod, that he slipped and measured full-length on the platform, giving me a near heart attack!
Undeterred, he got up with no complaint, seized the rod and landed this fine chub, for which I was grateful when he happily agreed for me to photograph!
Around 3+ lbs, Archie was happy to return it quickly, without weighing, as his concern for fish welfare is paramount. (Although he has no compunction over using small livebait, his love of the Perch and its care are amazing)
He will be publishing a new Perch safety trace method soon and I urge you to look for it.
Re-baiting, again with his flavoured Mega Meat, it wasnt long before again the buzzer sounded!
Now I have told you of the specimen chub, barbel, perch and pike that inhabit our PAD stretch, so heres one extra to think about!
Yes Archie had caught, what Mark told me later, was the largest Bream he had seen in 2 years! from our stretch.
AND on Mega Meat! which certainly vindicated to me another of Archies theories!
Guesstimated at between 4 and 5 lbs, Archie was not surprised, as he has a habit of underestimating, that when we weighed it, it went 5lbs 14ozs!
Shortly after that. I said goodbye to all and was grateful for a quiet M1 as I went home, to find Elaine preparing for bed!
AND the sequel?
Yes, I arrived back at 8.05 am and made a bee-line for Bobs car as he sat in the back preparing to leave after his all nighter!
Had he too achieved success? Did the Boilies work for him?
Well at 11.45pm, yes! He had landed a Barbel of 8lb 10 ozs, perhaps the 8lb 11oz one I had last week? [J]
But no photo!
Mainly because it was eclipsed at 4.15 am, when his 2nd run produced this 10lbs 8 oz double!
YES success 100% and pinched my double!
He also then confessed, that on recasting, he had unknowingly hooked into the tree, but hearing the bomb hit the water, had assumed the cast was OK and therefore, for 3 hours, had missed prime fishing time!
No secrets, and a typical Zippy experience, but well done to a genuinely helpful and nice guy!
Things can change so quickly.
After these success stories, the increased wind I mentioned earlier put the river down!
I drew peg 6 in the match, where Archie fished and caught just 1 10oz Barbel on the stick and 2 worm fed Perch for 1lb 6ozs and still came 2nd to 1lb 10 ozs with 4 fish, next door at Peg 5!
Arriving home at 5.30 pm, I collapsed on the sofa and have only just awoken to write this!
I hope that I have justified your Roving Reporter tag and brought you a story that is one quarter of interest to you as it was to me.
Archie and Bob, Great experience to meet you, see you in action and hope it happens again.
MDs,
Just 2 places left on the Trent Fish-in, a chance to meet Archie, see him in action and enjoy some real fishing!
Dont miss it!
Cheers
Trev
Ziptrev
Enough! I'm off!
