Zenia at Anglers Paradise is successfully trying to get more women interested in fishing and having some success as can be seen from her latest post below,
ANOTHER NEW LADY ANGLER ENJOYING THE SPORT!
As you know, we LOVE to see more Women on the banks enjoying FISHING!!
Here is a lady that does just that! Emily Wearden, 35 from Abingdon in Oxfordshire has only been fishing for a year and joined us last week with her partner James and caught 2 Personal Bests – a 5lb 11oz Koi from the Koi Lake off the top on Dog Biscuits and a 9lb Mirror from the Beginners Carp Lake on a Pineapple Wafter, her partner James Durkin also caught a Personal Best 3lb 8oz Koi from the Float Lake on a pop up.
Emily Shared –
“We have just come back from a fantastic week at Anglers Paradise. Your family/staff have done a great job on not only the fishing lakes, but also the accommodation. We came down for James 40th Birthday and can’t wait to come back next year.
I have only been fishing for about a 1 year, I am now 35 years old and love fishing!”
ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC EMILY – KEEP UP THE GREAT ANGLING AND PASSION FOR FISHING!
(Below)BIGGEST EVER KOI BUT NO SCALES TO WEIGH IT!
Steven Blackburn, 39 from Liverpool joined Anglers Paradise for a week with the lads for some fishing and fun and on their last day they decided to go back to the Koi Lake to see if they could catch one of the bigger ones…
Well Steve did catch one of the bigger ones but he forgot his scales to see exactly how big it was!! But, it definitely looks bigger than 8lb+!!
Steven shared –
“I was free lining using the soft floating biscuits from your tackle shop, I was fishing just a few feet from the bank around the Lillies to the left as you enter the lake from the foot path. After throwing in a few freebies to get them confidently feeding I chucked in my hook bait and next thing I know this massive head slowly comes up through the water and sucks it in. I couldn’t believe my luck. All the way through the fifteen minute fight to get it in I was constantly saying ‘please don’t come off, please don’t come off”
We ended up doing two days on the Koi Lake, easily the best fishing experience I’ve had to date.”
(Below)Oli Dietrich caught this fine carp of 24lb from the complex xanadu on #robinbaits.
Paul Painter from Exeter, brought his Sons (Jack 7 and Harry 14) to fish the Middle Cat and Carp Lake at Eldorado for 48hrs and managed to catch quite a few fish! They ended up with 45 Carp, 1 Cat and some lovely Koi from the Koi Lake!
Paul said – “It was good to see my boys enjoying the outdoors and catching lots of fish, Jack loved stalking out the beautiful Koi from the Koi Lake and Harry loved stalking out the Carp. Good to spend some quality time with my boys, top rods! Harry and Jack love your Lakes and look forward to their next trip after a nice big Cat for Harry and some Koi for Jack!”
WELL DONE TO THE PAINTER FAMILY – GREAT CATCHES AND TIME SPENT TOGETHER – WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!
TWELFTH TWENTY 8 YEARS IN A ROW FROM THE SPECIMEN CARP LAKE
Well Done to David Tretheway for catching his 12th 20lb+ Carp from the Specimen Carp Lake 8 years running, this year in the shape of this 23lb 8oz Common!
David Shared –
“For 8 years running now, I have caught a 20+ from the Specimen Carp Lake, at least 12 different 20’s in total… This year’s 20 was a 23lb 8oz Common, caught on boilie in my usual swim, and I will be back next year for number 13!”
Jack Siddle, 21 from Hull, East Yorkshire caught a Personal Best 29lb Mirror from the Main Carp Lake beating his previous PB of 26lbs!
Jack’s Story –
“Holiday made in the first 10 minutes’ – The first session of the holiday was on the Main Carp Lake as I really wanted to catch one of the huge, original, scaley mirrors that I have seen many pictures of, on instagram. I set up on a swim called ‘snags’ next to the boat house and decided to pre bait during the day across to the lily pads with no lines in the water to gain the fish’s confidence. Come 6pm , I cast my rods out fishing locked up, I couldn’t believe my eyes when after 10minutes my right rod burst into action. After a short but intense battle, I landed one of the fish I was aiming for, one of the large heavily scaled mirrors!
