Road trip april

THE ROAD TRIP | ALAN BLAIR

Fresh off the plane from Europe, ALAN BLAIR goes in search of carp in running water to get his fix before the end of the river season.

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ometimes, getting out fishing seems to be the hardest thing to do. Now I love doing this monthly feature, showcasing the fishing that is on offer on some of the nation’s most weird and wonderful venues. However, due to my work schedule, we have to book the two days we go out a month in advance to ensure that it happens.

With a date set, we headed to the first venue, the Grand Union Canal in Bedfordshire. I had managed to get 48 hours free to do the feature and it was all going well until I received a phone call from my girlfriend, Chloe, to say that my two girls and her were poorly.

So, I decided to make the trip home that night to look after them. I did manage to catch a lovely mirror for the cameras before I left, but I felt that it would only make sense to start the feature on the Grand Union when I was next out. I rearranged the feature with Max Hendry and eventually sorted out a date.

ALAN BLAIR AGE: 32 UK PB: 55lb 4oz OCCUPATION: Operations director SPONSORS: Nash Tackle & Bait INSTAGRAM: @urbanbanx FACEBOOK: Urban Banx with Alan Blair

On arriving at the canal, Alan prepped the rigs in the car before making the short walk to the spot.

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THE ROAD TRIP | ALAN BLAIR

ALAN BLAIR | THE ROAD TRIP

Following an entire weekend in Europe split between the Czech Republic and Poland attending shows, I alighted the plane at Stansted Airport, picked up the van and met Max on the canal. I must admit that I was feeling a little worse for wear when I arrived.

Polish and Czech hospitality had got the better of me and I partied with the local anglers on both nights.

Nevertheless, there was no use feeling sorry for myself. I was going fishing and I wasn’t prepared to let a hangover get in the way of fun on the bank.

STEP-BY-STEP

Road Trip River Mix

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These are the bits you’ll need for Alan’s river mix. The coffee and croissant are essential, but not for the carp.

With just a few beeps notifying me of a bite it was hairy stuff, but all good fun and got me hyped up.

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Start by adding half a bag of The Key pellets to the mix. These little gems are simply incredible.

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Follow this with The Key Bait Soak. A light drizzle is enough, just to get the pellets moist.

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With a couple of bream to his name in the last couple of hours, Max reeled in and got the brews on while I rigged up the rods in the British Waterways car park.

I then walked my rods a short distance up the towpath to the spot I intended to fish. With white Citruz pop-ups on multi rigs and 3oz leads the chosen setup, I dropped the rigs on the edge of the moored boats and sprayed 10mm Citruz boilies round them with the catapult to get the fish interested.

An hour later I was holding up a nice singlefigure common under the glow of my van lights as Max snapped

We instanly got off the mark with this floppytailed common.

The highlight of the few hours on the cut, a nice linear sporting a double barbel; how peculiar.

KILLER KIT A large, strong Fang Uni hook is all you need for fishing with freelined luncheon meat. It is hidden by the meat, giving the fish nothing to spook off.

away. We slipped the little one back and recast the rod.

Minutes later another rod was away and a common a little bigger than the last one made an appearance. I repeated the process and Max and I sat back eating Aberdeen Angus burgers and rigging up rods for the coming night’s fishing. It was just what I needed after such a mad weekend away.

Before we left the canal a stunning linear fell to the rods fished tight to the boats. It was around 8lb but sported a nice scale pattern and an even more 070 TOTAL CAR P

With the rods fished tight to the boats, Alan made sure he was close to them to avoid getting cut off by the hard-fighting carp.

A bright Citruz pop-up and a bed of small baits tempted four fish in just a few hours.

A dab of The Key Cultured Stick mix gives off plenty of attraction to flow downstream.

interesting set of double barbels.

I had been fishing locked up with the rod on the spot. With just a few beeps notifying me of a bite it was hairy stuff, but all good fun and got me hyped for the next couple of venues. You could certainly tell when you hooked one.

It was now around 11.30pm. With the canal wrapped up I wanted to show Max some fishing on the River Lea. It was around 40 minutes to the spot, so we reeled in and got there just after midnight.

The spot is known to a few anglers, so rather than lug all the gear and find it occupied, we took a stroll to see if anyone was in residence. With it being completely free, we readied the barrows and walked back. It is on a slow-moving part of the river that is sealed by two weirs, making it almost a lakestyle setting. It holds some truly stunning carp and huge chub. It was just a case of underarm casts to the

Continue by cutting up a cube of Spam into blocks and add some Peperami to the mix.

The finished concoction is packed with bite-sized chunks that the fish find irresistible.

