The Week Ahead...

This entry was posted on 30th September, 2013

The Prospects…

The shorts are still on!

Last week, all things considered was a lovely week, weather wise, well certainly here in Norfolk. This weekend was also, well… I guess you could say glorious! Temperatures remained in the mid to late teens and rain was rare, overall the weather very settled and considering tomorrow is the 1^st of October I think we’ve been quite lucky.

This week also looks ok, with the weather remaining similar to last, almost a carbon copy in fact. They are expected to remain around the 16-17 degree mark, perhaps even rising to 19-20 degrees at the end of the week and even though cloud cover is abundant and the winds are swinging round to a fresh Easterly things could be a lot worse.

This time of the year even though the daytime temperatures are good you can really feel the difference in the mornings and evenings, I was talking to a few of the lads who were bivvied up over the weekend and they said you definitely need the warm clothes in these periods!

One subject which is also popular at this time of year, is what is our winter going to be like? Considering it’s still a month or so away I’ve heard all sorts of conspiracy theories about how good summers lead to bad winter’s etc etc one of my personal favourites, from an old Norfolk boy, went as follows…

‘Cor we had a summer like this in 1986 boy, that winter was treacherous, you outta start polishing your snow shovel now’

Anyway enough of the winter, I’m sure everyone has there own theories on it!

Back to this weeks weather… what do the prospects look like for the fishing? Well mild, overcast conditions normally mean some decent fishing, so hopefully that will be the case, however I’d much rather fish in a Southerly or Westerly wind, as you know what they say… ‘When the winds in the East, the fish bite least’.

If the wind swings round to the west on Friday, as forecast this could be the best day, as our friendly fishing app, give’s a fishing efficiency rating of 100% for Friday and Saturday! A new moon and building tides should also hopefully see a few fish landed from the beaches, especially after an Easterly blow!

All in all if the forecast is correct I reckon this weekend could be a weekend of bumper catches, so I think it will be well worth getting out there and giving it a go! If you do get out then good luck and of course don’t forget to let us know how you get on! Send any pictures and reports to: [email protected]

 

My Fishing…

Unfortunately no fishing this weekend, I was out on a stag do at Newmarket on Saturday, and was recovering and watching super Sunday yesterday. I’m not sure Stoke v Norwich can be classed as a ‘super Sunday’ and I thought about phoning trading standards to complain about false advertising, but a 1-0 win for mighty canaries had me in a good mood! Whilst on the subject of football, as it seems far more successful than my fishing at the moment, it was great to see our Wednesday night 5-a-side team top of the national form league! With 4 colleagues also playing we have our eyes on a ‘Store Wars’ tournament at the end of the month, would be great to see an Angling Direct team lift the trophy!

Whilst I haven’t been out fishing I have still been working on fishing related projects. My YouTube channel is nearly up to 600,000 views and the subscriber number is nearing 2,300 so that’s all good. I’m also in the process of slowly adding all the video’s to the Angling Direct blog, both me and Steve get so many tackle questions, that it seemed a good idea to add an in depth tackle list to each video.

The first video, pole fishing with worm and groundbait can be seen below, the in depth tackle list of all products used can also be seen here:

From The Waters Edge TV – Pole Fishing Groundbait & Worm





Pictures Of The Week…

First of all I’d like to say thanks to everyone who’s sent in there pictures for the month of September, we’ve received lots of great entries and had lots of interaction.  The winner for September and the picture which received the most likes was Matthew Balls’s picture of his young son with his very first fish.

Matthew wrote... 'he was so chuffed he is only 4 yrs old'.

The picture revived a whopping 200 likes, which was enough to claim first prize and the £50 Angling Direct voucher.

I’d also like to mention Nic Cockley’s pictures, as that finished second with 111 likes and Shane West’s picture that finished third with 89 likes.

The top three pictures can be seen below…

Octobers competition is now open, so be sure to send your fishing pictures in, with a chance of winning a £50 voucher.

Also it’s worth remembering it’s a picture of the month competition and not a just a fish of the month, so it’s not all about the biggest Carp!

If you want to enter the competition and appear on our blog and social sites then feel free to email your pictures and reports to…[email protected] you can also share them with us on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

In The Press…

A couple of things I noticed this week are both saltwater related, one makes for great reading the other not so much, so I’ll start with the bad news first…

Sea bass stocks have sunk to a 20-year low, a report in The Guardian suggests.

Lisa Readdy, from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Agriculture Science (Cefas), said: "This year's assessment of the bass stocks shows a declining population, with a drop of more than 20 per cent when compared with previous years."

