Summer Fishing 2018

A summer of carp, sharks and a proper heatwave. I say this every year but the summer season seems to have flown past. The mornings are getting later and the evenings earlier, and autumn is about to bite. But before I swap my cap for a woolly hat, and cons for wellies I thought I’d have a look back at some cracking summer fishing.


Closed Season: A great day on Lechlade produced a new PB rainbow and a PB brown trout, a double! Then I turned my attention to the local canals landing 3 small pike and a monster 28lb mirror carp, smashing my PB. The Blogger’s Challenge concluded and I was more than happy with third place - not a bad off season!


June: Opening day saw me into the local barbel, that pull I’d missed for three months. I also continued my canal carp quest landing two more, including a double. And I started a hunt to catch as many species from the local river as I could this season, setting the near impossible target of 20 species - 11 so far - including a choach!


July: In the grip of a heatwave it was best to try and avoid the barbel, instead I turn my attention to adding some mini species to the hunt; minnows, bullheads and sticklebacks were caught. I added common and mirror carp, but a koi proved elusive. And floating bread provided some explosive chub fishing while waiting for some rain.


August: Shark fishing! I’d really been looking forward to this and it didn’t disappoint. A new PB lemon shark for me and Roger, 7’ 7” & 7’ 8” respectively, two bull sharks to 6’ 9” topped off a twelve shark trip. Plus a few stingrays. And a great holiday in America; dinners, water parks, beaches, nature and crazy southerners!


September: Back to reality I stalked out a few carp on the local ponds, while doing some reccies for autumn pike and perch. The river had seen a bit of rain while I was away and I upped my local barbel count to 55 fish. And, after some near misses, finally landed an elusive koi carp - taking my species hunt total to eighteen.


Autumn/Winter: As always at this time of year my thoughts turn to pike, I’ve been out on a few reccies and seen a few fish - the plan is to travel light and chuck some lures about to gauge what’s really lurking about. As well as quantity, I’m really hoping to stumble across another twenty pound plus pike this season - it’s been a while!