The Middle Level at Magdalen High Road

This Sunday almost turned into a complete waste of time for me but I managed to save the day with a last ditch effort on the feeder.
It was my week to drive and after a very poor nights sleep I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30 as I had arranged to pick Graham up at 7.30, when we pulled away from his house we still didn't have a firm plan of where we were going. Earlier in the week we had discussed going down the Welland as it had been fishing reasonably well but the weather wasn't the best for the venue and I had struggled when I had a short session on Thursday night and so we headed out to Ten Mile Bank. On arrival it didn't look very inviting and on speaking with a few anglers  it was apparent that it was going to be a difficult day and so we decided to head for the Northern End of the Middle Level at Magdalen.

Map showing the Northern end of the Middle Level

Preston Innovations Hardcase Luggage

Having spent a long time pondering over replacement luggage I decided to invest in the Preston Hardcase small holdall and the Hardbase Carryall, I have now owned them for a few months and feel its time I gave you my opinion of them.



The small Holdall and Hardbase carryall



A Week Of Mixed Fortunes

Although the title of this weeks blog is quite an accurate description of my week on the whole it was a good week. This was a short week at work as I had booked Thursday and Friday off with a view to getting a little extra time on the bank but fist things first I wanted to buy myself a new medium feeder rod. I didn't want to spend a fortune but had allowed myself  up to £120 as a budget and with this I set off to Sheltons of Peterborough to see what they had in stock.


Sheltons, the largest tackle retailer in the Peterborough Area



Week Ending 17th July

North Bank Of the River Nene
Well its been an interesting week on the fishing front as it saw me on the North bank of the river Nene for the first time in many years. I had been reading some very good reports in the local press and decided to have a look and see what all the fuss was about. So on Tuesday lunchtime I nipped out of work to see if anybody was fishing and I must admit to being surprised to see 6 anglers on the stretch. I stopped to have a chat with a couple of them and see how they were doing, the first had only had small Skimmers but was getting regular bite and he told me his mate on the next peg had caught some Bream. He had 3 Bream and some decent Skimmers from what was the old peg 350 and I watched him catch a Skimmer of about 1lb before heading off back to work.


An Angler nets a decent Skimmer

Another Session on Ten Mile Bank

I was in two minds where to fish this weekend as I really fancied a go on the Middle Level but something told me I should have another session on the Ouse. Well after another Saturday night out this was an even later start than last week and we didn't get out there until about 9.30am but this is not really a problem at this time of year with all this daylight available. As normal we had a drive along the length and look at a couple of section before deciding on a stretch known as the Owl Box which is a little way below Danby Drove, this area can often be hard to locate in the summer as the leaves on the trees hide the Owl Box that lends its name to the section. As with a lot of sections on Ten Mile Bank there are only a few swims cut out ready to go otherwise you can clear your own if you wish, generally the bank is flat at the bottom providing good sit-downs.

Great Ouse, Danby Drove

Well this Sunday we decided to have a trip over to the Great Ouse, it was a bit of a late start as I had been out to a party the night before and so we didn't set off until 08.15 for the hour or so drive over into Norfolk. We arrived at Denver Sluice and had a look a few areas before deciding where to fish, we spoke to a few anglers and most had odd fish but nothing of any note.
We nearly fished the chapel section as Graham had had a good catch there on the Thursday but finally decided on Danby Drove as it was an area we had not fished before although we had spoken about it many times before.

Peterborough Pole Repairs

In this post I would like to tell you about my new business Peterborough Pole Repairs, the idea came from the realisation that we needed a professional pole repair service in the Peterborough area. Now I know there are already a number of first class repair services around the country but after speaking to a number of local anglers it became apparent that they would value a local service. As an angler of over 40 years I have always performed all of my own tackle repairs and so this was a natural progression for me.