Reels On Wheels has now become a member of this group which aims

Services include learning, independent living, leisure, social skills, education and work preparation sessions and are available to people with personal budgets, direct payments or independent ways of paying for the activities you choose.

We have decided that we will not charge for our sevices but will charge for expenses such as fuel, ticket costs and bait, thus giving as many people as possible the chance to try our great pastime.

Arriving at Anglers Paradise on Saturday lunch time was like being greeted at a friends house everyone seemed to remember us from our previous visits.

We all had a quick drink with Zyggy and then unloaded the bus and headed straight for the lakes, as Julz had been doing some pole fishing recently she wanted to catch more big fish on the pole so we chose to fish beginers carp lake for a couple of hours, where sure enough Julz managed a couple of lovely carp both of which broke her previous pole PB.

5lb 2oz was the smaller of the two fish but the prettier

On the Sunday we fished some of the smaller lakes catching some wonderfully colourful fish, including a 3lb koi carp, golden rudd of 2oz and Koi orfe of 4oz

That night we were joined by Nick and Amber at the BBQ which Rosie was working at and afterwards we all went to the bar for a drink and met up with Tinca Steve (Nice to meet you and your family) before a reasonably early night

On the Tuesday we met up with Nick and Rosie to fish Easy Access lake, the whole complex has been fishing hard this summer due to the ever changing weather conditions and today was no exception, with wind rain and sunshine at various points of the day, Nick landed a lovely carp that didn’t quite make double figures at 9lb 14oz

Then Rosie caught a fish on feeder which led her a merry dance diving into the reeds, but Rosie waited and waited and after a bit of assistance from me poking around the weeds with a landing net and from Nick the fish came out and graced the bank at 10lb 11oz you played it so well Rosie I’m sure most anglers would have given up and lost the fish.

The weather in the latter part of the week got windier and wetter but we were still catching a few fish, Michael and I spent a day wondering round dipping into various lakes with feeder rods and Michael managed to land his own double on feeder from a lake not renound for big fish.

The last full day of fishing was spent on the main carp lake looking for bigger carp and cats, there was only one run all day and that resulted in a new personal best for Julz of 16lb 2oz

All in all a great week despite the up and down weather, it was great to spend a day fishing with Rosie and Nick as well, hopefully we will be down there again soon

Well as most of you know we held the 1st challenge match this weekend and despite the 7 hr journey that should have taken just under 3 hrs it was a cracking weekend.

Firstly I would like to thank Martin Cronin for allowing us to use one of his lakes for the 2 days and for looking after us all…

Below…Jamie and Ryan watching the sun go down

Saturday was sunny with the odd passing cloud but the wind did get up a bit but despite that everybody fished hard and caught fish…the weights were low but I think everybody had fun and found the lake a challenge.
The results for Saturday were…
1st. Jamie with 22lb – 6zo
2nd. Micheal with 20lb – 11oz
3rd. Paul with 16lb – 1oz.

Below is Martin presenting Jamie with his winnings which on the day came to £60 and Martin handed over an extra £30 from Himself.

Sunday saw a rather misty start to the day and luck was with us as it stayed dry for the most part.

3 locals joined us on the Sunday…Merv who is a very special chap as you will see by the end of this report….Mat who runs the Welsh carp forum and Andrew a local Disabled angler who enjoyed himself and we hope to see him at the festival next year.

Once again it was angler versus the fish and the winning weights were as follows.

1st Merv with 27lb – 10oz
2nd. Kevin with 23lb – 2oz
3rd. Jamie with 20lb – 10oz.

Now at the presentation Merv was given his winnings which came to £90 and he handed then back to me saying…give half to young Jamie for showing just what he could do up against grown men…(Jamie is only 12) and the other half was to go to Micheal who had broken his nos 4 pole section on the saturday so it would go towards buying a new one.

Merv…you join the Cronin club and become “A Diamond Geezer”…thank you and we hope that you will join us next year at our Festival being held at Peterstone thanks to Martin.

Below Merv collecting his winnings and a couple of pics of some of the people there plus the “Minder” looking after the Raffle prizes….

Thanks to Martin and the generosity of all involved and those members of the Birch who bought Raffle tickets we raised a total of £208. Special thanks to Julz who sold the tickets.

SPECIAL NOTE….on the friday night i told Jamie and Ryan that if they beat their Dad (Kevin) i would give them £20…they both beat him BUT told me to put the money into R)W…so boys well done for beating Dad…it is a day to remember and thank you for your donation.

