chew valley

I would have had that ticket and will be back on the phone again when opens up again for next year.

Not my idea of fun going piking and seeing other pikers,

Ash morton wrote:Not my idea of fun going piking and seeing other pikers,

haha your like me, i hate piking when others are on the same water, i like it to myself + my mate....

only fancy chew the once, just for the experience of fishing for pike to 50 or even bigger..

was in a tackle shop yesterday talking to one of the guys who works in there ,who is a keen pike fisherman , we where chatting away and his phone rang his boat partner who was on chew rang him up to tell him he had just that very minute landed a 35lb pike the picture was sent minutes later and it was an awesome fish think he had others as well nick was telling me his mate who was on chew had over 100 pike over the twenty mark and think he said multiple thirtys from chew ........what a place , will have to put it on my bucket list

Who will be on the phone on the third of January. I will. Hope to have better luck this time.

i will be giving it another go

I'd rather eat my own toenails than hear that engaged tone again

so would i, but if you want to fish there, then you have to put up with it

I didn't get any dates for 2014 and to be honest I'm rather glad. Instead of spending stupid amounts to enter a lottery (that's all it is), I spent the money doing things I really wanted to do.
If I caught a pb from Chew I would quite honestly tell no-one, there's very little skill involved, there's been a huge amount of skullduggery gone on and it seems to me that those people who behaved badly in the past were rewarded with golden tickets.

each to there own eric. my pb came from chew and took me 3 years of blanks to get it, far from easy in my book. as for lottery, isn't all fishing a lottery at the end of the day? no one can tell what size their next fish will be.

I for one also know how much hard work mba put in to catch that p.b ..... Personally I used all my years of experience and listened to fellow pikers to earn the 2 runs and 2 fish that I have had from there in the 6 days piking that I have managed to have.
Anyone who knows me , knows that Chew is totally not me and indeed I must admit I hated the hustle and bustle that one of those days brought with it.
However , on at least 2 occasions the nearest anyone ever was to us was a couple of lads on a boat 200 yards away.
I am not fortunate to have been blessed with loads of massive fish but I do okay and tend to be able to winkle a fish out from most places, my mind set is take chew for what it is, beautiful in some places, yes a lottery and an experience that has added another string to my bow.
Some pikers may think I am mad but I feel so privelidged to have fished the place, the heart in the mouth moment when the alarm screamed off at chew will live with me forever .
But that's just me...... before I had made the long trip to Bristol the first time I was so sure that the place wasn't for me. After being there with a couple of friends I now do hope that I can have another crack at the place...
Thanks Craig.

I've become bitter and twisted over it. I've fished it since it opened for piking, applied every year and never turned a single day down. There have been bad years, really bad. Back in 2003 the place was full of jacks, hardly a decent fish caught but myself and my friends stuck with it. When it started to pick up again the skullduggery started, people submitting multiple applications, usually in false names and maximising their chances of getting good dates. I was told by one of the staff there that someone had actually used my name "Which Eric Edwards are you? We've got about four of them" is what he told me. I've never submitted any application in anyone else's name and as a result I only ever got the bare minimum of dates.
Then when the Golden Tickets were introduced they were handed out to the familiar faces. In other words, all those people who've broken the rules over the years, got their auntie Doris and cousin Jim to apply for them or in one disgusting case, applied in the name of someone recently deceased, they got the golden tickets while the people who played by the rules got nothing.

You think it's hard? Yes it is for the likes of you and me, the good dates are all carved up before the big phone-in even starts. Not that the phone-in is of any use to me, at the end of the day it now comes down to who your telephone service provider is, and that's all!

Eric Edwards wrote:I've become bitter and twisted over it. I've fished it since it opened for piking, applied every year and never turned a single day down. There have been bad years, really bad. Back in 2003 the place was full of jacks, hardly a decent fish caught but myself and my friends stuck with it. When it started to pick up again the skullduggery started, people submitting multiple applications, usually in false names and maximising their chances of getting good dates. I was told by one of the staff there that someone had actually used my name "Which Eric Edwards are you? We've got about four of them" is what he told me. I've never submitted any application in anyone else's name and as a result I only ever got the bare minimum of dates.
Then when the Golden Tickets were introduced they were handed out to the familiar faces. In other words, all those people who've broken the rules over the years, got their auntie Doris and cousin Jim to apply for them or in one disgusting case, applied in the name of someone recently deceased, they got the golden tickets while the people who played by the rules got nothing.

