Big fish is buffering.

First let me say this. I appreciate all the support from readers of my blog, Facebook and viewers of my Facebook page and I would hate to upset any single one of you. However I needed to write a few words. Because, some of you might not have realised, fishing isn't always easy and not as easy as Youtube, Facebook and blogger keep telling you.

I enjoy helping people. I get plenty of messages on here and now I've started my Facebook page I'm inundated at times with people asking for tackle advice, lure advice, how to do this and ho to do that and even, where exactly am I fishing. I'll help out on any of that and I'll add on as much as I can, anything I can think of that should help, but I'm not here to tell you where to go catch a fish. How about you start by fishing the water closest to your house and go from there? Now some people can handle that and understand totally and others simply just cannot stand the fact it's all top secret. They will just have to deal with that, tough. I never ask another angler where he fishes. If he wants to and if he trusts me he'll tell me or even take me and I'll do exactly the same. I have a few close fishing friends and even a few not so close that I would trust. One, because they don't go blabbing themselves and two, because they're actually decent chaps who look after their fish.

The above gives a bit of an idea what I'm getting at but actually that isn't the main part. I wanted to tell you all, or those that think I make fishing look easy or that I'm fishing some special place that only those in the secret wink club will gain access to, that I'm not actually fishing anywhere special at all. I'm actually not fishing any big name waters, (he says after just writing about a trip to the piking Mecca of Great Britain). Well that one is just a blip, I was invited to fish and I snapped it up. But those two days aside I'm still to fish the most famous pike rivers in the country, the big lakes of England or the Lochs of bonny Scotland. Most of my fishing is on stinky rivers that most people avoid, crappy canals full shopping trollies and the likes and pathetic little ponds that most of the time are a waste of space. But that's my fishing. That's what I want to do right now and that's my fishing world. I actually look at some of YOU lot, you who send me a message on Facebook or here, telling me you can't catch a fish and I click to see where you live. My word, some of you lot are in walking distance of the finest rivers in the country and many of you even live in places where I wouldn't even care if I caught a fish they are so beautiful. I'd swap your chalk streams, huge lakes and rolling hills for the tampax infested waters I'm fishing.

I'm hoping there's still a good chunk of you lot reading and you haven't turned off never to come back to any of my sites.

So if you are still with me, I'll let you in on a big secret. Despite what all the internet tells you about me, I don't always catch fish when I go out. Wait a minute, I'm not a superstar fishermen? For fecks sake, don't tell my ego that. No honestly, I don't always catch fish. Right now I'm sat here typing this after finishing work and then coming home to cut the grass, weed the garden, clean the fish pond and clean my fish tank out. Right now I should be thinking about going out fishing this evening but because I have done that so many times in the past, I know that going out tonight in the sweaty heat and fighting against all the bank side over growth is frigging hard work and if I have a stinker of  a session, which is often the case on days like this, then I'll come home with a face like a slapped arse. Because sometimes and quite often, lure fishing is chuffing hard graft. I know sometimes my blogs tell of first cast twenties, or super sessions where I could catch a pike on a anything I throw out, my videos and photos have fish, fish, fish everywhere, but sometimes it's not so pretty. I too have the nightmare sessions, I can't find a fish to save my life. No matter what lure I try I can't get so much as a follow and every peg I fish that looks like it should be from an Izaak Walton description fails to live up to it's beauty. Frig this, i'm going to send Nathan Edgell a message and ask if he'll tell me where all his best pegs are.