We have organised a pair of challenge matches be held over the weekend of Sat 29th and Sun 30th of August (Bank Holiday weekend) at the newly refurbished Peterstone fishery in South Wales (Just over the Severn Bridge)

There will be a match on both the Saturday and the Sunday you can enter one or both enter both the choice is yours the cost will be £10 per match with a first prize of £150 for the winner.*

There will be room to bivvy up over night if you want to and there will be food available on the complex.

The draws will take place between 9.30 and 10am with the match taking place from 11am till 4pm on both the Saturday and Sunday.

The Peterstone lakes are a real mixed fishery with roach, rudd, bream, tench, barbel, carp and F1s.

The rules for the match are as follows.

First and most importantly ALL nets must be bone dry before bringing them onto the complex, any one found with wet or damp nets will not be allowed to fish there will be checks before the match.

Barbless hooks only

No particles or nuts, hemp and sweetcorn allowed

Carp and silvers in seperate nets

Maximum 50lb per net. If you fill a net please call a marshall to have the contents weighed and returned to the water. (Nets weighing over 60lb the whole net will not count)

We will be holding a raffle on the Saturday and the Sunday with some great prizes on both days.

You will also be able to purchase one of the best full breakfasts in Wales at the lodge both mornings.

We are looking forward to a great weekend with some wonderful fishing so please come along and join in.

*We will either pay out 75% of peg fees or the full £150 whichever is the least amount

Julz and I went off to meet Nick at Moorlands Farm on the friday in the Buddy Bus, the main idea was to give Nick somewhere to have a good nights sleep befor the match.

We all met up at about lunch time and sat down for a cup of tea and a chat and decided it might be a good idea for Nick and I to have a few hours fishing just to see how the fish reacted to various methods and baits, so after getting some advice from the fishery manager we went down to one of the few pegs that were easily accessible for Nick and I fished next to him.

We tried various method at various depths and had vaying amounts of success although we both caught a few ‘Flying’ bream, as soon as these were hooked they jumped right out of the water an amazing sight. I did manage a nice carp which turned out to be a new PB on the pole

6lb 3oz

So with a rough plan of action formulated we retired to the bus for food and chat, Nick was also getting some more advice from his great friend Jim over the phone.

The day of the match and we were all up by 6am plenty of tea and bacon sandwiches, Mark (angler-mark) arrived at about 7.30 to lend his support to team ROW as well

Nick went up for the draw at about 8am and was back soon with his peg, he had drawn peg 43 on meadow lake, not a bad draw by all accounts, meadow was the fancied lake for the day and from Nicks point of view he could also park behind his swim.

Mark and I helped get all Nicks bits down to his swim and by 10.30 he was sitting waiting for the all in.

The weather started off over cast and pleasant but got hotter and hotter through the day so the fishing was very hard for everyone,

With only 2 carp Nick still wanted to weigh in…so he did it was a low weight of only 7LB 8oz BUT the scalesman said…if I had had one more fish I would have got section…so many weights were low.

 By the end of the match we were all well and truely cooked and needed a cold drink before we all headed home.

The 24hr fish was upon us so Julz and I set off in a fully packed Buddy Bus with the aim of getting to the fishery by 11am this would give us an hour before the start to get everything sorted …..but things don’t always go to plan do they and the satnav took us to the wrong road so we started the day lost, after some frantic phone calls we figured out where we were and where we needed to be and arrived at the fishery with about 20 minutes to get all set up. Mark and Bob greeted us at the gate and then we set about getting all our gear sorted.

Mark was already set up on a peg so we went on the next two pegs, Julz fishing long over a bed of bait on one rod and close in on the other. Mark and I were both using the pole to start with.

Fishing was quiet all afternoon which may have been something to do with the weather it was scorching hot with thunder rumbling all around and torrential rain a few miles from where we were fishing but all we had was a half hour heavy shower.

Julz managed a couple of very slimy characters during the afternoon both about 3 and a half pounds

Lesley (Marks wife) came down during the evening carrying a huge bag of hot fish and chips which were greatfully recieved by all of us, thank you Lesley.

As soon as the sun began to set the sport began in earnest.

for about 7 hours we were catching bream and tench one after another, Mark had a nice tench of 4lb 14oz which half an hour later I matched with one of my own,

Julz had a rattling bite which we thought might be a tench but as it came over the net she was thrilled to see it was one of few carp in the lake, which according to Mark are still quite a rare sight on the bank.

