August is traditionally a month where there is good weather and plenty of fish to be caught- right? – I wish! August so far has been a real mishmash – let me run down my August to date (matches first).

Aug 1st Angling Trust Individual Championships- Gloucester Canal, red hot sunny day, gin clear canal (albeit 15 foot deep) weeded margins up to 7m out (7ft deep straight down the side), lonnnggg walk.  3 bites – 3 fish for 0.080kg (2 perch, 1 blade)

Aug 8th Angling Trust Division 1 National Championships – Gloucester Canal (as above in all aspects) 3 bites – 3 fish 1.800kg (a bream of a kilo after 1hour 45 minutes, a tiny blade 5 minutes later and a hybrid of about a pound with 15minutes to go!) Result – 19 points, but at least team stayed up in Div 1!

Aug 16th Match fishing Scene (MFS) match art Weirwood Reservoir in Sussex (2.5 – 3 hour car trip), flat calm reservoir clear sunny conditions (needed a wind!) 7-14 of skimmers on the tip at 40m. A pleasant day day out in good company.

Then there is Bowood!

Visit 1 Peg 4 – the shallow end of the lake had got very weedy and almost unfishable so I had taken a rake along and cleared an area up to 10m out in pegs 4, 5 and 6. I then set up in my usual fashion on peg 4 and caught the grand total of  1lb made up of a few roach/blades taken on maggot to avoid a blank!

Visit 2 Peg 8 – After the shallow end fiasco I moved further up the field and started with 4 balls of groundbait followed by loose fed wheat every 5-10mins. This usually takes 40min- 1hour before the fish respond but I had to work hard to end up with a Tench of 3-14 and two bream of 4-0 and 3-9 plus some smaller skimmers for a 17 08 total.

Visit 3 Peg 8 – Decided to stick with the peg to see if fish had moved in or not. Was a frustrating time as the large weed bed on the right of the swim saw 3 tench find the bed and throw the hook (Lost Tench), however I did manage to get bream of 4- 8 (Bream ),and tench of 3-14 and 3-12 safely into the net with smaller samples for a total of 16-08. I had been experimenting with my shotting pattern given the weed and had settled on the bulk about 18inches from the hook with a second mini-bulk of 2 no 8 shot 4 inches from the hook. I had also changed to a heavier homemade 1g pencil float rather than my lighter 0.5g models  to see if that would counter the weed better. I videoed some of this session and the yellow tip could be seen for a change on the video. This led me to experiment with a flouro green tip with a1g body down homemade float in the following trips to see if the tip was more visible.

Visit 4 Peg 8 – this was a very short evening session and was done in heavy wind and driving rain, to cut a long story short, 1 tench 3-6 and some skimmers for 7-08

Visit 5 – Peg 9 – Moved along again to try the green topped float. Began with 4 balls of groundbait and lost an early fish, possibly a large skimmer, on corn then had to work hard to get 13-0 made up of bream 2-12, tench of 4-6 and 3-10 plus 3 further tench lost in weed bed. Green float was very visible to eye but cannot be seen on camera! The 3-10 tench was caught on camera and led me a merry dance, going into the pads around the platform. Have realised that I need to angle the camera down more in future!

Will see how the remainder of the month goes- MFS match at Ardingley and last of Summer League at Horcott, plus more Bowood!