So how do I catch fish, how do I keep getting results? Well I don't claim to be a top angler for a start so please don't even try to compare me with any of them. There's blokes out there like My Fickling, Mr Horton and a wee lad from up North o' the border called Baxter or something who will catch more big fish this year than I will do in my entire life of pike fishing. All I do is go fishing and when that isn't working, I go fishing. I get enjoyment from fishing with lures and I just want to catch another fish. That's what drives me at the moment and that's what gets me results. I do have a job, so I just have to work hard to free up time, upsetting the Mrs along the way and juggling being dads taxi with an hour or two on the bank. One thing I do not do is decide that in two weeks time I will go fishing and between then and now I'll sit on my backside. If I've got time and the desire I'm out on the bank, twenty minutes, two hours whatever I can manage. I do know a few spots where the odds on me catching a fish are good, but when those few places fail to deliver, guess what? I'm frigging pulling my hair out trudging mile upon mile of bank, towing my knackers off trying to find a fish. Take chew for example. Ok we all know there's enough dream fish in there to give us all a hard on for a couple of weeks or more, but when I was there it was chuffing hard work, ten hours or more two days on the trot of casting, casting, casting. Staying switched on and focussed on my rod, line and fly just in case I got that one chance. It was bloody hard work I tell you but when that day comes where I do eventually land a Chew monster, it'll most probably be through a tiny bit of luck and shit loads of hard pissing graft along the way.

Us lure fisherman have to be a bit daft, and also a bit of an artist (not piss artist though that will help with the blanks). We can't get out on a scorching hot sunny day like today, or the last two weeks or the next two looking at the forecast, and just plonk our arses on a comfy chair and wait for something to happen. Ok, I do know there's more to it than that so don't jump down my throat. What I mean is, a bait angler, match man or carper can do a bit of graft, get it all set up and then reap the rewards later. Those lads and lasses can bring in the fish to their swim but a lure angler has to find them. The other guy can relax and wait for the alarm, soaking up the sun but a lure angler has to keep walking and keep casting and if he's not doing one he's doing the other and if he doesn't do either he'll not catch a damn thing. It's bloody hard work at times you know and it's not always for some. Occasionally though, all that walking and all that casting pays off and you have a bumper session, you bag a three pound perch or twenty pound pike. That's when all that hard work is rewarded but if you want to go check back on my blog, go see how many three pound perch or twenty pound pike I catch a season. It's more than some I know that, but loads of lads catch way more than me, ask Nev, Dave or Neilson.

You're big pike is downloading

Angling magazines, Facebook pages and groups, Fishing forums and Youtube productions are all over the shop. You come home from work and some twat has just landed a monster and by the time you've taken a second sip of your hard earned pot of tea, some other twat has caught another big fish. Stuff this, I'm off fishing, it's frigging easy look at all those lot catching. Three hours later you're home with your tail between your legs, face like a slapped arse and you're looking on eBay to see how much you can get for the Savage gear lure collection. Let me tell you something, I look at the internet and it looks really easy to catch big fish to me as well. Reality is though, unless you are in the know, paid to fish all day, live in pike central or have won the lottery the fishing isn't like that. It's tampax, trollies and feck all on the bank for most of it. I wish I could tell you a super lure that will always catch you a fish but I can't. I've even blanked with my Squirrelly Burt, I feckin have you know. The internet is great, but you can't frigging download a pb.


For gods sake just get out and go fishing. You've either been at school, work or you're about to go soon, so while you have the chance get out and go fishing. You'll catch naff all sat at home looking on the internet. Those page "Likes" should inspire you to just get out and fish, not ask them where they caught it. There's big pike and perch all over, not in big numbers but they are there I promise you. You just have to go out and find the buggers. It won't be easy, it won't be every time and there will be loads of hard graft, sweaty ball sacks and even moments of shear frustration when after all that work, that one fish you were chasing manages to shake the hooks right at the net. But that is fishing. I promise you this though, if you do keep at it and you do put that time in. One day, probably when you least expect it, something will happen that make all that hard work, frustration and the rest seem insignificant and wortwhile. When you find the dream fish and it smashes in to your lure, nearly ripping the rod from your grasp, throwing itself out of the water with the most violent head shake you have ever seen, before eventually coming up to the surface towards your net, your arse will fall out at this point but when it does go over that net you will be on cloud fucking nine!

Now go fishing for fucks sake.