The rivers and streams of Yalding

When I was just over 2 years old my parents moved from middle Kent to suburban London and that is where I spent the next 37 years of my life. My Dad would bring me ‘back home’ for a bit of river fishing now and then but as I grew into my teen years I became more interested in the local lakes where Roach, Bream, Tench and Crucian Carp offered better sport. More recently, I moved out of suburban London and back to the heart of Kent and started to explore the rivers that surround the village. It's a bit like having a holiday every weekend as all of these rivers and streams are between a few yards and 1 mile of my cottage. The Beult in fact is just a few yards away and this photo was taken last winter from my front door. The river is just out of sight at the bottom of the pathway.



And this is the Beult at the end of the path but this time in summer:



There are Roach, Chub, Carp, Dace, Perch.........and some nice Bream too:



Walking out of the village is a gravel stream on the way to the Medway and Teise about ½ mile down the road...........I haven't seen any fish in it as it's only a few inches deep but I bet there's a few Trout or Grayling around somewhere!



And this is the Teise just before it meets the Medway. I fished this stream a bit further up last winter with a mate and we had some nice Roach and Chub around the 10-14oz mark, all in about 18" of water.



And this is a nice lumpy Perch in the Teise.............the stripey thing just under the bank, probably a couple of pound in weight. I've seen some nice Chub taking food off the surface here but it's not easy to fish this stretch unless you pick a week day when the families with kids and dogs won't be playing in the stream.



And this is the Medway itself. Quite deep and slow. I've not fished it for over a year but there are some nice Roach and skimmers plus Chub and Carp around. The banks are nicely cut and you can fish the moorings after October.



I've not fished these rivers much, just a handfull of times but this winter I think I will keep some maggots in the fridge for those frosty weekend mornings!

Fishomania 2009 qualifier Monk Lakes

Having only returned to angling recently, this was the first time I had entered a Fisho qualifier and out of the 2 venues I went for I was lucky enough to receive a ticket to Monk Lakes on my doorstep. With probably 6 pegs that could possibly win, I went with little hope of framing but the day would be fun as a lot of anglers I know were fishing this as well.

At the draw I waited for a few mates to dip their hands into the bucket but very few good pegs were coming out. Nick Gilbert drew 34 which isn’t worth diddly and then my hand went into the bucket. Now the chances of drawing a flyer are about 1 in 20 and the chances of drawing next to your mate are about 1 in 60. Yep, I drew peg 33 on lake 1 which is worth even less than 34 as it is only half a peg being tucked up in the wrong corner with the side bank halving the amount of water you can fish in. To top it off, another mate Jeff drew 36 so we were all on the worst lake, on the worst bank and up the worst end………….oh joy!

Arriving at my peg I found that things were even worse than expected, the fishery had closed the inlet to the lake for precautionary reasons and the water level was down by several inches thus I have now named that peg ‘The Beach’ due to the fact that you could see the lake bed sloping up to the left hand bank a metre or two out. This also gave me no margin depth therefore limiting my options even further. To cap it all off, the weather was cold, overcast and there was no prospect of it warming up during the day…………oh joy!

Luckily Nick had got me 4 pints of maggot the day before just in case the weather turned and so all the pellets, paste and groundbait stayed in the carryall. Well mine did anyway but ‘Big Guns Gilbert’ balled in 6 babies heads at the start which I am sure entertained some of the blokes sitting around the lake carefully placing 4 micro pellets into their pole pots!

My approach was going to be a little more subtle than balling it in and to Nick’s amusement I attached a Fox sprinkle pot to my ‘out in front’ top kit and then proceeded to set up 2 margin rigs just in case any fish decided it would be a good idea to feed in 8 inches of water!

Now for anyone else reading, the rest of this blog could sound very dull however, the day was actually fun with lots of banter, various mates coming along for a chat and the occasional offer of a cuppa. So there is not much to say other than I focused on a maggot line at 10m, going longer later in the day and used the sprinkle pot and catty to feed. I used a Gilbert diamond pole float which is extremely stable, 0.16 Fox Micro with a 16 B611 tied to 0.12 and double maggot (red and white).

At the weigh-in, Nick had a quick look inside his net and after close inspection found some fish in the bottom.




Fortunately my maggot approach earned me a few more fish to put 37lb on the scales which was 3rd in section from the duff end of the bank. At least I had won a quid off Nick and had a good day!