The Sessions - December 2020
My friends in my fishing life😊
I signed off last month having had another good month with more big Barbel, a front cover of the Angling Times, another feature in Catch Cult and being asked to write chapters in two LEP books, could 2020 get any better?
Dec 2020 – River Trent
Well from a personal point of view December was a wash out with too much time spent working. When I did get out we had floods, which I normally love but the time I spent fishing them was the wrong time to be there with too much rubbish in the flow and very cold frosty weather making it very difficult.
I did a night on Collingham on a rapidly rising river bringing all sorts of rubbish down in the flow, on reflection my swim choice was poor and I should have gone on the opposite bank but I was there so gave it a good go. I was fishing close in and in a good depth but the flow and rubbish made it very difficult and fish were throwing themselves out of the water in the main flow where it was impossible to present a bait and I blanked.
Two weeks later I did two nights on the river starting at Cromwell in a great flood swim, it looked perfect, the night temps were good and I could present a bait with a 5oz lead holding easily but again I blanked as did the other anglers on the section so I moved down stream to Sutton for the second night.
The weather changed massively with strong winds and a 10 degrees drop on the night temps, the river started to rise again making presentation difficult but again my swim choice was good. I was having to use 10oz leads and clear the lines every 45 mins but did get a take late evening and hooked a big fish, I did the hard work and played it for what seemed like ages getting it upstream and right to the edge, as I bent down to pick up the net just that little relaxation of the pressure allowed the fish to get its head into the rocks and cut me off an inch above the hook and the lead flew out of the water, I was gutted and that one will stick in the stomach for some time. Later in the night I did have a single but that was no consolation for the lost fish.
That was it for my December fishing leaving me very little to write about in my usual style, so as I generally refer to my friends by first name only I wanted to have a little fun and introduce my friends to new readers and re-introduce to readers who’ve been with me since I started writing in 2013.
Colin Bunn
We first met without really swapping names way back in the 90’s fishing Duncan Kay’s fishery in Ringstead, but it wasn’t until the late 90’s when he started Catmaster Tackle and I was well into my French Catfish trips that our friendship started. I phoned him to order some tackle and to discuss tactics and by this time Colin was pioneering the Ebro system in Spain and this was a place I was desperately wanting to fish. After successful trips to Europe for both of us further phone calls took place and he offered me a trip with him to Mequinenza, I’d just returned from France for the second time that summer so couldn’t go and then fate played its hand.
As a result of that trip to Spain and what happened when he returned Colin started Catmaster Tours the following year, I was quick to react and was in the second group of anglers to go on a trip in 2001. When we met and realised who each other was from way back a great friendship was made.
Since that time 95% of my foreign fishing has been with Colin. I have made three trips to Mequinenza most years since, generally out of the main Catfish season and we spent all the early 2000’s experimenting with location, bait and rigs to make the experience better for clients. It was rewarding and brilliant fishing, especially when we started the pellet fishing that we managed to keep secret for a year, along with trips to France and Thailand we’ve had some great times that would be a good book in itself.
Colin is a great angler and is responsible for most of the innovation in European Catfishing today. He is great company and we’ve spent many a night under the stars laughing about the same stories we tell each other every year. We fish together with no secrets or jealousy, if I don’t catch the record or the biggest of the trip I want him to catch it and he is the same with me and we celebrate each other’s successes together. There have been many times two grown men were jigging round the bank in the middle of the night after landing a huge fish.
Colin retired two years ago and this year he has started guiding again setting up Ebro Expert, so if you want big Spanish Catfish or Carp look up his website and give him a call.
Jerry Gleeson
I first met Jerry when he asked me to be an adoptive northerner for a week on the ABF Barbel Challenge in 2015 and we have been great friends ever since. We speak on the phone twice a week most weeks and despite him living in Stockport and me in Cambs we fish together as much as we can and have had some great times.
Jerry is well known in the Barbel world and a good angler, the effort he puts in just to get to places is second to none as he doesn’t drive (thankfully), making most of his journeys on trains and taxis. However he is the most untidy accident prone angler you could ever meet, he loves to throw brollies, cameras and mobiles in the river, breaks most things you lend him and just laughs it all off. We were on the Derwent in 2016 and Kelly had brought him a new camera, he decides to set up on a slope and not in the swim and promptly drops and watches his camera roll down the bank and into the river before he’d even took a photo with it….
As an all-round nice guy, he’s great company on the bank, loves a drink and we’ve had good times on a night out when the fishing has been poor.
His generosity in organising charity events is something to be admired and celebrated, he has organised the Barbel Challenges and a number of charity fish-ins that have raised money for people in need and does this without wanting any recognition and should be proud of himself.
