Happy birthday!

I went tench/bream fishing yesterday in the hope of catching a nice fish to celebrate the first year anniversary of starting this blog, unfortunately the result was just one small 4lb odd tench that came in one of the short breaks in the incessant rain that fell for most of the session up to when I gave up at 11:00pm.

                                                   A nice male tench that broke up the rain. 

 As you will be all too aware, the rain and the fall in temperatures that come with it, has been all too common an occurrence over the last month or more, if this is a drought heaven help us when we come out the other side of it.

Going back to the blog I would like to thank all the regular readers for their continued support.  When I write for a magazine or one of my books I am never sure as to the response, with the blog I get an up-to date feedback as to the current situation of interest and the positive results I see gives me the encouragement to continue.  I now get nearly 1000 page views per week and the site has gone well past the 27000 hits since that first feature on May 3^rd 2011.  By the very nature of how blogs work those initial hits were more in the 10’s of views until anglers found out that the site existed, more find it every day and those numbers will increase over the coming year.

Within the 86 Blogs that I’ve written so far there are reports of many big fish, 20lb plus pike and carp, bream and zander to double figures, catfish and sturgeon over 50lb, 2lb plus roach, 3lb plus perch and 7lb plus chub.  Probably the most pleasing fish for me were river best barbel  of 11lb-6oz for the Teme, 12lb-2oz for the Derwent and the new river Anker record at 15lb-4oz.  Top this with a pb tench of 11lb-14oz and you can see I had a good year!  One big difference the reader will notice when reading a regular blog as opposed to the monthly magazine reports is you also become aware of the number of blanks suffered by the author, mostly not mentioned in a magazine though they occur just as regularly. 

Hopefully the next 12 months will be just as fruitful and interesting, I’ll be reporting and with luck all of you and more will be reading it.  I cannot close this comment on the last year without a mention of the book ‘Targets set and Achieved.’  It strongly reflects the style of writing you read here and contains the story of numerous big specimens, if you don’t have a copy yet then put it on your wish list for birthday presents and the like or treat yourself.

Tight lines for the coming season and I’ll be here to give the next blog report.