Mr Whippy

Date fished 5/7/2026

5.45am until 8.30am 

The house was quiet, people in the street were snoring softly. I crept out with Mr Whippy and the float rod and headed the short distance to Wydon. 

For those of you that dont know, Mr Whippy was my dads favourite rod. At a little over 5ft, he is diminutive in stature, but he is strong. My dad had caught carp to double figures on him a mere few inches from the bank. He is a perfect stalking opportunist rod, and seeing as most of my Wydon fishing is a few feet from the bank, I paired him with a hybrid feeder to do some close in ledgering for tench. Mr Whippy last featured on the blog in 2020 here. 

I arrived at 5.45am. I feed some hemp at 5.50am, cast ( well dropped in) at 5.51am. At 5.55am the float sailed away, two minutes in the fight and at 5.57am a tench lay in the net.

A roach on the float followed and soon the whole swim was alive with fish. I wanted to catch on Mr Whippy, so I dropped the feeder in the spot. It was 6.57am and Whippy pulled around. A short fight and a bream lay in the net! 

Wanting to get back to the float fishing, I swapped back. Two more tench, another roach and six rudd topped off a great few hours.

Long but skinny

The smallest, but equally welcome

The rain started and as I left a man and boy were just arriving. I told them the swim and where I was feeding, so I hope they could carry on where I left off. 

Getting home at 8.59am, I was annoyed it wasn't 8.57. The daughter was still sat on the sofa in her pyjamas. She said "morning dad, morning Mr Whippy'.

That made me happy!