After I caught my big GT, Heather and I took a break on the beach for 5 days while Steve and Jeannette went further north up the coast to Lamu for a few days relaxing on its deserted beaches. When they came back we saddled up for a Safari and spent a very enjoyable night in the bush. Our safari wheels.... We arrived after a savage 2 hour drive along the jungle roads that were either full of pot holes, un-graded, or flooded! We seemed to miss out on all the rain thou...

Ignoring the brief cold snap we endured in early February which will have no real effect, the winter here in the UK has been especially mild. Possibly the mildest for 30-years. Looking at the sea temperatures currently the English Channel reads about 8C off Kent, 9C off Hampshire and an almost tropical 10C off the Devon and Cornish coast. It’s 9C off Wales, and 10C off Cork and Kerry in Ireland. Normally it’s at least a good 2C colder in February when the sea temperature peak...

Flamer IV update on Weymouth fishing.... Tim Norman (below) landed his personal best pollack which weighed in at 19Ib 5oz while drifting a wreck aboard Flamer IV.Tim was using 15Ib class tackle with a Portland rig and a red sidewinder lure.Tim also landed a pollack weighing 15Ib 8oz during the same trip on the same lucky red sidewinder lure. Steve Pine (below) landed a 14Ib pollack aboard Flamer IV. Steve was using 15Ib class tackle with a flying collar rig. ...

By Stewart Downing After we had spent a few more days on the beach, recovering from our white knuckle safari, we had a half day booked with Steve to try to get Heather her first GT or Sailfish, so she was to stay in the seat until she had caught one or the other! Heather was struggling to stir from slumber when the alarm went off at 5 am, due in the main to her reluctance to part with a bottle of Rum, from which she was fuelling the most sinister Rum Punches in creation. I...

Terry’s Travels I am eternally envious of my good friends Ross Macklin and Sid Kennedy who live down in County Cork, Southern Ireland. It seems as though Sid steps out of his front door with a rod in hand, and hooks into a specimen something or other before reaching his front gate! In reality, I realise that Sid, similar to many like-minded anglers invests a great deal of time, skill and effort in an area of huge angling opportunity, and it shows. His tally of specimens each...

Terry’s Travels Well, it’s that time of year again! As I write this, rivers are currently over their banks, and lakes and loughs are flooded into the fields, almost a replica of this time last year. Hopefully the rain will ease soon, with rivers and lakes “fining down” nicely for a fair crack at the pike through these colder months. With my angling options somewhat limited at the minute, I will use this opportunity to look back over 2011, and briefly recount some of th...

Chew Piking Once Again It was again the time of the year for the Chew Pike trials and after a very kind offer from a good friend Dean Fletcher I was once again on my way to Bristol full of anticipation and excitement. All the way in the car I was worrying about whether we would get the spot we wanted. I had fished one area previously and thought it had the potential to produce some of the bigger fish and once I had discussed this with Dean luckily he agreed.  I pulled th...

Pike Trip to the Tardebigge Reservoir January 13th 2012 Having not fished much over the past few months, an opportunity arose to go Pike fishing with my work colleague Simon Morris to the Tardebigge Reservoir on Friday 13th (unlucky for some but hopefully not for me!). Having dusted off the Pike gear the night before, we came to work to grab some more essentials for our session and headed off just after 10am. Upon arrival I was greeted by a clear blue sky, stunning vi...

The period from mid January through until late March sees some of the best wreck fishing for pollack here in the UK with fish in excess of 20lbs possible. However this year also sees the added possibility of some very big cod being caught from the same wrecks with fish above 20lbs, and possibly even 30lbs achievable if you fish specifically for them. Also working in our favour this time is that the constant high winds throughout November and December mean that little offsh...

    As the longed-for Marlin appeared to be still largely absent from our fishing grounds, we decided to make the most of the huge variety of species available to target in this area of theIndian Ocean. So, we set off on our third fishing trip of our holiday with our sights now set firmly on doing some bait fishing for Red Snapper and Grouper, and maybe if things turned out well, for a big Tiger shark in the afternoon! This bait fishing sounded like ...