CARL & ALEX

Brothers Carl & Alex, two of the biggest angling stars on YouTube, look back over the past 12 months to recall some of their most memorable catches in a year of spectacular action

2018-01-16 -

Swedish specimens

The best perch session of our lives was had in the beautiful country of Sweden. Our friend Tobias from the popular Swedish YouTube channel, Kanal Gratis, invited us to his favourite perch spot and took us down to a small river where we used drop shot tactics to land ourselves four 3lb perch in a day. The fishing was slow at times but, during the morning and evening hours, the fishing kicked off landing perch after perch. And plenty of big ones, too. While in Sweden we also fished an archipelago for pike where we experienced the best pike fishing we had ever enjoyed, catching consistently with pike to nearly 20lb. It was an awesome trip with so many good fish caught and we can’t wait to return again in the future.

The Nash team social

In the last week of April, I had the chance to join the Nash Tackle crew on a fishing trip in Austria. The plan was to get away from work for the week and have a good time with the other Nash employees. Dan Yeomans from the media team had sorted the location, Carp Center Lakes in Austria. There were three lakes with carp ranging from 10lb right up to 80lb! It was easy to get distracted by the fishing, but I had to make sure no key moments were missed for the video we were making of the trip. All the team managed to catch fish, Mike and Oli both having big hits and there were a handful of 50s landed too. I was lucky enough to nick a few bites early on before filming got hectic but Alan stole the show with a 68lb common to end the trip. The trip was a massive success, everyone involved had an awesome time and it really provided a highlight of the year for the office.

Sea fishing targets

Up until 2017, sea fishing is something we had not done much of but at the beginning of the year we set ourselves a target to tick off two different saltwater species – wrasse and bass. Luckily, we hooked up with some friends who helped us achieve this target. Our friend Matt, who has his own boat down in Brighton, was kind enough to invite us aboard for a number of short evening sessions lure fishing for bass. Amazingly, on our first outing I landed my first bass and I was blown away by the incredible bite it gave as it smashed into my top-water lure. Such exciting fishing! After a few more evenings fishing both Carl and I had now caught our fair share of bass although in 2018 we will be trying our best to catch some bigger ones. Wrasse are the other saltwater species on our hit list and after an eventful few days fishing on the beautiful Cornish coast, we landed ourselves so many of the species. Our first encounter saw us fishing off an old pier using worms and crabs amid the kelp and the rocks. By using a big lead we could hold the seabed even in the strong currents and to keep the bait above the snaggy bottom we tied the hooklink up the line paternoster style. The wrasse were so aggressive and we were instantly into the action. A dozen big wrasse later we were heading back to the van happy anglers. It was a crazy evening’s fishing and we are now truly addicted to wrasse fishing. The following day we ventured down the steep rocky cliffs and searched out our target, this time with soft plastic lures. The locations that sea fishing takes you are so different to any place we had fished before and after finding a good-looking rock to fish from we started casting lures. The action came instantly and wrasse after wrasse were caught and released. It was so much fun feeling for the bites and setting the hook because when a wrasse is hooked they charge into the snags as quick as they can and really do put your tackle to the test. The other thing that makes me love wrasse is the fact that they come is so many different colours and patterns, they just never get boring!

“I landed my first bass and was blown away by the incredible bite it gave”