This is a demo store. No orders will be fulfilled.
Toggle Nav
Angling Direct Meets - Alan Blair
We decided to head to Clearwater Fisheries in Carnforth. The Fisheries is an awesome complex of some seven lakes, four of which are fishable on a day ticket; the others are stock ponds. The fishery is being transformed and merged to form a main syndicate lake (Keer Syndicate 2018) along with two other day ticket lakes (Kellet and Dewhurst), additional pools will be maintained as stock ponds to grow on some of the awesome scaly stunners owner Alex Mollart has sourced to ensure the future of this premier North-West Fishery.
Alex Mollart also joined us on our session to announce an exclusive partnership with Nash and Clearwater Fisheries but I will leave that for you to discover when you watch our ADTV video on this session.
The plan was for me to follow Alan around the complex and observe his “style” of angling first hand and discuss the tackle and tactics that he had chosen to use.
The session coincided with awful conditions, thick frosts and cold winds along with driving intermittent rain, hardly carpy or great to film in but we soldiered on.
Alan lapped all the lakes on the complex introducing bait in the form of Nash Scopex Squid boilies, Scopex Squid boilie flake, particle, and maggots. He would religiously head off and check these spots over the course of our session to see if an opportunity presented itself. It was evident from the very start just how active and mobile Alan was, and I was going to have to go some to keep up.
Central to his “style” of angling is his Nash Scope rods and use of the Nash Trax Metro MK2 Barrow. This meant he had everything ready to move with ease within minutes, something that me using more conventional tackle struggled with.
In terms of tactics Alan had a two-pronged attack featuring zig rigs and a drop off inline bottom bait setup.
We started fishing on Dewhurst lake, and 20 seconds after casting in Alan was into a fish on his Scope rod which was fished on a 5ft zig tipped with two red maggots and dipped in Nash Betaline liquid. Wow - not a bad start. After pictures and some talking to camera, he slipped the low double pristine common back and punched out his zig to the same spot.
I then spoke to fishery owner Alex Mollart. He talked about the changes he has made since taking over the fishery, the stunning scaly fish he has sourced from RH Fisheries and Mark Simmons, and all the work that has gone into transforming the fishery into the best fishery in the North West, with country wide appeal - even to those spoilt southern anglers who have ample waters with huge fish to go at.
The wind picked up and bites dried up. An hour or so later with Alan contemplating a move to Kellet lake his zig rod ramped off again but this time the fish managed to free itself from the hook. With that we loaded the barrow and moved to Kellet lake.
Alan lapped the rest of his spots whilst I setup at the windward end of Kellet lake where I had seen a few showing fish. Alan later joined me and fished to my left still using zigs on his Nash Scope rods.
We were fortunate enough to witness and photograph Ben Hesketh (Fishery Bailiff) catching a 28lb stunning dark mirror known as “Bolt” from the main lake, Jimmy’s. After his epic boat battle and pics, we headed back to Kellet with Alan promptly hooking and landing a stunning scaly mirror of around 10lbs, once again the winning zigs, tipped with maggots and dipped in Nash Betaline proved its downfall.
With darkness, almost upon us Alex hooked into a large resident on the main lake behind us. The same lake Ben had had his fish from. After a short battle his zig hooklegth parted and the fish was away. Disappointment filled the air and we all wanted Alex to land a fish so badly. Especially with the lake’s largest residents not coming out for a while and speculation on if the usual mid forty could go even bigger.
With darkness Alan decide we should move and fish Griffiths/Keer lake so we barrowed off and setup in darkness. Alan used bottom bait rigs in the marginal clear spots. The rigs consisted of armour link hooklengths, flat inline leads fished drop off style and 10mm cultured Scopex Squid hookbaits.
I decided to fish a large baited area of particle and pellets at 17 wraps and then one rod on a zig that I would cast at any showing fish through the night. The wind continued to hack across the lake and the rain intermittently poured.
After a takeaway meal and a good chat about angling and where it all started for Alan we headed for our bivvys before waking in the morning somewhat disappointed and biteless.
I joined Alan in the beautiful Titan Hide bivvy and had a proper coffee whilst damning the weather and trying to plan what we could do in the last two hours to get another bite. We started to load the barrow to move and with that my left-hand rod let off a single bleep and then dropped back. I ran to the rod which was from my baited area and wound into my first fish of the trip. Finally! I felt like I should be named “Mr Rural Banx”
The conditions had deteriorated with higher winds and more rain. The fish then became solid in weed and me and Alan took to the boat where eventually after some expert boat control in the savage wind (thanks Alan) we freed and netted the stunning scaly 16lb fish. Back on the back with rain still driving we photographed the fish and did another piece to camera before returning the beauty and packing up in double quick time.
We headed for the dry warmth of the Clearwater Bistro and Lodge. We chatted and were pretty thankful that despite conditions being against us we had managed four bites and three fish between us.
Alan then thanked the staff at the fishery and headed on the long drive back down south to his home.
I was hugely appreciative not only to him taking the time to come up north for the feature but also adding another dimension to my angling. We wouldn’t have been half as successful if it wasn’t for Alans drive to move and be mobile. His use of Scope rods, zigs and fishing off his Nash Trax Metro MK2 barrow is something that we can all learn from and add to our fishing, it just might buy you a bite or two when the fishing is hard. He was a total gent, a genuine bloke, an awesome angler and exactly how he is in all the awesome Nash videos. Thanks so much again and Big Ups. I will certainly use my Nash Scopes more now!
All that’s left for me to stay is a huge thank you to the Clearwater team Alex, Mikey, Adam and Ben for having us and look out for the video of our memorable trip on our ADTV YouTube page.