Luton Angling Club Weekly News Report for the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & St Neots Cambridgeshire Area - Week Ending 28th January 2018

 GREAT OUSE BIDDENHAM

Despite the river running very high and coloured Fergal O'Kane braved the conditions and was rewarded with a nice sized pike. Fergal tells us not to park at the river end of the car park as where the river has flooded the ground is very water logged and there is evidence that at least 1 car has been stuck.

BECKERINGS RESERVOIR

Lots going on at the reservoir this week with water being pumped back in by the farmer and the willows are being given their annual cut also by the farmer to comply with the reservoir inspector and insurance requirements.

On the fishing front we are told that Tom had an incredible 16 carp during his session while most others only managed up to 3 fish. Luke Marvin managed a lovely looking mirror carp fishing with Thripsters Baits.

Adrian Jaworski caught a very good sized pike while fishing a deadbait on a spot he had baited heavily with chopped mackerel 

COACHING 2018

Our coaching team have hit the ground running in 2018 following their successful 2017

A report in from our level 2 coach Dennis Hunt - 'Myself Mark Brooks and Richard Gibbs went to Foxton today and did the recce for the CRT taster days on 10th and 11th February. We were met by Matthew from CRT who was very helpful and showed us the lie of the land and where we were to fish.

We unloaded the gear, set up and all started catching using different methods, I used punch and the other two using Pinkies. Despite a challenging wind we all caught well, with the biggest fish falling to Mark, a Perch of about 1 1/2 Lbs on a whip. Mark estimated I had about 10Lbs of Roach on Punch at about 7 metres.

Really looking forward to the taster sessions if it fishes like today it will be spot on'.

We hope to have the 2018 local taster dates very soon.

Steve

Luton Angling Club Weekly News Report for the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & St Neots Cambridgeshire Area - Week Ending 21st January 2018

Another boost for the local canal angling scene this week when the Canal & Rivers Trust took advantage of a lock repair to drain down the Horton section and relocate all of the fish. The Horton section is not fishable due to power lines overhead so moving the fish gives a huge boost to other fishable areas of the canal without paying out money for new stock fish. In total around 800lb of fish were moved including 32 carp with a couple up around the 30lb mark, very many bream and several good sized perch. Fish will naturally travel back into the Horton section and we hope to be able to carry out further fish transfers in the future. Many thanks to the Canal & Rivers Trust and MEM Fisheries who worked extremely hard on the day and the two hardy members of the Luton AC Board who stood in the cold taking photos and watched the fish relocated to the new area of canal.

BECKERINGS RESERVOIR

At Beckerings Reservoir Luke Marvin managed a double figure mirror & common during an overnight session with both falling to Thripsters Pearl.

SOUTH LAGOON

Wojciech fishing for Team Ceks landed a double figure pike from the South Lagoon

GRAND UNION CANAL

Rather under rated as a pike venue the canal is quietly producing specimens without many realising. Today I was talking to a lure angler who told me he had caught some good sized canal pike on the Luton AC controlled sections and a friend had caught a 20lb specimen. Finding them on the 12 miles of canal we control is always the challenge though.

NORTH HOUSE LAKE

The only report from North House was that 80% had frozen over on Saturday night. Thanks to Lee Smith for the report and photo which may have saved people a wasted journey.

LEVEL 1 COACHING BURSARIES

Canal and River Trust are putting together a bid to the Angling Trust Angling Improvement fund for training an additional number of level 1 coaches. There would be no cost to the club for prospective coaches to be trained but clearly clubs and individuals that benefit would need to sign up as long term partners of the Trust to deliver their Lets Fish campaign. Luton have already done this and we have a number of level 1 and 2 coaches committed to the project. The Level One course takes 2 days

Anyone interested please contact us it's a very rewarding thing to do.

Steve

Luton Angling Club Weekly News Report for the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & St Neots Cambridgeshire Area - Week Ending 14th January 2018

Good news for the local match scene this week as the Sensas UK Southern Canal League will be staging two rounds on our sections of the Grand Union Canal. Sensas UKs Alex Clements has paired together with Darren Rogers Sensas A4 ace to provide this fantastic league starting up in March this year. This league is focused around fishing different canals in the South of England, such as the Kennet and Avon Canal, Oxford Canal and the Grand Union Canal (2 rounds on Luton AC sections). Along with offering flexibility to the competitors, the league offers a broad range of Sensas prizes for both the final league placings, and the individual match rounds themselves.

