August 2014 - One Extreme to Another

Another surprisingly busy month on the SENPAC fishing front which again serves to confound my predictions in the June blog. However August turned out to be a different sort of month to July to the extent that our Newsletter editor felt the need to focus on those contrasts in his latest missive.

 The first of those contrasts was of course the weather which undoubtedly impacted on our member's fishing plans. July was probably too good to last and whilst some of our number were understandably complaining about the heat, bright sun and certainly the lack of water in the local rivers, in the main they were all getting out and doing a bit.

August arrives and all of a sudden it seemed we were presented with what was probably a more typical British summer mix of conditions, three nice days and a thunderstorm with an ex-hurricane thrown in just to liven things up. The rivers could probably still do with some more water but the more "active" weather that we enjoyed during August undoubtedly threw a spanner in the works for some at SENPAC when it came to getting out on the bank-side.

But that's not to say that all was lost because we have a fairly hardy bunch amongst our membership who aren't easily deflected from their fishing and it was the fishing that presented us with another of the month's extreme contrasts. (sounding a bit like Robson Green here which is a bit of a worry!)

Faye's New PB - 10lb-4oz

Highlight of our July report was a new pb for SENPAC's oldest member, Kay Needham. Highlight of the August fishing was another new pb, this time for SENPAC's youngest member, Faye Greally.

Fishing with her Dad on a four day camping excursion to a favourite swim up in Scotland her fish of 10lb-4oz easily beats her previous best and was caught early in the trip, immediately putting some pressure on Dave who was making do catching bream,roach and perch. All came right for him in the end though with a nice fish of 16lb-13oz. Not sure who was happiest about the new pb, certainly Faye was over the moon but I suspect Dad was quietly celebrating almost as much.

Our August club trip was to a local commercial fishery on a very windy and very bright day which didn't auger too well for successful fishing and to be honest there were a few who struggled as a result of the conditions. However we did learn one thing from the experience which will no doubt result in a few more trips to this venue later in the year.

A Proper Perch For Dave Greally

Whilst we had heard rumours of decent perch being present in this water we were treated to first hand evidence of the fact by Dave Greally who towards the end of our day and despite the conditions produced a proper one for the rest of us to admire. A good month for the Greally family all round!

The August club meeting managed to confirm our club trip calendar for the coming Piking season, the first of those trips is to be north of the border on the 12th October 2014 and I know that a good few of our number are starting to get excited about getting stuck-in to some proper Piking at last and that will certainly be the main topic of conversation at the September club meeting which takes place on Tuesday 30th September 2014 at the Northumbrian Piper as usual.

July 2014............. NOT so quiet on the SENPAC front!

It appears that a number of our SENPAC members took exception to my suggestion in last month's blog report that July and August would be a quiet time as far as their fishing was concerned. I had no sooner posted the blog when our newsletter editor began to receive fishing reports and photographs from all over the place, turning my prediction on its' head and making July one of the busiest of recent months.

Speaking of our newsletter editor, his cover story for the August issue, "Fishing in the Toilet" came as something of a surprise but turned out to be what seems is a unique solution to the interior decor of the male toilet at Matfen Hall Country Hotel, in south Northumberland, wallpaper with detailed instructions on how to go about catching just about every British freshwater fish that you can think of...............................to loiter or not to loiter would be a bit of a crisis but to get a camera out and start taking pictures strikes me as a risk too far!

Kay's new pb - 8lb - 5oz

So back to the fishing action and a couple of reports to feature, firstly, and what was probably the highlight of July, a new PB for SENPAC's  matriach, Kay Needham. Kay hasn't been able to join us on our fishing trips as much as she would have liked over recent times due to health difficulties and has had to limit her outings to venues where access is easiest. So she teamed up with fellow SENPAC member Pat Hamilton to fish a local country park lake and her first run produced her new pb, a long lean fish of some age I would say which no doubt weighed a few pounds more at some stage earlier in life. Pleased doesn't come close to describing Kay's reaction and she recorded her thanks to Pat for his assistance with the netting.

Also of note this month past, SENPAC's lure fishing specialist, Steve Sandiford enjoyed success with specimen sized chub from one of our local rivers using plug type lures as well as with the pike on one of our harder local stillwaters, in the process moving into pole position for one of our annual trophies. So congratulations go to him.

Steve Sandiford's month

As forecast in last month's blog there was a deal of discussion at the July club meeting regarding the venues for the coming season's monthly club trips but eventually a list of waters and dates was arrived at. Perhaps not surprisingly the final list of six waters looked a lot like last season's choices because whilst the total number of fish caught was down a bit on previous years the average size of fish caught had improved which I suspect had some influence on the decisions made. So, subject to final approval from the membership, we will be visiting two waters in England, North Lincolnshire and Cumbria and four in Scotland's south-west which is a fairly typical mix for SENPAC's  piking year. Can't come soon enough for most of our members I suspect!
SENPAC's August club meeting will take place on the evening of Tuesday 26th August 2014 at the Northumbrian Piper, Fawdon, as usual and as the latter part of September usually sees our more enthusiastic members starting their new season's campaign I suspect much of the discussion will be about getting back to business.