Monday morning at the office for some lucky barstools, Carl and Alex

If this is not their day job it should be, Carl and Alex are brothers, fishermen, film-makers, and still at an age that does not require them to use glasses to read ingredients on food packets; dam them. As someone who dabbles in fishing and fumbles through film making I have some understanding of the time, effort and in their case the talent required to make films at their standard. So even though unfortunately they are big carp fishing fans (no one is perfect) I still come back to their films looking for inspiration and a stonking great story, told with enthusiasm and care; they never fail to disappoint.

Their latest adventure is a tale from both sides of the pond, I mean the big pond which sees them teaming up with another pair of siblings (I cannot even get my brother to come fishing with me, or make me toast) to take up carp fishing challenges both at home in England and the USA.

I know there is a great future in this field for these guys but lets help them get there a little sooner by adding our support and subscribing and sharing the sh*t out of their videos.

P.s. When I grow up I want to be Carl or Alex

Monday morning at the office for one lucky barstool

This is trailer for an upcoming film about an Irish river guide and already it made me a little damp in good way so I am expecting great things. Check out the website Seetheriverman.com

The River Man - Trailer from RICHARD GORODECKY on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday, Tangles With Pike and Scouse Anglers

It has been a long time since I have sat down and read a book, and longer still since that book was about fishing.  There are a few solid reasons for this; the first is the internet which is not strictly reading in the traditional sense but it is a very useful source of fishing related stuff and dancing cats. The other reason being I really have not had much luck with fishing books. With some angling authors I have wondered if they would have been better not writing about fishing altogether, but concentrated on their favorite topics; the immense size of their testicles and how brilliant they are.

As it was my birthday I felt the need to buy myself a present that would of been difficult to get hold of using the unreliable method of dropping hints to loved ones. Luckily Dominic Garnett’s new book entitled, “Tangles With Pike” is just off the presses and with a little forethought I ordered a signed first edition from his website which despite Britain’s postal service arrived on my birthday.

I am not one for penning book reviews as having to write reports about memorably dull books at school has scarred me for life and I feel if I was to write a review it would in some way be a victory for my english teacher who was shit.

Back to the book.  This is really a collection of short stories about Dominic’s own brand of pike fishing which he treats less like a religion and more like a pleasant drug habit. Along the way he gets to bump into some fellow addicts and the odd bit of fishing royalty all sandwiched neatly with a bit of travel.  

That is the hard stuff out of the way, what I like about this book is that quality in the writing that transports. I can watch a video and it is great to see Robson Green shouting about losing some monster fish on some tropical jaunt, but it is not going take me there. By contrast reading a few lines from this book and I am away in Finland pulling perch from pristine water or sneaking along some stretch of semi urban canal to put a bit distance between myself and the town’s delinquents.

Should you buy this book? I don’t bloody know but I wonder if I had spent the £15 on a spool of braid would I have gotten the same pleasure, would I have travelled and would I have learnt anything worth knowing. Cheers Mr Garnett and keep dipping them quills in the ink and occasionally in some water attached to a hook and a worm.   Link to Dominic's Site

I also need to say thanks, to all those fellow lure makers who sent birthday wishes. I think apart from the Artic and Antarctic I got a happy birthday from somewhere on every continent and thanks to google translate one of them came out as “Happy cow feast”

I spent the best part of the day practicing filming with Jordan and Jordan to local lure nuts and youtubers (The Scouse Angler) on a stretch of canal close to the city centre. It was great to get away from videoing myself carving lures and see another side of filming. It gave me some great ideas for future films and projects. I also felt little old realizing I had left my glasses at home and also watching the pair of them flip lures round like Jedi’s with graphite sabers. I put together a little experimental intro to a video and hopefully I can get out soon with them again.

Down with Abu

I am suffering from a deep need to fish, I have boot full of tackle, I am less than few miles from the lake and the traffic is not moving. Ahead a helicopter is trying to land and I am guessing it is an air ambulance. When the lights change I cut across behind the stationary traffic and do a U-turn and briefly enjoy the empty lanes before turning on to a small road and heading across the countryside.