As a result of the crash in stocks, scientists attending a conference run by the Blue Marine Foundation on Wednesday have urged a severe cut in the permitted catches of sea bass in the European Union. They believe that only by restricting wild catches by at least a third around the British Isles in the next year can stocks be allowed to recover, and they called for similar measures in other European waters.

Despite acknowledging that stocks are "unacceptably low" the government has said that it has no current plans to restrict fishing, however.

Green campaigners have suggested that sea anglers should put pressure on governments to cut commercial catches, especially in areas where bass fishing is traditionally good.

Charles Clover, chairman of the Blue Marine Foundation, a conservation charity, told The Guardian: "The apparent crash in the sea bass population should be of significant concern to both commercial and recreational fishermen, especially as nothing very much appears to be being done about it yet at a government level. We believe that the need to protect older fish until they can spawn reopens the debate about minimum landing sizes that took place in the last decade. This time, both commercial and recreational fishermen need to combine their significant lobbying power to ensure we protect this living resource effectively."

The second thing, on a more positive note…

Scottish charter boat skipper Angus Campbell created sea fishing history on Thursday by landing two giant bluefin tuna from the Outer Hebrides.

Campbell, 52, who runs Atlantic Marine Services, first spotted a shoal of tuna attacking mackerel out from St. Kilda – the remotest part of the British Isles – three weeks ago and decided to have a go at catching one.

And on his latest trip on his recently launched Wildcat 53 called Orca III, two of his crew – James Morrison and Chris Gunn – boated fish of 515lb and another, which was measured at 90 inches before being released back into the Atlantic.

Campbell, who has been at sea all his life, said: “We released the smaller fish but unfortunately the bigger one was too deeply hooked. We are now looking at some hooks that dissolve if swallowed because our aim is to release all future catches.

“As far as I know these are the first tuna ever caught on rod and line off Scotland and I am convinced these magnificent fish could become a viable target for anglers seeking big game fishing.

“I always had an idea that they may be present in our waters, but it wasn’t until we saw the fish chasing mackerel earlier this month that we decided to have a go at catching one. During the first few trips our gear just wasn’t right so we contacted American company Fishermans Outfitter who specialise in tuna and they provided us with four rods and reels.

“We took two of the new rods on this latest trip and, after trolling big lures around while motoring ten miles west of Harris, we hooked both fish virtually at the same time. The smallest was lip hooked and went back without a problem, but unfortunately the bigger fish had totally swallowed the lure and we were forced to haul it aboard.”



 In Store…

First of all this week I’d like to say congratulations to colleague and friend Wayne Anderson. Wayne who works in our Norwich store, as a match/coarse fishing consultant had a rather special weekend, as  he was crowned ‘King of Yare’ on Saturday.

The prestigious series, sponsored by Nisa Feeders, takes place on the River Yare every Saturday between June and October and see’s all anglers competing to come out on top.

Wayne sealed victory on Saturday, taking his total weight for the series to 196lb; this was the highest weight out of all 50+ competitors and clinched victory, a nice cheque and the famous River Yare shield!

I’d personally like to say well done to Wayne, as I know how much he love’s his river fishing and how much the victory means to him! I also know after last years agonizing second, behind Mark Pollard, this year’s victory was well deserved! So well done!



This week looks set to be another busy one, a new batch of adverts need creating for the magazines, as well as numerous others bits of promotional work and graphic design work. It’s also now coming up to tradeshow time, so we’ll be out and about bringing you the very latest on all this years brand new releases!

Finally this week we will also be naming the winner of our very special Navitas clothing competition, where you can win £150 of Navitas clothing of your choice! To enter and to find out more visit the Angling Direct Facebook page...

Angling Direct Facebook Competition

Product of the week…

Fox Micron Bite Alarm Presentation Sets

There’s no doubt that Fox have always been a company associated with producing quality bite alarms, through the years they have always been at the forefront of innovation as well as design and technology.

What do you think about when you hear the words Fox & Bite Alarms in the same sentence? Well for me it’s the word Micron!



The Micron alarm series was first introduced many years ago and instantly took the bite alarm market by storm; finally a company had released an alarm which was compact, stylish, full of features and at a very competitive price.

It’s a great testament to the micron range that they are still being produced, sold and used today, by thousands of anglers nationwide.

In fact here at Angling Direct I would say they are and have been one of our best selling bite alarms over the last decade.



Now the reason for this post isn’t for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, it is in fact because the Fox Micron has been transformed!  Don’t worry it’s not lost any of its original appeal, it’s still the same old hearty alarm, but now it’s gone remote… Read the full post by clicking the link below.

Fox Micron Mr+ Presentation S