I used Sticky Baits Krill 20mm boilies on a blow back rig consisting of Korda N-Trap semi stiff braid and a Nash Fang twister size 4 barbless hook.
Thanks again to Zyg, Zenia and the team at Anglers Paradise for another amazing week, I will definitely be back but next time in pursuit of one of the huge residents out of Kracking Carp”.
(Above) Seb Winter, 35 from York, joined us for a week’s holiday with his Wife and 2 Daughters for a spot of fishing and Family time but wanted to try the Kracking Carp Lake before the end of his stay in the hope of beating his current Personal Best Carp of 31lbs. Well, he absolutely smashed that by catching the previously nick named Mirror known as ‘Parrot’ at a whopping 46lbs!!! The Mirror hasn’t ‘officially been named’ but because of its distinctive characteristics people call it ‘Parrot’. Seb caught the Mirror using a single pop up 11mm Sticky bait Manilla Boilie.
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(Above)Tommy Flower, 27 from Kent caught 3 stunning Carp, a Mid double Fully Scaled Mirror and a 22lb Mirror from the Specimen Carp Lake and a 22lb 8oz Leather from the Main Carp Lake – all lovely looking Fish! Tommy’s Write Up – “After a frustrating morning chasing the inhabitants of the Specimen Carp Lake around eventually a pair of lips engulfed a carefully placed trimmed down Xcel baits KSC pop up resulting in a cracking mid double fully scaled mirror. The commotion of playing a fish in one of the small bays soon saw the rest of the carp running for cover. With the fish now hiding it was time to head off for some lunch and restock on my skretting expander pellets. With my belly and bait bucket now full I was off in search of some scaley creatures and soon had a number of fish taking once again. A trimmed down banoffee pop up was soon nestled amongst rising mouths and almost instantly my hookbait disappeared as another carp headed off into the distance. After a great fight I slipped a cracking apple slice scale mirror into my waiting net.
After my scaley Carp from the Speci I found myself down on the Main Carp Lake in search for more but was rewarded with a carp from the opposite end of the spectrum. After depositing a healthy 4kg of KSC boilies and constant blips and bleeps from little spawned on carp eventually something better had a proper battle curve in the rod but unfortunately once it found some sanctuary amongst the lilly pads it soon came adrift and left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth. With the rods back on the money and bait topped up I was soon called into action again and this one was staying on resulting in a cracking and rare Leather carp of 22lb+ was being held aloft from some pictures before being sent back home.”
(Above)Adam May has been after one of the Scaley Mirrors from the Main Carp Lake for many years and after a lot of persistence and determination, this year he finally caught one – and what a beauty of a 20lb Mirror to catch!! Adam’s Story – “4 years running the Main Lake’s well known scaley Gems at Anglers Paradise have eluded the bottom of my landing net after repeatedly being pestered by the smaller residents in the lake and the headache of hook pulls on previous sessions. This year ‘luck’ decided to pay me a visit! Due to persistent baiting throughout the week to a big set of lilly pads that is known to produce big hits. On my first session fishing, not baiting, my xcel baits vnf wafters were cast out to compliment, the deadly mix of the xcel baits ksc boilies and skretting pellet that the fish had clearly been visiting as the bite alarms couldn’t remain silent as I landed 4 stunning carp in which the final one being one of the many eye catching carp in the lake graced my landing net at 20lbs on the nose!”
(Above)Gavin Love, 36 from Eastbourne East Sussex joined us to fish our day ticket Lake Xanadu for an 8 hour day trip in the hope of catching a 20lb and caught a 24lb 4oz Mirror.
Gavin used a snowman rig using Paradise Baits The Twist Boilies tipped with ABS Spicy Lobster pop-ups. These were fished onto size 6 hooks with blowback rings. Baits were lowered into the margins onto the tops of the shelves that I found while having a lead around. I also covered my rigs, tubing and leads in the clay from the lake bed that I scraped out to give me an extra edge and make the rigs less obvious.
