2006 update

2006 off to a good start                                                        No free trips given away on week one, all four of our guided clients returned home with ton ups, in fact they all had cats over 120lb up to 129lb. On the non-guided front we had three lads out for two days all returning with ton ups and another group of three for the week, one of which missed out on a ton up with cats to 90lb. There were several carp caught but no 30's.

Stats
Number of clients 8
Total catfish caught 39
Total ton ups 21
Total weight 3688lb
Average weight 94.56lb

Two people on a full week six others for odd days equal to 4 people fishing a full week. The fishing is really picking up now there’s regular bait going in again, everyone returned home with ton ups. Young Liam Banner and his dad catching 7 ton ups in one day up to 148lb. Paul Grothier and Terry Griffin only fish one day and managed 5 ton ups to 154lb.
A few carp showing this week 10 up to 28lb8oz

Stats for w/end 25/02/06.
Number of clients 4.
Total catfish caught 73.
Total ton ups 30.
Total weight 6230lb.
Average weight 85.34lb.

Stats for w/end 04/03/06.
Number of clients 5.
Total catfish caught 101.
Total ton ups 36.
Total weight 9011lb.
Average weight 89.21lb.

Our first three weeks has seen 213 catfish grace the bank with 87 of them being “ton ups”, the total weight being 18,929lb giving us an average of 88.8lb. Fifteen year old Patrick Marston has caught our second largest ever at 165lb.

Patrick Marston (centre) with his 165lb

Five clients and a guide all into fish at the same time, part of the massive 102 fish haul in one day.

Week commencing 24th June and we only had 4 clients for a fully guided trip. Simon Jennings, Warren Cameron, Martin Moore and Wesley Smith enjoyed their first three days landing exactly 100 cats between them in three days. On the third evening my guide Jamie said that he had struggled to get more than four rods out that day as the takes were coming so quickly and that there were loads of cats rolling behind the boat as he was putting out bait. They caught over forty catfish and he said one hundred fish in a day could be possible if only we could get all the rods out, we decided to ask the clients if they would pay for extra bait if I supplied two extra guides and see if it was possible. The next morning door bell goes, I expect the bread man but its not its Dave Dix a client of many years who normally comes out the first week of July (I basically forgot the exact date he was coming) as he pops up to see us within a three week holiday he has. Well now what do we do we are not going to manage to catch 100 cats in a day with only two guides so I ask the group of four if they mine making it a group of five for the day they said yes, so its game on. The lads all take a sack each, that’s 125kg should be enough, but by late afternoon we are averaging nearly ten fish an hour and the bait is running short less than a sack left and 72 cats. Still enough time before it gets dark if we have more bait, the lads agree I should go back and get more bait. Back at the garage there’s two and a half sacks. When I return 45 minutes later they have only caught 4 more with the lack of bait going in it had slowed up. Time to pull all the rods in and rebait the lot, I should say at this time that Jamie was

ones we thought were ton ups and I was retying rigs, baiting up and holding rods whilst Jamie dropped the baits off. We have five client so with two rods each we have ten rods out, we drop off the first two and return for the next two and as the boat starts to motor out off goes one of the first two. As the boat returns off goes one of the second pair. Then as the boat is dropping off the third set of baits another fish is on and by the time the boat is back to the bank a fourth is on, out goes the boat again for the fourth set of rods and a fifth fish is on just as the first fish hooked comes off (for a spilt second all five clients were playing fish together) he drops the rod where it is and puts the bait runner on as the sixth rod is now away. As Jamie is returning from dropping off rods seven and eight off goes another I tell John to hit as I get the last two rods ready. Right let me just recap that’s eight rods out so far, one lost, rig now in the margins, six fish being played and one live rod with me now swinging the last two baits into the boat for Jamie. Yeah you guessed it the one and only live rod goes off, so I drop the rods and run off and hit it. Now we have one dead rod seven with fish on and poor old Jamie sat in the boat and I think photo opportunity. I ask Jamie to take the rod I have so that I can grab my camera. Just focusing in and John looses his so I quickly usher him out of the shot and manage to get the one and only photo of the day as you see above. It did start to slow up towards the end and we did stay 45 minutes longer than normal to hit the 100 mark. We got to 99 with all the rods out and, like buses, two came together to put us on 101 and as we were celebrating and starting to reel in the rods off went another so we ended up on 102 with 35 being ton ups.         

 Full break down of the record catch

On 21st October Daine Finch landed the largest known catfish from the top lake at 181lb

Our running total up to 21st October 305 anglers sharing 8397 catfish of which 2673 have been ton ups, that’s an average of just under 9 per angler.

Congratulations to Dave Marsden for capturing our 3000th ton up catfish of 2006, not our biggest by a long way but our greatest milestone yet. Now lets see if we can beat it in 2007

I was out there myself only the week before, we had six clients they caught 162 catfish of which 50 were ton ups and this in the third week of November, got to be better than freezing your tit off in the UK.