Even away from the main road the traffic is backed up through villages not used to dealing Friday evening’s commuters. It is slow going; each junction holds its own torture. When I finally inch my way into the lake car park it is empty, although the line of traffic I had escaped from is moving slow enough to be considered for parking tickets.

It is not long before I am stood in some water and the traffic is forgotten. I am here to fish and work out some filming ideas; two things that I find seldom go well together. I have found a fish but it hasn’t found the hooks, there is always a chance if I set the camera going and recast it will make another appearance. After half a dozen badly aimed casts the pike finally makes contact with some metal and I am in, the only pressure now is to land it for the camera.

When It is back in the water and I have had chance to get myself together and check the camera was actually recording I spot crack in the handle of the rod. The carbon fibre that runs beneath the handle has split; this is not the first problem I have with this rod. Part of the reel seat broke on its first outing, I should of sent it back but I am a tinkerer and I added a brass ring from an old rod and re-whipped the reinforcement at the joint with some Kevlar thread and epoxy That re-whipping is now holding the handle together well enough for me to continue fishing. I could just blame myself for buying cheap fishing tackle but I do not believe spending another hundred pounds will make me a better fisherman or bring home anymore fish.

The reel I am using is also a cheap Chinese import, a copy of an earlier abu bait caster. The reason I bought it was as a spare to and Abu pro-max reel but to be honest the Abu is a piece of crap and I have stayed with the import. The Abu cost over a hundred pounds and I also should of sent it back after a couple of months, it never really performed; too much plastic and too little engineering and quality. I have older Abu boat reels (7000i, seven) which I used to use almost daily boat fishing in the Atlantic, and to be honest these are a tools that just work without any questions, a little rinse after use, some oil some grease and I have friends for life.

The truth is that high prices these days only guarantee that a lot of money has been spent on advertising and sadly Abu seem to heading down that route. Will I buy another Abu Reel, probably but it will have to be old school and pre-owned. The rod handle will be repaired but I do need to build my own rod.

I pick up another three small pike and miss some in equal measure before my camera battery dies and I think about going home on some empty roads.

There is a man in the garden with a gun

Image Above: A little silver thing.
Image Below Right: Filming in the garden.

I dropped my mother in law at the airport at about 5am and then cruised home to collect my tackle and head for the lake. At five thirty I was at my favourite peg with a float poking at the surface tension of a still lake. It was a slow start but eventually a shoal of small bream cruised past and I took half a dozen before they moved off trailing bubbles down the lake. The roach came a little later fat and greedy for breakfast. In the small bay where the lake widens a father and son were dealing with an eel the lad had caught and the excitement drew some spectators from the other anglers who had arrived while I was busy with the roach.

I left a little before nine with the feeling that I had lived almost a whole day and had yet to enjoy breakfast. Turning into the avenue I found a film crew setting up for a day’s shoot with cables and light gantries strung down the pavement only to converge on our neighbours house. I spent most of the morning packaging lures between visits to the bedroom window to keep ahead of the action. They were filming a new drama thriller for channel four about conspiracy theory called ‘Utopia’ and Liverpool was doubling up for London which was probably all down to cost.

I watched the stars (none of whom I could recognise) climb the garden walls with one of them brandished an automatic pistol. At one point they ran a small rail line down our back garden to carry the camera while the cast re-enacted what looked like a scene from the great escape. Two things struck me about the filming, you have to be so thin to work in front of the camera that some of the cast would only be a little heavier than my balsa lures. The other thing was that the crew employ a man whose sole job was to hold the replica gun while it was not being used in filming; a gun minder like a baby minder only with a gun.

In the afternoon I went off in search of welding rods along the dock road, the family came along for quick trip to Crosby beach and some bass scouting.



Image Below: Sculpture at Crosby Beach.