Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

"HOME."

Information Page

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

11 January 2006.

No pictures.

Just occasionally things go wrong. I went fishing one afternoon last week. I was hoping to catch dace and grayling and to finish off with an hour's pike fishing. It turned out to be a lovely afternoon with temperatures of about 9 degrees and with my first cast the maggot was taken by a cracking dace. I grabbed the camera and switched it on, focussed it and pressed the shutter release (or whatever passes for a shutter release in digital cameras) - nothing! I looked at the screen and in bold red letters were the words CARD ERROR. I took out the card and put it back in - CARD ERROR. I took out the card and wiped it - CARD ERROR. I blew into the works, fiddled with the batteries and switched it on again - CARD ERROR. By now I was getting the message - the card was *******.

I resigned myself to not getting any pictures for the website and fished on. I had a wonderful afternoon. Almost every cast produced a good dace and after I had fed maggots in for half-an-hour the grayling began to feed and I landed several nice fish around the pound mark. When I tired of catching fish on the float gear I went after pike and first chuck landed a beautiful twelve pounder which was soon followed by five more - nothing massive but all nice fish. I was well pleased with the session and but for the camera problem I'd have had some excellent pictures.

The following day I went into Poole and bought a new card. It works perfectly so hopefully my next page will be illustrated. Sorry! (I slipped in a couple of old piketures just for something to look at)

Stu's fish.

Stuart Clough with a fat fish just under 18lb from the river.

Even fatter.

Another cracking river pike caught about the same time as Stu's.

Not nice.

A fish from a local lake in much poorer condition