What’s it like at UKMA?
I’ve now been part of the team at UKMA for around twelve months or so, and I sometimes get asked what it is like to be lucky enough to be a fairly regular contributor to a top website, so I thought I might write a series of short pieces to tell you what I get up to when working for UKMA and just what is really involved in writing and fishing ‘to order’. January 2012 has started with a warm spell of weather which should have seen me hit the bank far more often than I have done, but a series of misfortunes have so far befallen me. My first session was going to be a few hours on the River Dove in Staffordshire to try for some chunky chub or even a barbel from this picturesque stretch of water. I’d kept an eye on the EA websites to see exactly what level of water was forecast after a period of unsettled weather and I was confident that the river would be in perfect trim for a few hours fishing; wrong! When I arrived after driving thirty odd miles, the river (despite EA information) was in the fields and dangerous to fish....unhappy. Returning to a second choice stretch further upstream, I managed to get a big feeder to sit in a slack just off the powerful main flow for a minute or two before it dislodged and became soundly jammed behind a snag. No amount of swearing would shift it, so I pulled for a break and retackled.....second chuck resulted in a dinky roach which was quickly reeled towards me. Almost at the bank, this unfortunate specimen was snapped up by a mid double pike which took off across the flow, dumped me in another snag and left me to pull for a second break!
I now realised that the river was practically unfishable, so packed up and returned to the van. Propping my rods against the wing mirror, I turned around only to hear a ‘crash’ as the rod quiver hit the floor and totally destroyed the butt eye and ceramics on one of my favourite rods! Slinging the whole lot in the van, I drove back up the lane past the tractor driver who was slowly cutting the thorn hedge back.....you guessed it; puncture..... Surely it couldn’t happen again? My second proposed session was to a lovely club water near Uttoxeter which I know contains some rather smashing carp and cracking bream. My set up included a rod baited with Pallatrax Crustacean Cocktail boilies for the lumps and a quivertip rod with worm on the hook for the slabs; I sticked a few boilies out into my proposed swim, cast over the top and left things to settle whilst I mixed groundbait and tackled up the ‘tip rod. Everything was now set for a peaceful day by the water; worm bait out with a feeder full of caster and crumb, ‘tip nicely curved to register my first bite and then the phone rings......Returning home after just one cast, I then spent almost eight hours in hospital with my daughter who is currently pregnant and was in need of some attention....all is well now thank you. It’s not all about the fishing though, after my pike sessions, the tackle review has to be written up, the pictures edited and resized, and the whole lot sent away to the web guru to be set up for the website so another three or four hours work is needed to get it all sorted. I don’t just write for UKMA, and after weekly newspaper and magazine columns are collated, composed and despatched, it’s time to get online to do all my ‘social media’ stuff for Pallatrax to promote both the brand and the links to UKMA. I also contribute to the Pallatrax website and I am responsible for editing/rewriting/proof reading all of the catch reports and news for their website! As you can see, contributing can mean as much or as little as you choose to do; luckily my full time job allows me some flexibility and I can ‘log on’ during the day to catch up with any developments, but it is always very busy! I know I’m fortunate enough to really enjoy my role within UKMA, and I love meeting new anglers interested to know what goes on ‘behind the scenes’, so hopefully a regular update on UKMA might just tell you a bit about what the real role of a writer/angler/contributor is; I hope so!
Clint Walker |
I did then manage to visit Cudmore Fishery to review some Pike Pro bits kindly arranged by UKMA boss Ray Best. Cudmore has a dedicated predator lake on site and this was to be my chosen lake for the day. Using the pre made traces supplied, I quickly attached a ‘Baitbomb’ loaded with Lamprey oil and hooked up a ‘bluey’ to try and tempt a snapper or two. It didn’t take long for my bait to be snaffled by a scraper double on my very first cast using the new products, and after a few quick pictures, it was returned to fight another day. Subsequent visits using the same tactics have seen me lose a monster at the net (they are always bigger if you lose them!) and bag a few more pike of around the 10lbs mark to the same tactics.....Pike Pro stuff certainly works for me!