Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 29th November 2025
I haven’t been to Todber for a few weeks so booked in for the Saturday open, there were only eight of us but it has been fishing quite hard. The usual lovely breakfast set us up for the day and …
Hebditch’s Pond – Charity Match – 31st May 2020
After last week’s first trip out since lockdown and the massive headache of trying to arrange care for my dad on a Sunday, I decided I was going to wait until matches were back on the agenda before fishing again. Everything was pointing towards that happening in early June so when the Angling Trust announced on Facebook in the week that matches …
Dillington Pond – 24th May 2020
Before I get on to my latest post, I must just say a massive thanks to everyone for the amazing response from the last one, the messages, comments, e-mails and texts (quite a few from people not in the angling community) were overwhelming, humbling and I’m not ashamed to say I welled up several times. Several people also felt they could tell …
Fishing and your mental health
I wasn’t really sure where to go with this post, the seed was sort of sown when we were all put on lockdown and fishing suddenly became off limits. I don’t think most people realised the Corona crisis was going to be this serious, I certainly didn’t when we held our last match at Dillington on 22nd March. For the record (and …
Rob Hughes Interview
Hi Rob, I know you’re a very busy man, so thank you so much for agreeing to answer my questions; On your Facebook page it says you’re a ‘BT Sport Presenter, 2x World Champion, England Manager, CarpSpirit/Dynamite Team, writer, diver, author’ which of these keeps you the busiest? They’re all pretty busy to be honest. I love every part of my job …
The Archives – Part 19 – ‘Old Faithful’ (2000)
As much as I loved my fishing, I never used to do much prep and it undoubtedly cost me on numerous occasions, I had a few floats made up but certainly not the trays and trays of rigs and multiple hooklength boxes of today. Also my pole only had a few top kits so it was rare I set up more than …
The Archives – Part 18 – Evolution (1999 cont’d)
This year, my birthday in May fell on a Sunday and I was at Howley which was probably my favourite venue at the time. I drew peg 7 which I was happy with but the pond has fished quite hard, I managed two carp plus skimmers and roach for 10lb 12oz and a birthday win! The following Sunday we were back again, …
The Archives – Part 17 – Evolution (1999)
One of the first matches of 1999 saw me finally draw peg 14 at Horlicks, the trouble was it was bitterly cold and my cause wasn’t helped when Rocking Roy came down just before the start and said I was sat at the top of the swim when most people fished the bottom! I got off to a flying start though, with …
Torquay Tart Interview
Hi Torquay Tart, thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions, I’ve known you for a very long time (although it feels longer!) but I thought the readers might find it interesting to learn a little more about you, Firstly, why are you called The Torquay Tart? Hi Jamie and thank you for the opportunity to tell my …
The Archives – Part 16 – A Rude Awakening (1998 cont’d)
After the K & A disaster, the next match was a teams of four on the Huntspill, I drew peg 49 which was a decent area, started on the feeder for a small perch and a decent skimmer before coming in on the pole after an hour and twenty minutes. Bumped a couple of fish before catching another small perch and then …
Hit Parade Update
A few years back, I did a series of ‘Hit Parades’ on everything from ‘My Top Ten Match Wins‘ to ‘Virgin Venues’ where I looked back through the blog and picked my favourite posts on different subjects. The last one was in September 2016 so with no fishing at the moment, I thought I’d do a new ‘Hit Parade’ covering my most …