Exeter Float Tube Zeds........ ;-)

I must say this is the most fun you can have with you clothes on....... float tubing is gotta be the best way to explore new and exciting venues...... just the thought gets me smilling ear to ear! you fish light none of this 10tons of gear shite, all the unhooking tools on ya chest a small bag of lures to allow easy movement to unhook fish while there still in the water! you only need to take fish out if you wanna quick photo sheer fun and really good for fish handling. and most of all you wont stop laughing from start to finish by beiing towed around the place by the pike etc.
here's adrian with his first of a very very very long drawn out start to the session on a "apparently" stuffed full venue it was hard going with me losing every single bloody pike that came anywhere near me after a solid 3hours jigging and drop shotting for the crafty Zander that call this place home....... which didnt show a sign of coming out! we decided to head back down the venue in search of pike on the spinnerbaits and that soon showed us some results from jacks around a few pounds but just great to get a bend in the rod :-) Me and Adrian met up with Adrians bass junky mate Kev and he had what can only be called a shite morning for all the wrong reasons...... he's a Spinnerbait virgin and manages to hook from the bank what can only be said as a horse of a pike well over the doubles right in the lillies its going ape shit! he only had on 15lb super PE braid and his trusty Berkley skeletor ultra light gear...... after a explosive 2mins the braid goes and the fish swims off :-( guttin losing a PB but losing it still attached to a lure is truly guttin :-(

after we had fished the sections which had ment to of been a dead cert for the Zeds we thought lets take a short drive to a free stretch we knew of which had saved my bacon a few times over the years for pike and zeds and we had almost instant action! on only my third cast from the tube i see a fish charge up to look at my Delalande buster shad thinking it had been my Zed as it followed up literallt 10inches from my legs i dropped the shad down and smash it was on! i could tell instantly i had a pike! but all good fun :-) i also had two other pike in only a few casts the biggest being this plump of a pike on the sebile magic swimmer. while being towed around by this fish and i mean being towed around the pool Adrian was paddling over to take the piccy. its released and strate away Adrian shouts im in! a big congrats to the Dorset destroyer on his first Zander you should of seen the smile on Adrians face...... this Zed took a fox hornet spinnerbait in hopes of a pike! i couldnt believe how aggressive this fish was literally nailing the lure right to the back of its throat...... you couldnt see the lure unless you opened its mouth, the state of the spinnerbait was awesome! all mangled and twisted! Adrian lost a zed on our last trip out for them and we'v been sayin we wanna come back and hit it with the tubes ever since...... a big well done and at a respectable 6lb 7oz a nice zed for your first! by this point i was a man crazed with the zed feaver! as we released this fish Kev shouts up and he's into a zander too.... :-( where was mine? i frantically cast all my small shads and lures in hopes a zed came out but after another pike i had got pretty pissed off
I turned around to drift back down the pool toward the other where i could see bleak scattin and being chased around so i stuck on the Delalande shad again and it wasnt long before my zed showed up! result at last! after a quick scrap it was mine i tailed it out to unhook the zed which got nailed on my owner st-36 stinger treble took a quick photo etc and got it back safe and sound! a nice plump 5lber....... mission accomplished! the problem is this midlands venue is a good 2hours drive for us which sucks as its doing my head in i wanna get back and break the double figure zed! well it was a slow start but it all came together nicely with Ady and Kev getting the first ever Zeds :-)

Anglers and Danglers..... :-)

Just recently iv been lucky enouth to tag along with the fly fishing Guru and all round wrongen Lewis Hendrie iv been gaggin to get out using fly gear for bloody ages after being mentally ruined by Nick Hart and the gang watching them fly fish for trout and pike...... its something iv wanted to do in a long time but not having access to this stuff on a reg basis it was always something that never spawned! well Lewis rings me asking if id fancie joining him for a session i jumped at the chance to get out our first session was on one of my local small rivers for wild brownys and it was AMAZING the next session was some pure angling porn!Now i would call myself a sheer dangler when it came to this type of fishing, we fished little bug patterns in teams of twos or new zealand dropper under the rod tip on this STUNNING southwest tiny water....talk about jungle fishing i was beaming with smiles this was exactly the sort of stuff fishing dreams are made of, kinda takes you back to ya childhood waist deep in water, whats not to like! quoting a a Nick Hart comment "if theis style of fishing doesnt get your juices flowing your not a angler" soooooo true..... with the hepl of Lewis i soon got the flick and catapolt technique dialled and was gettin into fish, although Lewis was whippin me big time!

