londonperchfinder

When life gives you lemons make lemonade 🍋🥛

What a few weeks it's been! Sometimes you have to take a second to enjoy the moment and the last few weeks have been one of those times! It's been a few weeks filled with loads of fun and some pretty epic fishing. I've found myself on a magical mystery tour of the country recently with trips to Devon, North Wales, the lakes and the south coast and even though it's all been work I've tried to have some fun as well! I've been guilty of not taking the rods out enough recently and I have to be honest my mental health has suffered. You don't always realise how much you need to decompress with fishing until you're not doing it enough. For me it's not just about catching it's about the connection to nature and the disconnection from the stresses of life. I need to fish to calm my mind, to stop myself from checking my phone every 5 mins and to take a moment to see the world through my own eyes. It may sound stupid or trivial but I find the world so all consuming at the moment with the news, technology and the never ending fight to pay the bills but that's how the world has always been. You can't change it but you can manage your brain through it! I think the best way to do that is to find moments for fun and connection to nature and for me more often than not that's via a fishing rod. This past few weeks it's also been behind the wheel of some pretty epic machines and also learning to Wakesurf for the first time in Windermere. It's been a great few weeks and it's funny how it all started to seem lighter after I forced myself out to fish the river a few weeks ago. A few small wasps and a 4lber later and I started to see the wood for the trees again.... so as always a big Perch saved the day 🤣🙌

I hope you are all well and remember if you are feeling it at the moment talk about it and get back out on the bank. Hopefully you will find it resets your mindset as it has done for me! Anyway enough waffle tight lines from me as always and speak soon 🙌❤️👊

💥 4lb 5oz 48cm 🇬🇧 river perch 💥 Not bad for the first real session of the season!

So this river season has had a slow start for me, I've had a few goes on some elusive chalk stream Dace but other than that I have struggled for the motivation. But all that is starting to change. After the trip to Holland a few weeks ago Ive really started to get the perch buzz back and the constant thoughts of perch have started to sneak back in. I love in angling when your brain starts the process of building the next obsessive phase of the journey and suddenly what looked like weeks of no plans suddenly starts to become a building campaign. Well this is where I'm at, this perch campaign is starting and although I know it's early all I want to do is get into the exploring phase. My expectations are low and really all I'm looking to do is start building a picture of the river this time of year, see where the weedless areas are, work out what the fry recruitment has been like and just generally enjoy being on the water in a t-shirt rather than 14 layers 😂 So Friday was the first session out on the boat I needed to work in the daytime so we tied up to a lovely pub and had a long editing lunch and a cold beer and then started fishing in anger about 6pm. It was a perfect way to play it with the day being way too hot and the carrot of a session being enough to get us through the editing. Once the fishing started it was great to see the river in such good nick, clear, weedy and full of life it was a joy to be afloat and after a load of Snr Wasps all was good with the world. That was until I fired my Zman Goby up to a concrete wall and all hell broke loose as this giant snaffled it and headed out into the river. It was lovely to see her roll into the net (a rare fish on a FS set up for me using the Poison Adrena with a new Vanquish.) as I lifted the net I knew she was 4lb, she was a glorious fish and one that will go much bigger later in the year! What a perfect start to the season! Yes I know I'm a jammy bu**er 😂❤️

I hope you are having a few sessions wherever you are and as always tight lines from me 👊🙌

In 1994 my fishing love started and 32 years later my little one is starting️ to do the same 🙌❤️

I have struggled for bank time recently with work being busy. It's been tough to get the motivation and although I've been lucky enough to have some amazing trips I've been limited on UK bank time!! Today was a day that in years gone by I would have gone by myself but this time I had someone else pushing me to go wet a line. My little one Morwenna told me she wanted to go fishing yesterday when I got home from work and more specifically she wanted to catch a tench. Obviously the going fishing part was an easy call but as always singling out a species on a venue that has enough bites to make sure she has fun is a little more challenging. I explained that we had a chance but a tench wasn't guaranteed to which she responded "we will catch one Dad!" So with that we left and headed to the lake. We were armed with a can of sweetcorn, a pint of maggots, a whip and a float rod and pin. We started our few hours fishing just messing around with the whip catching roach, rudd and perch one a chuck whilst I kept trickling corn in on the edge of some Lilly's ready to break out the float rod towards the end. After a few hours Morwenna said she felt like trying for a bigger fish so the whip was benched and out came the pin rod. There were a few bubbles and tail patterns on the Lilly line so I felt confident of a bite but a 7-10lb carp being the most likely to slip up. As soon as the float settled on the first cast we were seeing indications and a few nice roach followed but after about 15 mins the float buried and we were into something better. Morwenna helping me the whole way sat on my lap as we both lifted into the fish and she reeled in the pin. I thought it was a carp most of the way but when this beautiful Tinca popped up we were both over the moon. Turns out she is as jammy as her dad when it comes to fish 🤣❤️ what a special moment and a wonderful reminder of why we all got into this wonder sport. Her excitement was infectious and I already can't wait to go back together for a few more hours soon!

The Spanish Shimano trip video is now out.... Go and check out Travel light, Fish big on the YouTube channel!

I've been really looking forward to sharing these pics from a truly magical trip to Spain with Shimano. I hate holding back pics but they wanted to wait until the film went live so these have been burning a hole in my pocket for a while! A few months ago I was asked to go on an adventure with the Shimano EU team to test out the STC travel rods. Obviously the answer was YES so onto a flight I jumped and we spent 5 days in Spain. The plan was to try and catch a few fish in fresh water and then transfer to the coast to try and catch a few on the salt. I have to say the trip was epic and we managed so many cool fish. We had sight fished Catfish on lures in wild mountain creeks as well as Zander, Black bass and my personal fave a Spanish Barbel on a lure (I was genuinely big kid excited about that) and then we managed to find some lovely Blue fish from the shore before a day targeting the majestic Blue fin tuna. The tuna trip was truly awesome with and I will always remember watching this Blue fin coming to the surface and then turning towards my subsurface lure as it wobbled past. I just had to keep turning the handle and hope that it hit it and then after what felt like an age I felt the whole set up lock up as the fish took my lure and powered off into the deep. It was perfect!! I know everyone knows how powerful and cool these fish are but on a travel rod it was just epic. After 15 mins I may have thought "I don't know what all the fuss is about here" until the fish turned as soon as it saw the boat and the run that followed was truly blistering! You can see the excitement in the film needles to say the next 15 mins was what all the fuss is about 😂🫡

Go and check out the video on the channel I'll put the link in my story. It captures the excitement and the joy of traveling for the thing we all love perfectly!!

I hope you are all well and getting excited for the start of the new river season here in the UK. I for one am absolutely buzzing to get back out on the rivers!!