Where it all began..... from Carpin' to Kayakin'

My first blog post! So a little bit about how i got into kayak fishing....

I started fishing when I was 15. It began with coarse fishing at BK Fisheries where Billy Knott taught me the basics of catching carp and silverfish. I quickly became addicted to match fishing for carp with all my weekends and school holidays spent on the bank. I won the first BK Fisheries Junior League sponsored by Preston Innovations in my first year of fishing back in 2006 and won myself a Preston match fishing pole along with many other tackle/gear goodies – I was hooked!!...

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After a few months of coarse fishing I decided to join a local sea angling club – Mounts Bay Angling Society. I had little knowledge of sea fishing prior to that and had only caught small wrasse, gobies and blenny’s. I started fishing with David Cains who took me fishing around the Cornish coast teaching me how to catch a variety of different species, including a Tub Gurnard on my first trip! I fished the MBAS junior competitions and by the end of the year I had accumulated enough points to come 1st overall! For the next few years I went coarse and sea fishing every weekend!

Before long I got fairly bored of coarse fishing and focused purely on sea fishing. I fish the shore mainly in West Cornwall from Falmouth round to Newquay and over the 7 years of sea fishing have caught a huge variety of fish and even a few decent ones! I introduced my good friend Elliot to sea fishing and we were soon going at every opportunity. Once a year the MBAS juniors have the opportunity to go on a boat fishing trip aboard Viking Charters skippered by Nicky Morse during the clubs annual 3 week festival and of course I went on them, as a junior and a junior helper once I was a senior in the club….I loved it! I soon got the hang of catching fish from the boat and went on charter trips with Bite Adventures skippered by Robin Chapman whenever I had some spare cash. But that was the problem… I could only go when I could afford it and I wanted to go boat fishing all the time, I just loved being on the water!!! My love of the sea has even lead to me studying a Bsc (Hons) in Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth and I very much hope to be involved with the marine world in some way or another for the rest of my life. I even appeared in 'Caribbean Cooking made easy' with Levi Roots on BBC1 a few years back catching mackerel with my brother down at Porthcurno!

Me, Levi Roots and Kieren on Porthcurno Beach

Pressure was on to catch mackerel in early March but we managed to pull a few out for the cameras!

In Spring 2012 Elliot asked me if I wanted to go kayaking. I couldn’t say no so with him on his new Teksport 290 Angler and me borrowing his brothers 290, out we went for a fish, the first time either of us had been kayak fishing! We had little idea about what we were doing so just chucked a bit of tackle in the back of the yaks and went tinseling for a few mackerel. It was a flat calm summery day and we launched from a small beach on the Lizard Peninsula. From the first stroke of the paddle through the glassy surface I knew I was going to be hooked!! We pottered out about 500 yards offshore and began fishing. The mackerel were scarce but I didn’t care, I loved it!! We managed a few mackerel and Elliot even managed a Cod! After that day we were both addicted to kayak fishing. Needless to say I had purchased a new Teksport 330 Angler within weeks and we have been kayaking whenever we have had the opportunity since then. I soon got my brother Kieren involved and he was soon addicted and after a lot of persuading even my girlfriend Holly has got in on the act! 

The Cod caught by Elliot on our first kayak fishing session

My Teksport 330 Angler

Over the last 17 months of kayak fishing I have learnt a lot and I am still very much learning. So this blog will document the kayak fishing adventures of me, Elliot, Kieren and Holly, along with the odd shore and boat fishing session thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!