we had Grayling on the brain and after i had spooked and lost a few while Lewis consistantly caught is was my duty to star nailing some of these gorgeous "lady of the streams" and i soon got stuck into grayling! all of which were between a pound and 2lb which are awesome fighting weight for our ZERO weight fly rods..... yeh zero weights! truly stunning gear coupled with some tiny Sage reels this was amazing finesse gear just right for the job and a real pleasure to use. around every corner there was another pool or gully all crammed to the brim of grayling it was amazing to see and be able to fish water that i usually wouldnt get on!

the next session was my kind of thing.... i had told Lewis about some clonkin chub fishing on another southwest venue where i had recently beat my PB on lure caught Chubblys and we chatted about how on light fly gear it would be insane fishing, real hit and hold no holes barred fly fishing! when we pulled up a short walk to the venue i could see Lew's face coming to life he could instantly see the potential here...... everywhere you look in this river you are greeted with hundreds of chub from a pound to 7lb plus! theres also a huge head of big pike here too :-) we took two fly outfits a 2weight and a 3/4weight for the chub etc so we could play around with nympths on the lighter rod and whip out the frogs and mice patterns on the 4, i also had my trusty Sakura Mazzera 742ml and 4000 reel with a bag of tricks

I had a few casts in a small wier with the fly rod and managed a tiny 3/4lb chub instantly but i could see the Perch and bigger chub tucked right in under the wier in all the white water, so it wasnt long before my lure came out to play :-) i rigged a 3" kalin pepper pearly grub onto a offset hook unweighted and popped it above the wier to let it come doen over the wier into the white water..... and on the next 4 casts i nailed 2 perch to around a pound a 1.5lb chub and a 1lb wild browny! while we moved down the river i continued with the lure and found a small raft of weed on the other side and cast out to the clear water behind, let it drop and drift under and started my drift soon as i started to wind i could see the beats turnin and looking at the grub and a 3lb perch come hammering out but doesnt take! i was in pieces i wasnt expectin that! in the next swims down i can hear fish splashing and see small fish scattin from the water in all directions! thinkin it was the pike which normally hang out here i cast out only to see huge perch everywhere...... i couldnt believe my eyes! it wasnt long before the piking pisshead was into his first decent fish of the day! this plumb 2lb perch! well chuffed we carried on up river

we fished a good old stretch teaming with chub and perch where both me and Lewis nailed them on lure and fly we both saw chub over the magic 5lb mark and a few real biggys well over 6lb...... lewis was jumpin around at the thought of nailing these fish but lost every single one ha ha we headed to a really snaggy patch of the river where there is pubic acces and of coarse shopping trolleys, prams, bikes, traffic cones, beers cans Gotta love wild fishing ayyy! and Lewis shouts F%*$in hell look at that browny........ i knew this venue had beasts as i caught a 3lb 3oz wildy only a few weeks back on a surface lure aimed for chub! after about twenty casts snaggin a few times lewis was sure we spooked this fish but as we were pissin about and lewis was actually on the phone i sat down lookin on facbook and Lew shout "I GOT IT!" it couldnt of been a worse swim snags everywhere on a light fly rod it went mental! but we landed it! a beast of a wild browny!
It was getting late now and we headed back to the car fishing the good looking pools on the way back in hopes of one of these beast Chub..... it wasnt long before they came out to play...... i had the fly rod in hand this time with a chernobyl ant pattern on and BOOM up comes those big rubbery white lips it literally smashed me! i had to run the bank after it i had no control in this fast paced river...... but wow what fun! after 2mins of shoutin to lewis that i had one it burys its head deep into the cover, i could still feel it plunging deeper and deeper into the weed so lewis jumps in with the net to try and help out but i get that heart breaking feelin of slack line... the chub is gone :-( a good fish too so lewis says. Lewis had just been snapped off as well by a big 6lber on 5lb flurocarbon leader...... these fish actually abuse light gear! we finished the session with 11 chub and a couple nice trout plus the biggy and my decent perch. that was it game over home time. bring it on next session on here we are gaggin to hit it again. couple that with the 30 odd grayling and 20 odd trout to fly gear its been a awesome couple weeks :-)

CLA Game Fair.......