Alex comments:
We wanted to provide a league that didn’t involve going to the same canal, as we all know they do suffer from pressure. In the South of England, we are fortunate enough to have a fantastic selection of canals that do not get fished through the months of March, April and May, so it’s an ideal opportunity to create this league. With this in mind, we have also tried to keep the league flexible, competitors only having to fish four of the six rounds to compete for the overall 100% payout jackpot. As well as the overall league payouts there is also an excellent payout structure for individual placings on the day, section money and Sensas prizes to be won!

Elsewhere on the Grand Union Canal plenty of perch over 2lb and the occasional pike are being landed by lure anglers. The canal holds many 2lb+ perch with the best in 2017 being a 3lb 11oz specimen caught in a match and another of 3lb 10oz caught 5 miles away in the same week. The pike population in the canal is doing well with several fish now topping 20lb and one rumoured to be in excess of 25lb although finding them is always the challenge.

The canal has a large 100+ canoe event taking place on Sunday 21st January between the Grove Pub and The Three Locks so anglers should avoid the area between 11am & 2pm

At Beckerings Reservoir Young Callum age 7 caught the pike known as Yellow Spot at 20lb 13oz. The fish was so big that dad Luke had to sit behind Callum in the photo and lift the fish for him.

Also at Beckerings Paul Williams managed an upper double common during his session.

We are hoping that the reservoir will soon be refilled by the farmer as the banks below the platforms are extremely muddy but this is something that's unfortunately out of the clubs control so currently do take suitable footware.

Steve

Luton Angling Club Weekly News Report for the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & St Neots Cambridgeshire Area - Week Ending 7th January 2018

Happy New Year we hope you enjoyed the festive break.

Sadly the weather has mostly had other ideas continuing to throw floods and cold conditions at us so only the hardy few have ventured out.

KEMPSTON LAKE

Gary Rosenthal landed a 23lb mirror from Kempston Lake using Thripster Merry Berry.

SOUTH LAGOON

Paweł Ceks caught a 6lb zander.

GRAND UNION CANAL

Report received from Dennis Hunt who fished the canal on Boxing Day -

'After a slightly later than anticipated start I set off to the Grand Union Canal to see if I could get a few fish on the bank in what could be the last session of the year.

Looking at the forecast with a keen wind and knowing that it was not going to be a temperature busting day I opted to go to the back of Tesco in Leighton where I was sheltered from the wind and in the sun.

I parked and selected a swim, set up, fed some liquidised bread, baited with a 4mm piece of punch on an 18 hook to 0,09 hooklink and first drop in hey presto! 2Lbs Bream.
Second put in the same thing happened. I continued to catch pretty steady, ending up with double figures of Bream, Roach and the odd Gudgeon. I lost 2 bigger Bream during the session which would have pushed the weight higher still. The wind direction changed, temperature dropped and the fish eventually melted away, and I knew that it was time to go.
A great session on the Canal to end the year, the people on the towpath were very interested in the fishing and stopped to chat and pass the time, it was a very pleasant day out'

Elsewhere on the canal I came across Marcin Miierzejewski who was lure fishing when he hooked into a surprise fully scaled mirror carp. After a long battle on light gear Marcin landed and measured the carp (lure anglers tend to measure rather than weigh their captures) at an impressive 86cm (almost 34inches). Photo seen by this writer.

RIVER GREAT OUSE BIDDENHAM

Saturdays match had to be cancelled as the river was over its banks flowing through the car park some 100m from where it should be!

MATCH RESULT

Abbey Lads fished the Grand Union Canal at the Globe 7/1/18 but overnight frosts and very coloured water made the going tough. Only 4 fished due to illness and all caught.

1st D WHILLOCK 3-14 (PERCH ROACH SKIMMERS)

2nd D SMITH 3-8 ROACH BREAM

3rd P DEPPE 1-4
4th K WARD 12OZ

Steve