Andy Spreadbury's Fishing Blog

Tuesday, 23rd.April Paddlesworth, Burrows, ‘The Trucks’ 11.30 All set up; bait is out, and the kettle on! If you read my last Blog, you’ll know that I identified this peg as a ‘banker’ where ‘Method Feeder Man’ bagged four in no time at all. This is because of the abandoned metalwork (in the form of mining equipment) which were used during the clay workings being a major feature in this part of the lake. Six spombs of corn with a few boilies have been put out towards the metalwork, the recent mild weather meriting this amount of food. 'The Trucks' You can just see a bit of the metalwork poking above the surface and the shadow of the structures laying sub-surface. 7 wraps drops you just short of it. But today’s tactics do not just focus on my attempts to catch a carp; there is a higher purpose and a bigger picture. Over on Pollard, just a couple of hundred metres away there dwell the fish of my dreams and my reason for joining the club in the f...

Wednesday, 17th.April Paddlesworth, Burrows, ‘The Shallows’ 10.30 Back down at Burrows, brim full of confidence, convinced I’m going to get one. I got some ‘inside’ information from my old friend Ted Spillet, “fish the Shallows; they come right in close”. So here I am, as instructed with two baits on the one spot. I put out a marker float and found 4-5 feet with it getting deeper to the right further out into ‘The Bowl’, the western end of the lake. The aim was to find a reasonable depth of water and catapult some corn around the marker float. this also had the advantage of giving me the clipping-distance for the rod. There has been a sudden change in the weather and we are blessed with glorious sunshine and a significant rise in temperature. They just have to be in the shallow water! I put some corn on the spot; not a huge amount, about five or six small handfuls and positioned my 12mm. Pink NS1 pop-up and Krill Wafter baits over the top. ...

April 10th.2019 Burrows, Paddlesworth, Peg 11 11.20 So finally, after all the house renovations have been done - the knocking down of walls, the plastering, bricky-ing, painting and decorating, I can at last bend my mind in serious fashion to my carp-fishing. The past six months have been stressful to say the least but at last Christine and I can look forward to a more settled future. The finishing of the house has coincided with the arrival of a new ticket for which I have been waiting three years. It’s for the Paddlesworth Complex at Snodland in Kent run by the Kingfisher Angling and Preservation Society (KAPS). There are four lakes on the complex - Burrows (which I am fishing now), The Pads, Rugby, and the big fish water which I ultimately have my eye on - Pollard within which fish go to forty pounds! Well above my PB which still stands at 34:12 caught in 1977; 42 years ago! The Paddlesworth Complex, Snodland, Kent. Kingfisher Angling and Preservation Society...

Wednesday, 13th.February Thorn Lake 10.00 Out fishing at long last after what seems like forever… Thorn Lake is a day ticket water and I am here for one reason and one reason only - it’s got bloody great carp in it! Not just big. HUMUNGOUS! There are fish in here which would not only shatter my PB they’d blast it right out of sight! As I have mentioned in previous blogs my current UK PB has stood at 34:12 since 1977 and I am truly desperate to break it. I don’t care whether it’s from a ‘carp puddle’ or not. I don’t care what its parentage, nationality, genetic origins or anything. If it’s over the ‘magic figures’ then I can let this monkey on my back clear off and let me get on with my fishing in peace and tranquility without having to worry anymore. The lake itself is 5-6 acres and has a shallow end and a deeper end. I slung the marker float out and found six feet so I use the term ‘deeper’ in a relative sense. The reason for my choice of swim is based on a recce I ...

Tuesday, 15th.January The Back Lake, The Pads 09.50 New Year, new rods, new reels, new tactics… For the very first time and at long last I have managed to get in The Pads , for this is where I believe the fish are holed up and where I think I’ll get my best chance of a Back Lake carp. I've been wanting to get in The Pads for a long time. This is an area of the lake where the carp feel safe amongst the many snags and foliage and is a swim habitually fished by all and sundry. There are specific spots in it though where you have to drop your bait, otherwise takes are few and far between. The new rods are a set of three Wychwood Extricator Plus Tens. Ten feet long and three and a quarter pounds test curve, the shorter length preferred to enable greater accuracy in casting so that I can fish all three rods on one spot. Landing on this spot is far more difficult than it looks. Because the reed-line is not parallel to the bank, dropping a foot to the left...

Friday, 16th. November Preparations for the next session I’d already started to think about what I might do for the next session at the end of the last one. A plough through my diaries (which go back to 1978!) reminded me of several stories which had valuable lessons learnt and which I had completely forgotten about. There were two in particular which guide my thoughts now: Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth (1986 to be precise) I was fishing Bysing Wood, Faversham where I had done extremely well, catching over a hundred fish in a season (and in one memorable year, nearly twice that number). In those days, a twenty-pound fish was a real result and were few and far between in any twelve month period. It was a heavily fished water then and had seen some of the best anglers this country has ever produced - Fred Wilton (developing his HNV baits), Gerry Savage, Bob Morris (who became the first angler to officially record a hundred ‘doubles’ in one seas...