Steve Pinn landed a personal best eel at Stafford Moor Caught on a tail hooked 4″ dead bait at first light. The Moor has produced several big eels over recent years to over 8lb and has the potential to produce a really special eel as the eels live undetected in the lakes feeding on the abundant small fish and high protein carp baits.
There have been some stunning catches of carp from South West Lakes Trust waters in the past couple of weeks with Lower Tamar featuring heavily in the following round up. This water is a day ticket water that provides more than just carp with double figure bream and large tench residing in its waters along with specimen perch and eels. The South West Lakes offer anglers an alternative to the heavily stocked commercial waters with carp that are more challenging in less manicured surroundings that many carp anglers prefer.
Steve Gliddon has been on the banks of Lower Tamar Lake on the Cornwall/Devon border. Steve landed 5 fish from 7 runs which included two 18lb commons, two mid double commons and a lovely looking mirror just under 10lb. Steve fished to a small clear spot in the weed with little and often baiting tactics working well.
(Below)Mainline’s John Kneebone enjoyed a cracking session on Lower Tamar landing 13 commons to just under 20lbs and two mirrors, one small one and this stunning 20lb 6oz fully known as the ‘little fully’. All of John’s fish came in a 24 hour session using Mainline cell boilies.
(Below)Amy Maunder has been on the banks at day ticket water Lower Tamar lake on the Cornwall/Devon border and banked this cracking tench at 5lb 8oz along with a double figure common. Both fish fell to Mailinie Essential Cell boilies.
Adrian Morgan caught this cracking 19lb 4oz common from Jennetts reservoir on a trimmed down Bloodworm boilie popped up from the silt.
Trevor Walker, 61 from Wakefield landed this gorgeous 6lb 3oz Koi from the Koi Lake – An awesome picture of colourful fish.
William Leonard, 18 from Harlow, Essex had a very successful week catching a variety of exoctic species including this stunner!
William caught this very rare and unusual 3lb 8oz Two Tone Golden Tench from the Specimen Tench and Orfe Lake using the traditional lift method with an Allcock Aerial Match Centrepin and handmade float. The bait of choice was sweetcorn fished in the margins.
Jacob Wise in this picture is an Angler who does love to catch eels, this one was from the Octopussy Lake, there are eels the Lakes up to 6lbs may be more!
John Forster with a pleasing net of carp and tench from Horwood lakes. Day tickets available from Summerlands Tackle.
Anglers Paradise is undoubtedly North Devon’s premier venue for big catfish with numerous specimens caught every year over fifty pounds.
Zyg Gregorek sent me this report today that follows on from my initial report on the new complex record. This fish being born and bred in the UK should undoubtedly qualify as a UK record.
The record for Wels Catfish was discontinued in 1990 because the Record Committee believed monster fish were smuggled in from the continent at over 60lbs (but Carp were and still are)
I had official permission to stock Wels Catfish from MAFF (this was after 4 years of trying) and bought the Catfish from Neville Fickling in 1994. They were small Catfish born and bred or rather spawned in this country, the biggest about 10 inches, well under 1 lb. Over the years the Cats grew 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 etc but I was not going to claim a record until we had an 80lb plus.
As I said to them, as I have done everything by the book the Record Committee should recognize the fish. The captor was Dion Cook-Martin one of my employees who is “over the moon” about it. If I hadn’t told him to go in the water and untangle the line from around the bushes the fish would not have been landed.
It’s great for the South West and Devon to have produced a record fish.
Anglers Paradise(Above)Previous complex record catfish of 74lb 2oz.
The latest news from Zenia at Anglers Paradise.
FROM BABIES TO THIS…A NEW COMPLEX CATFISH RECORD HAS BEEN CAUGHT, AND IT’S MASSIVE!!!
Huge Congratulations to our Estate Team Member Dion Cooke-Martin, 38 who has caught the Biggest Ever Complex Cat Record at a whopping 82lbs from the Main Carp Lake!!
Dion caught the Monster Wels Catfish using a 6ft Stalking Rod, size 6 barbless hook on a basic hair rig, with a Single Paradise Baits ‘The Twist’ Boilie fishing just off the island nearest the Boat House.
Dion caught the beast during the 5C’s Syndicate Match which he won too!