Every year we talk about plans for the following season, none of them have happened as planned but we have fun along the way and long may that continue.
Phil Smith
Phil needs no introduction to many of us and is one of the most successful multi species anglers of my generation with a PB list to rival anyone’s. The author of three excellent books, regular magazine contributor and has written chapters in many angling books. I learnt loads and enjoyed years of reading Phil’s diary piece in Course Angling Today (CAT) and he continued this with his online blog when CAT ceased publishing.
I first met Phil when we were fishing the same venue for Sturgeon in 2013 with my first job being to photograph a big fish for him and he kindly returned the favour an hour or so later and we have been friends ever since.
We kept in touch but I didn’t see much of him until we did the ABF Barbel Challenge in 2015 with both of us being in Jerry’s Northern team. He is a Barbel machine and caught on every river with the highlight being his Nene fish at 14-06 and doubles from the Trent and Dove. I was lucky enough to catch on every river too and kept him up all night on the Derwent with four fish, three being doubles and he was more than happy to keep coming to my aid with photos which were brilliant
We were out fishing for a week it was incredible, he was 71 and yomped around the fields with us without complaint and wouldn’t accept any help with tackle. He has been the same ever since, he is now 76 and only let me help him on our last trip because he’d forgotten the motor to his barrow.
Even after all the years of success he’s still got the same enthusiasm and desire to hunt down the big fish and I can only hope and aspire to be the same when I reach his grand old age. We continue to have regular contact and information exchange, he’s a nice guy, good company and I’m looking forward to our next trip.
Julian “Judd” Atkins
Judd is well known to many Barbel Society members as the bailiff on the Sutton fishery on the tidal Trent. This is where we met two years ago, we hit it off straight away and have spoken most weeks since and fish together as much as we can when our diaries align.
He walks the banks every day with his two dogs keeping an eye on the place and has a good relationship with the Marsh Committee which in turn benefits all the members who fish there.
He is a very friendly guy, will help and advise anybody and has helped many of the members catch their Sutton PB.
With his own fishing Judd keeps himself to himself and doesn’t publish many of his own catches but he has had a couple of good seasons with lots of doubles to well over 15 pound and surely the 16 plus is not too far away. I’m considering putting a guest page on the website so hopefully I’ll be able to talk Judd into writing a feature or two.
He is one of the first people I call when I’ve had a good fish and he is always full of congratulations and happy for me without a hint of jealousy and I get the same buzz when he calls me with a big fish in the net, which is exactly how it should be.
We had some exciting business plans for next season that will stay under wraps for now but unfortunately Covid may well have postponed it until 2022, but who knows……
Ian Potts
Used in the right way social media can be a really useful tool for the modern day angler, I joined FB in 2010 to keep in contact with family and friends that live abroad and when I started getting back into my English fishing in 2012 my FB friends list grew rapidly each year. It’s great to see so many people enjoying fishing up and down the country and great seeing so many big fish being caught. As a result I started to get correspondence with likeminded anglers through comments and messenger and after a while trust built up and we started exchanging information that all contributes to the ground work in looking at new venues.
That is how my friendship with Ian started back around 2013/14. I was doing well fishing the tidal Trent and Ian had been doing the same for a few years, we met up and have been friends ever since.
Ian fishes solely for Barbel and is very successful; it would be fair to say he knows the River Trent better than most and always has his finger on the pulse. He has regular contact with club bailiffs and the regular anglers that fish the Trent and will pretty much know what sections and swims are free on a daily basis. While there are lots of Barbel in the Trent there are not as many big ones as people think so knowing when the big ones have tripped up will help with section choice when travelling up, so our weekly phone conversations always help when planning a trip as Ian will know.
This obsessiveness has made him a very successful angler with lots of Barbel caught each season to a PB of 17-01. For the last two seasons he has been guiding on the Trent with many anglers catching there PBs on a trip with him. We have had some great sessions together with both of us catching big Barbel and I’m sure this will happen for years to come.
Glenn Patterson
I met Glenn way back in the early 2000’s through my links with Catmaster Tours and we have been friends ever since. He is a larger than life Brummie a devotee of Birmingham City and loves Ska music in particularly Madness and has seen them many times.
Glenn’s main passion for fishing has always been Eels, he is a member of the NAC and has fished many venues up and down the country looking for a monster Eel. He also loves his Catfish fishing and has caught big Cats in this country, France and Spain.
In recent years we have fished together for Barbel and had some great sessions with the most memorable being one February when I was peeling the net from the frosty ground to land 11 Barbel in a night.