The great sport carried on till about three in the morning when it slowed right down as I think we all did as the Tuesday dawned it started to warm up and the sport slowed even more, but the warm weather meant that everything that was wet could be dried out before we packed away.

Several people came down to see us finish off the 24hrs we had quite a crowd watching, thanks to all the members at Sutton Lane who came down to see us, thanks for allowing us to hold the event there and letting us be the first people to fish it at night. In total we caught over 80lbs of fish in 24hrs

The survivors photo after 24hrs of fishing !!!

Finally I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who sponsored us and especially to Mark for coming up with the idea, arranging it and being great company for the whole time. Between us we caught over 80lb of fish over the 24hrs

So far the 24hr fish has raised well over £200 we will have the final total in about a weeks time as the final forms come back to us.

After all the preparation the Festival started for me on Thursday when I went to collect Gary (The Tidalwave) from London so he could attend the festival. We loaded the Buddy Bus and set off for the Manderson Trust on Friday morning where we set about setting up the marquee, BBQs and everything else that would be needed for the Festival weekend, some anglers (mostly trust members) arrived on the Friday drew their pegs and got themselves settled in for the weekend some of them even had some nice fish out, here is Mark with a lovely common,

As is becoming normal the Friday evening was filled with hilarity and general chat as we all prepared for the weekend.

Saturday morning the rest of the anglers started arriving and getting set up ready for the Wandering Angler match, unlike last year the lakes were fishing quite well and there were plenty of fish out during the four hours of the match.

During the match I was called away from my peg by Nick where I found him holding down the marquee on his own, the wind had picked up and un-pegged the whole thing unfortunately the glass prizes for first and second places on Sunday got smashed so we had nothing to hand over but these will be replaced and the winners will still have a trophy to put on their mantle pieces.

The results of the match were in third place was Davy P with 14lb 7oz in second was Kev W with 14lb 11oz (Kev is making a habit of finishing second he did it in both matches last year) but the match was won by Steve E (Hipflask) with 16lb 5oz. Well done to those three, here they are receiving their prizes from Mick Brown on Sunday

After the match the BBQ was fired up and with the invaluable help of Katie and Michael we served up chicken, sausages and burgers to everyone there was plenty of food to go round and the drink and banter flowed until nearly midnight when the last of the revellers drifted off to their bivvies to get some sleep before Sundays match.

 Kev P had to leave early on Saturday evening as his wife had fallen over at home, we were all glad to hear later that apart from a lot of bruises she hadn’t hurt her self too badly.

Sunday morning dawned and the weather wasn’t looking too promising but it stayed dry long enough for everyone to have sausage and bacon rolls for breakfast and get onto their pegs before the heavens opened. The rain was torrential and the wind was blowing a right hoolie but the lakes were fishing quite well again and despite the wind and rain there were no more upsets with the marquee.

The results for the Sunday match were, in third place with 29lb 5oz was Jim, in second with 31lb 15oz was Seb and in first place breaking his run of seconds was Kev with 39lb 2oz

Here they are receiving their prizes

There was then the matter of four other prizes to sort out, the best angler of the festival by weight, the best angler as voted for by the competitors, the drawn pairs competition and finally the booby prize.

 As you have probably worked out Kev won the best angler by weight with a great weight of 53lb 13oz for the whole weekend

The drawn pairs was won by Kev W and Kev P despite Kev P having to go and look after his wife after her fall so his whiskey tumbler will be posted on to him

 The angler of the match as voted for by the other competitors was an overwhelming vote for one man who fished pretty much every minute of the weekend he could and produced some great results. Congratulations to Seb

The booby prize winner was a decision of the ROW committee and was unanimous, it went to an angler who despite catching nothing all weekend was always there with a smile, a helping hand and some chat it went to Gary (The Tidawave)

A huge congratulations goes out to all those who won prizes over the weekend and a thank you to all those who turned up to make the festival the huge success it was.

After the festival had finished Mick even had time to have his picture taken with Nick in front of both the Buddy Bus and the Beast

Special thanks from me must go to the Wandering Angler for sponsoring the Saturday match and other prizes, Katie and her two lovely daughters for doing a great job with the selling of raffle tickets, also to Katie and Michael for the help with the BBQ, to Mick brown for taking time out of his busy schedule to spend the day with us all and to Gary for all his help loading and unloading everything I take with me to the festival also to Nick for allowing me to organize the whole event which is an honour and privilege but also for stopping me doing to much and making me delegate.