We are very proud that we have bred these fish from babies to THIS!! We stocked the Cats 20 years ago and introduced them to Anglers Paradise as Kittens the size of your finger which are now as big as this 82lb Cat – That’s some growing!!
WELL DONE DION – WHAT A MASSIVE FISH AND ANGLING ACHIEVEMENT!!! ANOTHER NEW CAT RECORD WITHIN WEEKS!!
Well Done to Julian Winspear and Partner in Crime Caz Osborne who both had a great session on Eldorado’s Bottom Cat and Carp Lake catching 5 Cats to 30lb+ and 4 Carp to 20lbs, all on the popular and faithful Paradise Baits Catastrophic!
Caz caught her Personal Best and Biggest Ever Fish to date with this 25lb Wels Catfish and Julian had his Personal Best 30lb+ Cat and a 20lb Mirror to put the icing on the Cake!
Euan Mclachlan, 19 from Sunderland who caught his Biggest ever Fish, a Personal Best 41lb Catfish from the Day Ticket Specimen Cat Lake.
Euan’s Story –
“I have never ventured much further than the Easy Access on my previous visits to Anglers Paradise, with my catfish PB being a little over 25lb, however after consulting with some of the members of staff me and my two friends decided that the Specimen Catfish Lake was throwing up the odd fish and that’s what we’d like to target. Before I came I said to my dad that I’d like to beat my Catfish PB by at least 5 pound and reach the 30lb barrier, however a 40 would be out of this world!
At the start of the week we did a night where I managed to get a 32lb 4oz from down the margins on meat, however after seeing this fish I knew I had to give it another shot for a bigger one. So Thursday came, and we hiked all of the gear back down to the Specimen Cat and I pitched up in the same corner swim (peg 3) as I did before and flicked a meat rod down the left margin. After hours upon hours of single bleeps from little Perch etc, I decided I’d try and get some sleep. I managed to zone them out until about 6am in the morning when I was awoken to about 5 or 6 continuous beeps on the alarm and then a massive drop back. I struck into it and knew I had a decent fish on, and after taking me round the back of the island and through the reeds on the far side, a 20-30min fight resulted in a new personal best catfish of exactly 41lb, Anglers Paradise really living up to its name and reputation once again.
I just want to say thank you again to you guys for making the holiday so
special, from the help in the tackle shop all the way up to the welcoming
and accommodating nature of all of you down there.
I’ll sure be back again,”
WELL DONE EUAN – ANOTHER GREAT WINNER!!
Here he is with his Winning Fish and being presented his prizes by Zyggy
Match No 5 results
1st Chris Lovell 22Lb 8oz ,
2nd Colin Gorman 21Lb ,
3rd John Lovell 15Lb 8oz ,
4th Pete Slade 4Lb 8oz.
It was a very wet match 9 anglers braved the weather , hence no pictures taken , it turned out to be the Lovell show & Mr Gorman did not read the script. Well done all.
Match report from Martin Turner who was away catching barbel on the River Severn, ( Below) How could I resist putting up a picture of a barbel a first for North Devon Angling News!!
North Devon Angling News has been up and running for just over twelve months and I hope that it has been of benefit to the local angling community. My intention has always been to entertain and inform. The site would not work without regular news stories from anglers in North Devon and with huge support from my sponsors who have placed adverts with me. I try to give good value and welcome any new supporters who would like to come on-board.
I was going to put up a few highlights from the past year but on reflection this would be difficult as there are so many and I would undoubtedly over look so many so perhaps I should just encourage you to take a look back over your particular area of interest. And don’t forget to send your latest news and images. If you want to comment you can always do so via the Facebook or twitter feed or even using the telephone.
(Above)Ian Philimore with his eel catch from Beattie’s lake this weekend , Ian didn’t know the weight as he didn’t weigh it but fabulous catch !
(Above) Eddie Baldwin with a fine eel of 7lb 3oz!
Carp anglers at Stafford Moor sometimes get more than they bargain for ! The above eels were accidental catches but I know of eels to over 8lb caught by design. The attraction with eels to some is the mystery that surrounds them for these are wild fish that live hidden within our waters and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that eels in excess of the British Record live in waters in North Devon.