Now Glenn has another passion, drinking, and is well known among his friends for a good night out. In the fishing world it is called “being Pattersoned” and it is not until you’ve been caught that you realise what it is and it is almost like being inducted to an exclusive club, as his friends that have been done a few times start to message you with jokes and laughter.
How does it happen…….We arranged a trip to the Trent one winter and Glenn asks me what I drink, now I don’t drink much and not at all when I’m fishing but it was a social so I said I’d have one cider. He arrived and we set up and started fishing, it got dark and I went over for a chat. Glenn pulls out a plastic barrel of Scrumpy Jack and a plastic glass, pours me a drink and then gets out a bottle of vodka for himself. I agreed to have one drink but he kept chatting, laughing and joking and without me even noticing he kept topping up my glass, it’s unbelievable how he does it as you just don’t notice. A couple of hours later the barrel was empty and I was battered and had to retire to the bedchair…..Pattersoned!!
To make matters worse he did me again the following August with wine. We haven’t fished together for a couple of years but will definitely catch up soon.
Ray Best
I’ve been friends with Ray for approx. 25 years. We met way back when I was working the doors and Ray was a DJ and have been friends ever since. We had some great times working the pub/club and Ray has watched me and my friends deal with some difficult situations, every time he played Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Gino or Blurr - Parklife I wanted to kill him, but we look back on those times with very fond memories. I’ve always said my first 8-10 years were the best and at times I’d have done it for free, millennium night was a night to remember and to think I got paid £450 for one nights work was ridiculous.
Here is a shot of some of the gang back together to celebrate the life of one of our good pals in 2018.
With us both being anglers we used to talk about it over a drink after hours, at the time most of my fishing was in Europe for Catfish and Ray was match angler but it was always enjoyable listening to each other’s stories.
Ray started working in the fishing industry with his website UK Match Angler which he kept going for 16 years and after a while started asking me to write features for his site. At the time I had two jobs with my day job and the door business so didn’t have the time but by 2012 I’d long retired from the doors and he finally won me over. We were fishing together on my first trip to the Trent and I had an 11-10 amongst a nine fish catch and he asked to write a feature of the session, my monthly blog blossomed from there and I wrote for Ray’s site for 7 years.
It’s something I look back on and thank Ray for, as from writing those early blogs made me go out fishing more to ensure I had something to write about and got me going to places I’d read about and always wanted to visit, my fishing has certainly gone up a level with some fantastic fish and my writing has led to sponsorship, my own website, regular magazine contributions and chapters in two books, so thanks my old friend.
Julie
I met Julie on a chance meeting at work in Aug 2016, I was leaving early, she was leaving late and we bumped into each other at the entrance area, she caught me looking at her, I managed to smile it away and we have been together ever since.
Julie loves her trekking and the outdoors but has little experience with fishing other than a few trips with her Dad when she was young. Her sister Jane on the other hand loves it and goes as much as me, fishing for Carp, she is learning very fast and had her first French 50 this summer.
Julie’s first trip with me was in Aug 2017 and I took her up to my favourite river the Derwent, it was 30 degrees but she was still cold in my Trakker 365 sleeping bag, but that did not stop her jumping out when I had a 13-05 in the early hours, she loved it.
Our next trip was in 2018 to Palm Tree in Thailand and again she really enjoyed it, the first fish she touched was Mekong at a ridiculous 400 plus that took me nearly two hours to land and five of us to pick up. Julie caught two different species of Catfish to get herself of the mark.
In June 2018 we went up to Oban in Scotland for giant Skate and what an experience that was for both of us. She was a little worried about being sea sick and had all the bracelets and sea sick tablets but it was fine and we loved being out on the water, again I caught a huge fish with a 211, Julie had her biggest fish to date with a 127 and played it from 500 feet down without any problems. On the second day we had a double hook up which was excellent and made great photos.
In May 2019 we went back to Thailand to Jurassic and had a brilliant trip, quite possibly my best foreign fishing trip where I caught a staggering amount of big fish with the giant Scar a Siamese Carp at 185-190 being the highlight. Again Julie did well catching a few Siamese to well over 40 pound, again with one of them on a double hook up.
She is very supportive and encouraging of my fishing and is the first person I call when I’ve had a big fish, she knows how much it means to me and gets as excited as I do.
She is my life partner, my lover, my soul mate and I couldn’t imagine life without her, but she is also my lucky charm so needs to come fishing a little more 😊
So there you have it, my life partner and my friends that I go fishing with, we’ve all had special memories together and I look forward to many more with them all.
Until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊
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