Although I had dabbled with a bit of sea fishing as a child I had never really been an angler and always had a yearning to fish rivers and lakes where tranquility and nature was the thing.

When I retired I concentrated on my cycling initially and then saw a sign promoting my local angling society on the gate of a lake that was only 10 minutes form my home. I looked up their web site and to quote a phrase, “was hooked” . That was several years ago and I have since filled my shed with ever more tackle and even managed to catch quite a few  fish!  I am strictly a pleasure angler, I like the peace and quiet and to sometimes just sit and observe nature, so I do not enter competitions and that’s probably as well, as I am still learning all the time.

You can read a blog of my angling exploits here.

My Fishing

Only those who can’t fish work

Some time ago the ‘Angling Times’ newspaper published an excellent table which allowed the reader to look up a particular species of fish, and given the season and the water temperature would then provide the best bait and best location to catch.

When I was starting I found this particularly useful and still refer to it from time to time to refresh my memory as the seasons pass and I fish for different species.

To make this easier I have built an MS Excel spreadsheet which makes it very easy to select the target species and retrieve the relevant information. You can download a copy here.

An example of the output of the spreadsheet is shown below.

Fishing Calculator