A change of scenery. After leaving the canal we made the short drive to a stretch of a river.

middle of the river channel where it was the deepest. The area only had three feet of water at most, but the fish loved it for its shelter and safety. It was the perfect place to catch some shuteye too; the only noise you could hear was the nearby weir pool bubbling away.

We went to sleep anticipating a bite or two; the fish tend to be fairly friendly on account of them being rarely fished for.

Just before light my Key Cultured hook bait signalled a take. I pulled into the fish but it didn’t feel like a carp. My suspicions were confirmed when I landed a chub, and a really big one. At 5lb 8oz it was very welcome for sure. With a few snaps taken, we soon got back to the vans and headed to the next stop, the Upper Lea. This is one of my favourite stretches of water in the UK. It’s so TOTAL CAR P 071

THE ROAD TRIP | ALAN BLAIR

ALAN BLAIR | THE ROAD TRIP

diverse and one of the only places in the country that, no matter what the weather, there is a chance of catching stunning fish of all species. It’s also so special in that all the fishing is done by sight. Nine times out of 10 you see the fish take the bait as it rolls along the gravel.

I took Max to a stretch in a horse paddock. It’s no more than 12 feet wide, there are fast-flowing areas coupled with areas of slack water, and with extensive foliage lining its banks it’s the perfect habitat for fish. There is a particularly special mirror that resides in this stretch, which he is the king of. Scale perfect and simply breathtaking, the little carp would be a fine prize if we could catch him. With a few more small commons and mirrors present there was enough of a population of carp to make it worth searching them out. I wanted to find this fish before the sun got too high and they sought cover. The fish on the Lea are in high enough numbers that they will respond well to a bit of bait.

One look at the intimate stretch and you wouldn’t think that hundreds of barbel and chub and a few carp resided here. They quickly respond to food because there is enough competition.

What an amazing carp, one of just a few in the stretch that swims with the resident barbel and chub.

I set about making a bait concoction that would get the fish feeding. I started with The Key pellets, the mainstay in my fishing these days. These are oily yet contain the awesome ingredients of the The Key boilies. Secondly, The Key liquid goes in the mix with the matching Cultured stick mix.

This coats the pellets in a fine dust that soaks into the bait. Finally, I added my chosen hook baits for this type of fishing – a big lump of luncheon meat or Peperami. Both were cut into chunks and added to the mix before shaking. The oily goodness from the pellets, stick mix and liquid further added to the potency of the luncheon meat.

All that was left to do was get a 6ft Scope Sawn-Off rod out of the van and put the size 4 hook on the line before nicking on a cube of luncheon meat.

I fed a couple of areas down the stretch with the mix to see if I could get some interest. One particular area looked very inviting.

The river ran through a canopy of trees with plenty of cover on both sides. No sooner had I fed this spot than fish came straight up the scent trail and started feeding. It started off with barbel and chub but out of the corner of my eye I spotted the scaly mirror, the king

It was on to a meeting before making our way back to Essex for the final leg of the Road Trip.

No sooner had we arrived on the upper River Lea than Alan managed to tempt one of the few nomadic carp that it holds.

of the stretch. With my hook bait primed I rolled the meat towards him. Unfortunately he didn’t take it.

He moved upstream and I chased him to no avail. After bothering him a couple of times, he swam back downstream to the dense trees I had seen him in originally.

With most of the bait gone due It was awesome of farmer Wayne to let us film on his land.

The king of the stretch of river lays defeated in the net.

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More filming, this time with the two talents that are Carl and Alex Smith.

Nash. I was showing off the Ronnie to the ravenous barbel and chub, rig, something that has been the I placed the meat just upstream talk of the carp-rig scene. I was of him. Unfortunately it settled on being accused of being a sheep a tree branch. As he approached I by some of the lads in the was sure he would spook, office, so I decided that then out of the blue he when I filmed the turned and engulfed segment on how to the hook bait. I was tie it I would do it in! I played the DID YOU KNOW: in a field of sheep. angry carp in the The rivers will open on With that sorted confines of the June 16th after closing on I headed back to small river before March 15th, so now might Essex. netting him and be the time to get some The next day letting out a little prebaiting in.

I met Carl and victory cheer; mindAlex Smith to do blowing fish from some filming about our my favourite bit of river terminal tackle range, getting in the UK. I was a very happy some rods out fishing and then man. We photographed him and working our way through the shot some lovely water shots right range. The lads are super-talented where I had hooked him. I then and we got loads done and dusted decided to start making my way to add to our already huge list of back to Essex. film projects.

A lot of my fishing has to tie it in The fishing proved difficult so I with film commitments, so that’s decided to get back to the family, what we did. The first stop was a who I hadn’t seen for over a week. farm in Buckinghamshire to film a You can’t beat family time! segment for our new series Life At TOTAL CAR P 073