Wednesday 16 February 2011

Sakura Goodys

Those of you who follow the blog know or have seen me use various Sakura products from soft plastics to the Alpax reel. All of them performing amazing in all conditions from fresh water to the wild Beara, southwest Ireland! taking a leaf out of the lighter side of angling especially the fly fishing from Nick etc iv taken a shining to the "fishing vest" style bags and rucksacks which have been used allot in there industry. i used to use a Shimano fishing vest it followed me everywhere in my early fishing adventures!
I spoke with my mate Nick Roberts over at Top Water Lures and asked to try out the Sakura Koa Bag this is a tidy little unit which has tons of space due to the two chest pouches with three pockets attached to the main chest pouch. These are large enough to stuff full of packets of softbaits or smaller Plano style lure boxes, they also have a nifty little panel of dense foam for sticking lures in the pouch without them tangling as you can hang the trebles in the foam, i love this feature as i always have pockets full of shads etc. the back pack side of the lure easily holds a medium sized lure case and also has a front pouch ideal for drikns and snacks :-) coupled with the endless adjustability and lanyards for snips etc what a great little package!

What with all the new and exciting adventures i have planned throughout 2011 including various magazine stuff with Jimbo etc Nick from Topwater asked would i like to crack on and try some of Sakura's rods one being there Dawgs Nuts light to medium spinning rod the impressive Sakura Mazzera 742ML..... WOW what a bit of kit! super slim super fast coming complete with Fugi reel seat and Fugi SiC guides throughout. This 7ft 4 spinning rod is everything you could want from general fresh or salt water rod with soft plastics and medium sized lures. Im out Perch fishing tomorrow and hopefully will get a few decent bends in it! its beautifully styled and fits in the hand like a dream, its everything you could possibly want for a rod priced at the £200 mark. obviously time will tell with rods but first impressions are awesome! bring on the Pike,Perch,Chub,Bass and Pollack of 2011. ill wack a proper review of this rod in a few months once iv abused it a bit! I also had the nice surprise with a load of base ball caps from the companys i test and fish with so ill be looking super "pro" while using there gear this season :-) all the above gear and tons more are all available from Nick and the guys at www.basslures.co.uk check it out

Danny

Monday 14 February 2011

Like a fine summers day!

Well it shit it down with rain from start to finish yesterday on a chalk stream in Dorset. where me and Nick Hart had managed to blag a day on this exclusive trout chalk stream which just so happened to have tons of dirty great Pike munching on the wild brownies :-) After a eveing of beer, red wine and steak at Nicks house we were up at 5am ready for action! Nick manages to misplace the shop keys and forget the sarnys we certainly had a good start what with the awfull weather pounding down but as usual me and Nick are buzzing to go with thoughts of new venues and monster Pike to be caught!

after a good few hours of sod all i managed a follow from a huge pike well into twentys my faith was restored as you can see with the picture above of me hood up the wind and rain blasted us pretty much all day..... luckily wearing breathable waders and a wading jacket i was nice and dry under the layers! i was using a savage gear 4play in koi when the fish chases from the left hand side it literally hammered up behind the lure the like a croc sunk slowely to the bottom my heart missed a few beats i tell ya! Dave who took this photo is the guy who invited us to his private beat ran over in hopes of seeing another beast as he's the guy who has sussed this venue with fish to 21lb already in the last couple weeks!
I managed to sneak a tiny jack from one of the swims dubbed "Pike Corner" on another Savage Gear 4play in baby cod this fish was literally ripped to shreds! obviously some huge fish in these waters, its wierd seeing pike in water running so fast and as we said this is a "trout water" by nature but you know me ill catch pike where ever they haunt! while me and Nick snooped around these tidy swims all covered in over hanging trees perfect for big pike to sit behind waiting for a trout or two to swim past! Nick made the decision to switch from traditional wire traces to AF wire as this is so limp you can tie directly to the lures giving the magic swimmers we were now using the most awesome un-hindered action! flukely i managed to whip this 8lber right from under Nicks nose, the take was unreal smashing the lure through the over hanging trees almost like surface fishing in the hight of summer!
Literally two three casts later i cast yet again right behind where Nick was previously fishing and smash im in again! right in amongst the horrid snags this 10lber jumps on my Sebile Magic Swimmer..... screaming line off the baitcaster down stream in the powerfull current! talk about action packed, as Nick lands my fish we hear Simon shouting from around the corner "im in"...... then "WOW"....... then "Get the NET" Simon manages to nail this gawjus beast of a pike! me and Nick move down the swim to Simon to see this beast looking at us in the net.
the scales read 22lb 13oz take a pound of for the net arms and mesh thats 21lb 13oz and Simons PB (flukey sod:-).....) seriously though what a fish! this beat his previous PB of 13lb! a fish of a lifetime from a tiny chalk stream like this! awesome stuff and even though i also had a double in my hands it was nothing compared to the smile on Simons face and in fact all our faces to witness this capture! Dave had also caught a 21lber a week and a half ago, possibly the same fish but judging my there fishing reports from christmas onwards there are plenty of these twentys in here, dave losing a much larger fish just weeks ago further down stream! 10mins later Nick lands the biggest of the session..... the lesser spotted ginger fluff chucker which only just fitted in my landing net! as you can see the mood was awesome after that catch even the horrid weather didnt take the smiles off our faces! we fished on with fly and lures but had no more hits, we headed back down stream trying various lures and flys in all the likely swims but it just wasnt happening! all in all myself Nick Dave and Simon all had a wicked day and cant wait to get out again. we are heading back up there in the warmer months to get them off the top! Brilliant to see a bunch of guys from differnt fishing backgrounds all chipping together for a cracking session. This is what angling is all about for me friends and having a laugh on the bank!