I recently spent 3 days working up at Blenheim Palace, just outside Oxford at the CLA game fair. filled to the brim of all the horsey types (fit posh totty ;-).....) farmers, outdoor sports etc and of coarse the fishing village........ where we had our EPIC stand Basslures.co.uk stand had a awesome weekend meeting ang greeting all the lure crazed fishing from all sorts of background! we had the pro's right through to the new'bees all coming over to see our amazing selection of lure brands like Megabass, IMA, Lucky Craft, Lunker City and Delalande

we had the testing tank on site which was a crowd pleaser and let Me and the guys Mike and Nick show and tell all of our top brands and the popular lure styles from the awesome Slug-go to Zonk's...... I managed to get peoples brains churning with my various drop shot styles and funky rigging types of the popular soft plastics which allot of guys werent all that tuned into, its always good to see the look and grin on guys faces when they see what can me done! your be surprised how many of you have all the nice new lures and actually have no clue of its "benifits and actions" the tank allowed us to show you all what was what and we had lots of good feedback from guys and girls who learnt lots of new tricks :-)

As you can see we stocked a fair bit of all the top brands which we sell and import and managed to sell a fair bit as our stand seemed to be one of the busiest in the angling village, mostly lure sales but we also shift some rods and reels to some very happy punters some of which knew just what they wanted and lots of guys who came to us for help and advice which is where i really love to be involved in..... i cant think of anything better than where i can help others learn and get out the experiences iv been lucky enough to have from lure fishing. myself Nick and Mike were all on hand to help out as having that "new bingy" lure is all well and good but not having the foggiest how to use and abuse isnt all that fun :-)

we also had a good selection of the rods from the brands Sakura, Lucky craft and the "secret squirrel club" Megabass rods which literally made me weak at the knees..... the Sakura range consisted of the older Rookie the Shinjin's, Stingrays and the Mazzera's. we had ultra light to 7g right up the the sea monster upsetting 802XH Mazzera tropical beast killer! covering all ground for todays modern lure anger from Bass to fresh water applications and even the GAY'me boys hand there salmon brains ticking with some of the kit we had on board! the Megabass range was beautifully made and i can honestly say out of this world..... if you got the wonga and you dont buy one when you could you need sectioning! the ShadowXX range simply oozed sheer class so did the Indipendance and XIO range! pure lure fishing porn!

the brand that stands out for me in terms of styling and function has to be IMA.... dont get me wrong im a Megabass for life kinda guy but hats off to the IMA guys...... new lures like the super thin Komomo's and new sizes of most the models as well as simply mouth watering new colours that im sure will catch anglers but distroy the UK Bass population ha ha. we had allot of new stuff that isnt even on the topwater catalogue yet all of which will surely rise up the ranks of the finest lure gear on the market! Basslures.co.uk is truly the boys in the retail lure market today and will continue the march to superiour gear for you guys so please please pop onto the site and support Nick and the gang @ www.basslures.co.uk i had a awesome weekend surrounded by awesome people all of which are part of the basslures family a true sign of quality family run business its really a pleasure to be one of the lucky few to be involved :-)

www.basslures.co.uk Parkins quality assured ha ha

CLA Game Fair 2011

sooo its that time of year again! next weekend is the CLA game fair in Oxfordshire. where there will be a wealth of Angling, Hunting and general outdoor activities all on show as well as tons of shops and dispalys from all the top names in the Fly fishing world. Hardy/Greys will be taking care of casting displays etc as well as numerous coarse fishing brands now on display!I will be there working on the Basslures/Topwater stand over the three days where we have a awesome selection of Lure brands from the likes of MegaBass, Lucky Craft, IMA, Lunker City, Sakura, Sebile and Delalande. including all the most modern lures from each brand, Rods and Reels as well as a tank to "show and tell" on various products across the ranges. So please come down and visit us for a banter and check out what exciting brands www.basslures.co.uk and www.topwaterlures.co.uk have to offer up to the Modern lure angler.

CLA Game Fair, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. 22-24 July 2011