Clickbait

Date fished 22/07/2026

13.30 until 16.30

Flexi in the bank, I decided to take some and go to the bank. 

I drove to Tilcon as it's less than 10 mins from the office. Quickly chatted to another member, then set up the feeder and cast in, soft robin red hooker on the hair. Fourth cast and the tip spun around. An ide.

Plenty of taps and knocks, but I was getting bored of the feeder. I switched to float fishing sweetcorn and feeding my corn and hemp mix.

It worked and was a wonder bait. For the next two hours it was great fishing. The lake really is fishing well at the moment. 

I caught at least 15 ide, maybe 20. I wish I had my clicker as I lost count. A tench, a bream and several good roach.

A double figure mirror carp with a distinctive scale pattern swam right in front of me. I hoped he didn't show an interest in my sweetcorn. 

I was fishing fairly close in, one rod, sweetcorn. It could not be simpler. It really was a great few hours. 

Eventually the promise of fish and chips for tea was too much and I headed home. 

Always time for one more ide though.

I really was glad my bait mixture worked, but I was annoyed I forgot my clicker. 

A picture paints a thousand words (2)

Date fished 19/07/2026

7am until 10am

Hot weather, no school and a son that has joined the workforce. All great reasons to spend a few hours together at the lake. 

 

well, something like that. 

We drove up to the lake, armed not only with tackle but more importantly homemade sausage and cheese muffins and pain au chocolates (not home made.)

Tackle

Two float rods, 1 ledger rod. Sweetcorn, hemp, Robin reds and breadcrumb. Hot juice, choco breaks and munchy bars.

Sometimes words just don't do it justice. I will leave you to write your own. 

Dad 4 tench

Martha 1 rudd

Rupe 2 tench, 1 roach, 1 rudd

My first tench aka Gary

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! 

Heavy loss

Date fished 20/07/2024

5am until 9.30am

I caught three of five fish that I hooked this morning. Lots of other bites and pulls too. It was a great morning, but.....

An early start as I decided to stay local, I had thought about going to the river but I have some busy weeks ahead, so figured a lazy day was in order. Lazy means a 4.15am alarm for me!! 

7ft ledger rod, small feeder, sweetcorn for the hook and I was ready.  I headed to Wydon lake in Hexham. A long drive, didn't even manage a whole song on Heart 80's and I was there. 

Setting up in my usual swim, the lake looked good. Fish were topping and after a few handfuls of corn, I even saw a tench come to the surface. Grab a floating skin and a flick of its big green tail and it was gone. 

The three fish caught were all around the 3lb mark. Great fun on a little rod at fairly close range. Not sure why tench are so angry, but they seemed to be this morning. 

Two grains of corn on a size 14 to 3lb hooklink seemed to do the business. A 10g cage feeder with mashed corn slop completing the rig. 

So, why the but......? 

The second fish I lost, I didn't see. It's 'best' that way, I think. Or is it? You tell me. 

The first fish I lost, which was the second I played. I saw. It's hard to say a weight in the water, but by it's length it was a very big tench. And it didn't fight half as strongly as the others. I will never know, but that's the "joy" of fishing. 

Home for tea and medals before a ball was bowled. 

Fishing

Date fished 25/5/2024

8am until 1pm

Dragging the kids away from YouTube was easy, I just had to use food. Homemade sausage and egg muffins for the boy and pain au chocolate for the girl. Fully fuelled up, we headed to Tilcon. 

Rupe had a 4m whip he had not used yet, we then had another float rod shared between us. Sweetcorn as bait, not Martha this time. 

The delicate nature of the whip meant Rupe could fish close to the bush. It seems that's where the fish were as he soon caught two ide and a tench, whilst Martha and I were on the blank! 

We switched tactics and soon Martha had an ide too. I believe called "Gerald".

And then a tench, "Gerrard".

I was getting beaten by these two, so I pulled out my A game, Lunch! We sat in the car and ate our sandwiches, I quickly rushed back to the swim and caught two ide.

The whip still proved a great tactic as Rupe lifted into something a little bigger. I had told him about the bream. A great big fish that gives up easy, he smirked. 

This one was no different, it popped to the surface and he brought it across to the waiting net. At 3lb 3oz it was a great bream for his first. 

The final count was:

Dad 2

Martha 3

Rupert 5

We had great family time and even caught fish. Sitting at home, I asked Rupe what the blog title should be. It seems I didn't get in before he turned youtube back on and he simply replied "fishing".