heres Nick tyring to figure out if we could tickle out one or two more pike from the final few swims, but it just wasnt happening! it was now time for calling it quits and heading off to the nice warm pub. all in all a brilliant day and me and Nick really enjoyed it! massive thanks to Dave and Simon for letting us two motley angers venure out on there chalk stream we had a blast! we will deffo head back again later in the year to hit these fish off the surface! please check out Daves blog and site http://www.blurredfocus.co.uk/ for more fishing tales and adventures also flick over to Nicks blog for yet another great write up of the day.

Danny

Friday 4 February 2011

Brilliant Morning Session

Headed out with Fly Guide/instructor and all round Fly master Nick Hart yesterday for a session out and about. we jumped in the truck and headed off to a nice small river in search of Pike Perch and my mate the Chub! we parked up in the middle of no where again armed to the teeth with lure gear Nick using a tourniment outfit and Sakura Aplax and i used my Tourniment rod and Shimano CalaisDC filled with braid ready to smash some nice solid sport in this gorgeous spring day. I rigged us both up with Sebile Soft Magic Swimmers knowing this venue has lots of nooks and crannys to throw a lure and the Swimmers fish so well being weedless!

as you can see above they are mental perfect for brilliant natural presentation of Roach/Dace/Gudgeon with a wiggle that has to be seen to be believed! you can get these from Nick and crew at http://www.basslures.co.uk/ give them a shout and there sort you out with all you need! i had action strate away with a nice chub smashing the lure under the rod tip in the bowells of the river covered in snags and over hanging trees, but that excitement was nothing to what i was about to see! I got Nick to chuck his Swimmer along this deep slow run away from the main current when in the distance could see a good double figure fish chasing the lure down stream with a passion thinking decent pike to start off but no it was a double figure Salmon! couldnt believe my Fudging eyes...... after it chased 3-4 times it soon lost interest and we calmed down (like a bunch of hyper school boys)
We tried hard to stick some coarse fish on the bank, i finally managed to hunt down the Perch with a decent fish of around 2lb hitting my Magic Swimmer it was in a gorgeous 3-4ft deep swim tucked up behind a fallen tree on a narrow section, the tree created a pool behing it which screamed Pike/Perch i was smashed on the second cast and then again i called Nick over as he wanted to see the action taking place in the clear water! i swapped to a small japenese jig and Kalin pepper pearl grub and instantly saw movement there was a few BIG Perch tucked up out of sight and just as Mummy Perch was about to nail me Mr Chub comes in and smashes me right up with a aggressive take! but hang on Nick shouts Browny!! i infact had nailed my PB lures caught browny it wanst a Chub at all! see first piccy. Chuffed to bits.....
we hit a fairly quiet stage, mid day and river was running fast so plan was to deffo put Nick onto Pike at some point! i took him to my "break glass incase of an emergancy" swim where i knew we would hit the pike! and Nick certainly pulled a few! i gave him a change of lure the Savage Gear Cannibal shad in orange and instantly got a reaction! with 2 hits and chases right to his feet (both of which he balls'd up) :-) anglers and danglers hay ha ha ha sorry Nick your a legend really. with two pike in quick sucsession (fluke) he was in the smile on both our faces say it all, not big fish but its awsome to see progress. i managed a good hit from a larger pike which ruined a brand new shad! we headed further downstream to the "swamps" a spot on the river where it splits into countless mini streams but all full of pools and FISH i managed to get a chase from a decent Pike well into doubles it literally swam right up to us, laughed in our faces and swam off i wasnt best pleased soooooo frustrating! we decided enough was enough, a great day out with good company funny thing being the Fly game guy nails all the coarse fish! and me being a dab hand at Pike/Perch i nail all the game fish.... fishing so unpredictable i just love it! please check out Nicks site in my usefull links page for write ups and other info from the fly world, well worth a read!

Danny