You think it's hard? Yes it is for the likes of you and me, the good dates are all carved up before the big phone-in even starts. Not that the phone-in is of any use to me, at the end of the day it now comes down to who your telephone service provider is, and that's all!

Bitter,and Twisted.... Come on Eric, take it for what the place is.... overhyped, and very,very over-priced, Like you , i also fished it when it was a pleasure to go,sadly no longer the case, yes for those that have never been, it will look to be the place to fish....for those who seek the bigger fish(life-time fish), Since the increase into Pike Fishing, the demand will be the downfall, like most things in life, Chew is now a buisness(big), and like most things, if the demand is there, they they will seek profit, before anything else...My question to you Eric, if you could get a date would you go....I turned down 3 vists this yeas... and no eric, not in anyone else is name, all invites....it's not for me..... my fishing is now a pleasure thing, mostly out the way.... and we have many waters here to fish,where to some people is not for them( fish not big enough )......

like you welsh piker, most of the places i fish more often than not dont contain big fish, you are lucky to get a low double and a mid double is a monster. it is nice though for a couple of days a year to fish a water that could produce the fish of your life. how many peeps do the same each year down on the broads or the fens? the locals down there hate the visiting pikers, but each year 100's of pikers go down there in the hope of a monster. yes its true BW treat the vast majority of pikers as little more than scum, and to them its all just one money making scheme, but in my book its no different to the boat yards, and holiday lets on the broads. to me £35 to fish for 2 bank days on chew is a small price to pay to have a chance of such large fish. how much do the top carp boys pay out each year on carp syndicates?
if peeps don't want to fish chew fair does don't fish it, and if they want to slag BW of go for it, but it does get my back up when peeps knock fish that others catch from there, its almost the same as trolling:( .

MAD BAD ANGLER wrote:like you welsh piker, most of the places i fish more often than not dont contain big fish, you are lucky to get a low double and a mid double is a monster. it is nice though for a couple of days a year to fish a water that could produce the fish of your life. how many peeps do the same each year down on the broads or the fens? the locals down there hate the visiting pikers, but each year 100's of pikers go down there in the hope of a monster. yes its true BW treat the vast majority of pikers as little more than scum, and to them its all just one money making scheme, but in my book its no different to the boat yards, and holiday lets on the broads. to me £35 to fish for 2 bank days on chew is a small price to pay to have a chance of such large fish. how much do the top carp boys pay out each year on carp syndicates?
  if peeps don't want to fish chew fair does don't fish it, and if they want to slag BW of go for it, but it does get my back up when peeps knock fish that others catch from there, its almost the same as trolling:( .  

Mad Bad, firstly my post was an opinion of my experiance's of chew, from fishing it as a Trout water, to then a piker....Like most things in life, fishing today as fast become far,far to commercial, but ive never knock anyone who goes there, and yes you are right,£35 plus for 2days piking is pricey for a chance for someone to catch a fish.....I was some what surprized by Eric, who we all know is a been there and done it(Great Angler), that his reaction to that he could'nt get a date to fish it, this is someone who will have fished these waters more times than others will in a life time, how many Twentys as Eric caught , again how many Thirtys as Eric caught:?: , to many to mention i just found it strange,that someone would react in that way, when really why would you when you've fished it that much..... but to me, it's still not the pike fishing i love.....but good luck to those who go....or can't Just like the broads mind, gone all commercial, and yes you are right, the locals Hate the pikers, my family had a bungalow down there for many years, cant name it(no name policy ) but i guess you know the one,, not what it used to be now mind,,, but thats fishing, just that the way i like it....
tight lines

Chew sparks a debate. For me I would just like to fish it once, last year I didn't get a place it wasn't the end of the world.

I will try again for next year and if I don't succeed I will move on to the next plan. I do think people get over excited about

Chew its just another place to fish that as very big pike in it which would like to cast a line into.