Events

For further information regarding any of our events please contact our group secretary Rob Jones

All events start at 8.00pm at The Pioneer Club,Chetwynd St.,Smallthorne, Stoke on trent, Nr Leek, Staffordshire. There is a £3 charge for non-members.

Click here for directions

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15th August update

John Davey has sent me a link to Bernie Murphy's web site which you can visit by clicking here
Bernie has written two books and is in the process of writing a third detailing course fisheries in the Irish midlands area. Basically he has visited dozens of waters in the area and proceeds from the books are split equally between 3 charities,
One third going to Longford Hospice Home Care, for Cancer patients.
One third going to Save the Otter, which are nearly extinct in the Irish midlands.
One third going to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin.
If you are planning a trip to the area a look through his books could be very useful and in turn you will be supporting some very worthwhile causes!

27th June update

The dates for this seasons' pike fishing at Blithfield reservoir have been announced. This year two extra days have been arranged for October.
Full details of these events can be found in the members Area.

12th April update

John Davey ends a successful Blithfield season with another 30lber. This fish scaled 31lb-4oz. Well done John!

Betley mere

Andy Bell who runs the Betley mere syndicate has informed me that there is a limited number of winter tickets available for the mere that will be valid for 6 months from the 1st October until the end of March next year.
The mere holds specimen Carp, Tench, Bream, Roach and Rudd as well as Pike and Perch. The water holds a large head of pike although the average size is small. A couple of larger pike up to 23lb have been caught and 4lb+ perch has been recorded in recent years. The mere is around 20 acres and has good access. There are some boats available to use. The winter tickets are £130
If anyone is interested drop me an email and I'll give you Andy's number.

Monthly club meetings

This year the meetings will continue throughout the year although it will purely be a social event without guest speakers. The meetings will take place, as usual, on the 1st tuesday of the month.

2nd April update
Pete Heywood....Piking on a Pension (extract from the newsletter) April 5th will be our final meeting of the season and we will be hosting that well-known Uncle Albert impersonator Pete Heywood. Not sure what the show’s about but it’s entitled “Piking on a Pension” Some people have suggested a regular get together on the first Tuesday of the month down at the Smallthorne Pioneer Club and it looks like this will be going ahead but there won’t be any organised meetings now until September. Likewise, this is the last newsletter you’ll receive until then, which means we’ll be saying goodbye to a few members as we always do at this time of year. We ended 2004 closed with 94 members, all of whom will receive this newsletter but it will be the last for those who have not signed up for 2005. (Eric Edwards) As the pike season comes to a close a couple of noticable catches to report. Firstly Eric took a superbly marked fish of 26lb-11oz (pictured) from a North West lake. The fish was caught boatfished on a Squirelly Burt in Black Perch pattern. Yours truely had a decent day (for a change) recently from a different North West water with two fish of 15lb-12oz and 20lb-2oz. Both fell to legered sea-baits.
	Eric's fine 26lb-11oz pike

3rd March update
Last Blithfield weekend
Weather conditions were poor for the last pike fishing weekend with icy cold easterly winds and snow showers both Saturday and Sunday. The water tempreture never exceded 3 degrees over the two days. In such conditions it obviously makes for hard going but surprisingly some good fish were taken including a 30lb+ fish for SPAG president Derek MacDonald and the biggest fish of the weekend a superb 33-8oz lunker for Phil Rowley which I believe is his 4th Blithfield fish over the thirty pound mark. Phil also took a 26lber a short time later, so well done there! Joe Edwards (Eric's son) not to be upstaged by his dad took a fine pike of 23lb+ and Gary Knowles also chipped in with another fish of 21lb . Graham Slater and myself missed out although we scraped a double apiece from our boat. A few other 20lb plus fish caught from Nige Williams' members. A special mention for Chris Hammond who rustled up a cracking breakfast of Newmarket sausages for members on Sunday morning which by all accounts was splendid!
Phil's 33lb - 8oz

07 February update

Change of speaker for March.

Unfortunately Pete Hayward is not available to attend the March meeting however he will be doing a slide show for the April 5th meeting. The speaker for the meeting on March 1 will be Steven Hinks from Blackpool. Steve is a very experienced piker with a huge list of big fish to his name. His slide show will include both trout water piking and non-trout water, lake district fishing.
Blithfield report.
Despite a dry cold frosty spell of weather forecast for the latest Blithfield weekend fishing it never materialised and it remained overcast and wet which probably helped the fishing. Once again the fishing was very good with the best reported fish of the weekend being a 34-08 to Kevin Dunne's boat partner Dave Foster from Bilston in the West Midlands which fell to a dolphin jerkbait. Another personal best for member Dave McGowan with a super fish of 28-14 oz which beat his previous PB caught in November, so well done there. SPAG comittee members John Davey, Eric Edwards, Gary Knowles and Brian Banks all had one or more 20lb plus fish. Eric's fish came in at 20-12 oz and Gary's best was 22-03oz ) whilst John boated fish of 24lb and 20-08oz. Another brace of twenties were caught by Brian, best being a superb 26-08oz followed by a fish of 20-04. His boat partner Charlie Griffiths also took a twenty, his first at Blithfield, scaling 23-08. As a bonus Brian also took a Perch of 2-04oz Member Geoff Parkinson and his son on boat 10 managed 5 fish including 4 doubles on the Sunday. I'm sure there were other members who had notable catches, alas though I have no more details at this stage, so I'm sorry if they are not included here. As always seems to be the case there were quite a few reports of very large pike following in lures to the boat. So far this winter at least 4 different 30s have been reported along with a number of upper 20s which is pretty good for a water that was being written off a few months ago!
	Gary Knowles pictured above with his splendid 22-03 oz Blithfield pike

30th January update

Don't forget it's the AGM on tuesday 1st of February. It's also a chance to sell your unwanted tackle.

Richard Wesley sent these interesting pictures of a 'pug nosed' pike.

17th January update

Bala lake pike festival

I understand that the tourist board of Wales in conjunction with Bala Angling Association are planning a three day piking event to be held at the lake in October this year although the exact date though is still yet to be determined. More news when I have it.

The Enviroment agency have undertaken a small netting session on the lake to try and remove some of the rare Gwyiniadd spiecies for breeding purposes. The result of the netting of a small area of the lake included several pike to over twenty pound (pictured left) along with a large amount of grayling, sea and brown trout. No Gwyniadd were netted although another night netting session is planned as the gwyniadd move into the shallow water to spawn under the cover of darkness.

If any member is interested in fish the pike festival let me know in due course and I'll give you the details when I have them.

Eric Edwards has sent this photo in of a splendid river Ribble fish of 22lb 13oz (pictured right) which looks as if he is going to eat! This is the third different 20lber the 'golden one' has caught from this river.

Apparently John Davey (pictured left) was late arriving to Blithfield as he had attended the meeting Stoke-on-Trent branch of the gay transvestite club the previous evening and had not had time to change!

River Thurne trip

On a personal note Tim Marshall and myself had a weeks fishing on the river Thurne in Norfolk. Fishing is notoriously hard on the Thurne system but we still managed to boat some nice fish to double figures. The big fish eluded us though (no surprises there then) although I did land a fish of 20-8oz for a local angler on his third ever piking session! A couple of other twenties were caught to 24-4oz.
What was a pretty enjoyable trip was soured when we witnessed some upper double figured fish being returned to the water with traces cut and and one angler being snapped by an obviously big pike. He was using 8lb mono. Although we found the local people very friendly the anglers amongst them are worst I've ever seen by a long way.

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