A bit of a slow time on return from China, a short session at the end of March on Isis No 1a lake resulted in one bite and a small perch, best not say any more! Family matters then took a hand so it was the second week of April before I could get out again, a visit to Patneys and a swim on the right hand side the car park end of the island. Plumbing up saw a slope from the island down to a flat area at 13m and to my left. I began on the 4mm meat, feeding a few cubes along with micros plugged into a kinder pot with a thumbnail of groundbait. The result was a frustrating session with 3 small 2lb carp landed and some skimmers(on maggot) but I missed 15 very good bites with no idea why. They were definitely not liners but I managed to miss them if I hit them early, waited …you get the picture!

It was almost two weeks before I could get out again (decorating, boo hiss). I intended to fish the same peg but on arrival found another angler on the next peg fishing a feeder and judging by how he had set up he was fishing off at an angle towards my intended swim. I decided to let him have his space and moved down to “the Peg” in the bay. This did not work out as expected either as meat produced not a single bite, but a change to three maggots produced a run of 20 skimmers from the swim that appeared dead!

Couple of days later I headed back to Isis lakes to pass on some documents that had been sent to me as there was a match on the little lake. I had already decided to fish the big lake and setting up on the left hand bank with a Shakespeare MK1 Specialist 12′ and my folding seat haversack. A couple of hours saw 14 nice rudd and a tench of 2lb fall to my waggler tactics on the maggot.

My focus for the next week was preparing for the Matchfishing-scene Woodland View 3 day Festival near Droitwich. I had been given the job of organising the event so I went duly armed with paperwork and laptop. Day 1 saw me draw peg 3 on Biog Als, unfortunately this was upwind with a glass like surface compared to the rest of the lake which resulted in me having 6 bites five F1s and a tiny perch for 3-8 and last in section. Both Big and Little Als did not fish well (neither did anywhere in the country on that day we subsequently found out later) but the highlight was Herbie (Our Leader) winning his section and having top weight of the day, as one member said, “I’ve never seen Herbie catch so any fish!”.

Day 2 arrives and peg 10 on Front Deans at least gives me some sport with 40-12 comprising of about 20lb of skimmers and F1s and 3 carp and a barbel for the rest. The three carp came in the last 40 minutes plus I pulled out of another.

Day 3 sees me on Barley 2 for 37-8, 4 carp for about 20lb and the rest F1s and skimmers caught short. My mistake was continuing going for the carp in the corner that I could reach with 13 or 14.5m when I should have continued fishing short and put fish in the net- still we live and learn!

Pete Bailey won the Festival for the second year running with18 points out of 21, another quality performance. A day 2 carp for Pete below!

I managed to get into the top 20 just! 19th out of the 21, still there is always next year to look forward to! May sees more MFS action at the Glebe with the Hillbilly Pairs.

(https://matchfishing-scene.co.uk/  if you want to know more!)