(Above)Joseff Rosser, 14 from Cardiff enjoyed a week’s holiday with his Mum, Brother and Sister last week and caught a variety of Species including a New Personal Best 25lb 14oz Linear from the Specimen Carp Lake to name just one!
Joseff’s Story – “I just finished my week at Anglers Paradise and I ended the week with plenty of fish of all different sizes and shapes including a 20lb 4oz Cat from the Easy Access on our first day caught on a 12 mm key cray wafted over a scattering of 12 and 15 mm matching bottom baits.
I then went on to fish the Specimen Carp lake where I landed 3 stunning Specimens along with many small but hard fighting stickies, I started off landing a 25lb 14oz Linear also caught on the same tactics above, which is a New PB for me!
The next day I spent around 3 hours watching the fish swim in and out of an unfished area of the Lake. I watched which way the fish would enter and where they would leave and that’s when I slowly introduced some dog biscuits and within minutes I had a few slurping in the mixers, I waited for my opportunity to come and I dropped in 2 mixers banded on to a size 8 hook and around 2 feet from the bank I landed another stunning Mirror which came in at 22lb 4oz, later that day I got the fish feeding confidently again In the same spot and I waited for my opportunity and I picked out an absolute stunner of a 18lb 11oz fully scaled Mirror which also fell to double mixer.
As my week progressed I landed a few other carp from the main lake including a lovely 15lb 5oz grassy and other backup fish around the 10lb mark. I then fished Fat Boys Lake part of the Nirvana Day Ticket Lakes which I landed around 30 carp in a day to 15lb 1oz which gave me a hell of a scrap, all these fish fell to a 15mm key cray bottom bait over a bed of sweet corn, luncheon meat and matching boilies.
All in all I enjoyed the week catching all manner of sizes of fish and will definitely return in the near future!”
(Above)5C’s Member Scott Cooper was smiling like the Cat that got the cream after he caught this 29lb 8oz Mirror from the Main Carp Lake using Essential B5. Scott came down for the weekend with his friend Malcolm (who caught the PB 73lb Cat) and had a great session, he ended up with 4 low 20lb Carp up to this 29lb 8oz Mirror. They also had 8 mid to upper doubles between them, so went home very happy! No pictures of the other fish as he caught them at night and struggled with self takes.
Anglers Paradise recently held a Kid’s Fishing Day that was a great success raising money for the local school and also encouraging the younger generation to fish!
Here are some pictures of the recent Kid’s Fishing Day at Anglers Eldorado, where Angling Coach Tommy Flower offered his services for a day to help kids learn to fish and to help those that already fish to further their angling knowledge.
It really was a wonderful day, the kids loved it from ages 3 up to the age of 12, some had fished before and others hadn’t, but every single one of them loved it which is exactly why we wanted to do it.
Here are some of the magic moments we shared, we hope to do more Kid’s Fishing Days in the future to encourage and help, as they are the future of this sport and it’s great to see more younger ones enjoying the sport like we do!
Thank you to all the Kids that joined in, you were all FABULOUS and a Special Thank You to Tommy Flower and his assistant Adam May – What you did was what Angling should always be about – Enjoying the Sport, Helping Others and of course keeping the Angling Passion going! Also special thanks to Skretting for donating the bait for the event. All proceeds raised will go to Halwill Primary School.
Mark Garrett, 46 and Son Kieran Evans Garrett 22, from Wales had one hell of a session on the Kracking Carp Lake, Mark smashed his Personal Best with a 39lb Mirror and Kieran caught a 26lb 5oz Common topped off with a 31lb Mirror!
They both used fake pop up sweetcorn popped up about an inch from the bottom and a few scattered sweetcorn around it. They used their own rigs, made from Korda N-trap coated braid hooklink, stripped about an inch past the eye and the rest left stiff, fake corn was attached via a hair rig and size 6 Korda wide gape. The lead was attached via a led clip on to 15lb mainline.
Mark caught his 39lb Mirror on Peg 1 by the Lilly Pads to the right, Kieran caught both his 26lb 5oz Common and his 31lb Mirror to the extreme right of peg 2 by the side of the weed.
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!
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.
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
WEEKEND FULL OF FISH AND FUN AT ELDORADO