I’m sure I can speak for everyone at Reels On Wheels when I say thanks to everyone for coming and making the festival a great event and we all hope to see you at next years event over the weekend of the 5^th and 6^th of June at the Peterstone fishery South Wales.

Nick and I have been talking about updating the art work on the Buddy Bus as it was starting to look a bit tired. The question was what were we going to replace the old art work with? Eventually we decided to put two of our biggest supporters on the bus as a big THANK YOU for all their support and all they do for us.

First I painted a panel to take the address for FishingPosts

Then it was the turn of Welshcarpfishing

These updates created their own problems as now our other artwork looked very poor so I decided to start freshening that up too, starting with the Reels On Wheels web address

So now I’ve started I think I have made a rod for my own back and will have to continue freshening up all the art work so the Buddy Bus looks as good as possible when she goes visiting. So far this is the overall effect as I update the art I will show you all how she is looking

Monday morning (20th April) I headed off to London to pick up Gary (the Tidalwave) as he was coming for a few days fishing with us. I off course got stuck in the worlds biggest car park (The M25) and took an age getting there, the journey back was far better and after stopping for supplies and a coffee at home we set off to Cobbleacre lakes and campsite in Norfolk for a few days fishing.

Gary is great company and has a joke for every occasion so our first evening was full of smiles and fishing stories.

First thing Tuesday morning we met up with the bailiff Bob, who was full of helpful advice and ideas and we went and set up on Adams lake, Gary and I were fishing the pole and Julz was after the carp.

Straight away Gary and I were into small Roach and Rudd when Bob popped over to see how we were doing. He suggested that I move swim and had a small side bet with Julz over how long it would take him to help me catch a decent fish. Within minutes of moving I was getting knocks and liners and then the float shot off promptly followed by it shooting back as what ever I had hooked smashing me up. Bob stayed with us for a good while giving advice and encouragement and true to his word in under an hour I had landed a decent fish a Tench of a couple of pounds

More tench followed of a similar size along with crucians to about a pound Roach and Rudd all of about 8oz and finally my last fish of the day was a lovely common of a couple of pounds. So a great days fishing for me.

Gary was catching plenty of Rudd and Roach and by the end of the day had amassed quite a catch topped off by moving swim and catching a few lovely crucians himself

Unfortunately apart from a few liners Julz hadn’t managed anything.

Another great evening then back to fishing on the Wednesday morning, we had to fish the specimen lake as the complex was holding a fund raising match for the RNLI and had 80 anglers coming along, with the warm weather we have been having all the fish were up on the surface, we tried bottom baits, pop ups, zygs and even stalking with dog biscuit but they just weren’t interested. I think they had spawning on their mind.

So Thursday morning we were getting ready to go off to the lake again when Bob popped by just to see how we were doing (he really is a star) and then we headed back to Adams lake, the fishing was fast and furious within 15 minutes Julz had banked a lovely tench on lightened carp style gear

then it was my turn a crucian of 2lb 12oz doubling my previous best.

Then Gary had his turn with a hard fighting tench of 4lb 8oz

Then Julz was in again producing this wonderful 2lb 7oz beauty

After all the excitement we packed up and headed home exhausted but what a time, what a fishery and what company.

Whilst we were there we spoke to Bob about the problems of access and although there are over a dozen swims on the fishery that are accessible he plans to put 10 more in during this year and also get a slope put up to the toilets which are currently up three stairs so once that work is all done a great fishery will be even better.

An escaped convict by the Buddy Bus oops sorry it’s Gary

Thanks for coming Gary and thanks for all the help you gave both Julz and me.

We will be holding a 2 day event on saturday 29th and sunday 30th August at Peterstone on the top lakes….

There will be 2 matches and the idea is to help raise some funds for ROW to help a few more people get back into fishing after accidents and illness.

The matches will be for 5 hrs and the tickets cost £10 each match and the winner will get £150*** cash

There will also be a raffle for some great prizes and of course you will be able to get a fantastic Cronin breakfast from the lodge.

If you are interested in taking part please IM me with your details as places will be limited….

I look forward to seeing you all there…and i will see some of you in June when I come up on my first visit of this year.

Martin…your “A Diamond Geezer” Thank you for becoming a Patron to Reels on Wheels.

***Due to lack of interest so far in this event we will have to put a contingency on the prizes. We will either pay out 75% of peg fees or the full £150 whichever is the least amount so once we get a minimum of 20 anglers attending the match the full prize will be paid out.

Sorry we have to do this but as it is a fundraising event we cannot afford to make a loss on it.