The MasterBlanker

Some of you who know me personally know that this year I moved back from Holland to the UK. It  was a bit of a mixed affair really. Whilst I really wanted to be in the UK ( and am glad I moved), I miss the carp and predator fishing that Holland had to offer and am struggling to find my groove in the UK fishing wise. I thought I would put up a quick post to summarise the do’s and don’ts for a visiting angler to Holland for either an expat who might be living there or a visitor. Note that as I was based up in the Amsterdam area this post will focus on that area of Holland but the advice should follow through for most places.

In this 1st article I will cover what to fish for as well as list the legal regulations that you need to adhere to in order to fish legally in Holland. In the second article I will cover tackle shops and venues to try. If you want to see more please comment or drop me a mail and I will endeavour to cover your questions as well.

Notable Fish Species in North Holland

If you are a carp angler you are in luck, virtually every piece of water contains carp from the canals to the lakes the whole country is riddled with carp lakes and ( as you will read later) it is almost all public. Yes that is right you can fish virtually everywhere. The carp range from singles to 50′s with doubles and twenties being the most common in my experience. I found that a lot of the small drainage canals contained a mix of high doubles and twenties and it was bizarre fishing some of the waters next to peoples gardens or next to a busy road.

Read more…

Not really a fishing post but I thought I would share a pic I took last week at the “Lost Gardens of Heligan” down in Cornwall,showing what has to be the angyest old boiler I have ever seen

The gardens are well worth a visit if you are in the area, fascinating story behind them and were the surprise event of the week.

If you want to see more pics then click  here for a full gallery from this and other places we daw down in Cornwall and Devon.

After reading Jakes blog about his most memorable carp I felt inspired to blog about my most memorable carp as well.

The fish was taken in the summer of 1994 when I was just 17, a session has been arranged in a lake close to where my parents had a house in France in the region. I had arranged to go for a weeks carp fishing with a mate of mine and we traveled down to France with my parents full of anticipation. Bait was rolled before we left the UK and we had 20 KG’s of chick peas with us ( my favourite bait at the time).

Anyway to cut a long story short the weeks fishing was cut down to a few days when my mate had to return back to the UK for personal reasons leaving me fishing alone. I was happy to do this but my parents ( remember this was in the age before mobile phones) were not so 2 x 2 day sessions it had to be.

The fishing was not easy, we expected the fish to come crawling up the line. Well the poisson chat did…. and even swapping to chick pea on the hair didn’t stop them.  The weed was amazing, massive clumps of elodea that seemed to float around to catch you out.

On the last day I received a violent take, far far more violent then I had ever experienced before. The fight was ( from memory) a normal enough fight with the fish kiting right and left, however the fun really started when I got it in the net. The fish was brought to the waiting spreader block a little too early it seemed and once it was in ( and I was celebrating) the fish started to thrash wildly. Really wildly, so much in fact that it managed to rip a hole in the side of the net and swim out. Imagine the scene I am now trying to play a fish whilst the line is running through a massive hole in the net and disappearing into the depths.

Swiftly I realised that the fish had made its way straight into a large bunch of weed and was stuck firm ( no doubt trying to throw the hook) so there was nothing for us but to jump into the water after it. I should point out at this stage that I had no idea how deep the water was in front of me, the drop to the water was 1m and the water could have been 3m deep, as it was it the water came up to my neck but I was able to swim with the net over to the weed ball and haul the whole damn lot into the net. I then swiftly turned and doggy paddled as fast as I could back to the bank.

There was then the frantic search through the weed for the fish and in seconds I realised that I had caught my largest carp ever.

After weighing it several times I settled on a weight of 20lb 2oz and at the time it smashed my previous PB by 3-4 lbs. The fish was not the normal “swimming gut” that you occasionally find but appeared to be a river carp that was just pure muscle. Magic fishing and a memory I will treasure for ever.

Picture quality is really bad due to the camera that was used, I have progressed a lot in the last 16 years