Only one session to report this time as I have been staying in Birmingham taking my elder son to and from hospital in the run-up to and aftermath of major abdominal surgery that has been on the cards for some time. Thankfully the 5.5 hour operation went well and he is at home now recuperating under the watchful eyes of my wife. His recuperation will take at least 3-4 months so I am faced with the prospects of splitting my time between home ( to keep things in order) and Birmingham, so my fishing may be somewhat curtailed.

I offered to pull out of the match at Bromley Mill as it was the Sunday after the Thursday surgery but was told by Mrs J to go and fish it as I could do nothing while he was still in hospital. So Setting off from home at 5:30am I arrived at Bromley Mill in good time for the draw. I was hoping for a peg with a bit of space and a short walk as I am still struggling as my core strength has still not returned fully. Anyway I drew a peg on the opposite bank to last year and only two pegs in from the gate so that was a relief.

The first thing that struck me was the colour of the water, last year it was gin clear, now it was so coloured you could not see the bottom even in 10 inch of water. I set up a method and after plumbing up settled on a 10m mark where I had about 3ft of water, this was to be tackled with a short rugby ball float with a 3mm tip, set low in the water. The only other rig I set up was one for the margins where I used a homemade BGT1 lookalike with all the shot around the float and set 3 inches over depth – this was what had worked so well last year.

The match got under way and I deposited a large cup of 4mm pellet, hemp and wheat with a few grains of corn at 8m in both margins, three balls of green-lipped mussel groundbait at the 10m mark along with a pot of wheat, a pot of mixed hemp and 4mm pellet, then went on the method. I was using that new Chinese reel for the first time and was very impressed despite not getting anything on it!

It seemed to be a slow start for most down our end of the lake but finally managed to get a bream on corn off the 10m line. That was the pattern of the day – nothing in the margins unusually,but they turned up as I was packing up! I plodded along putting bream in the net at irregular intervals, I lost one carp and landed my only other carp of about 5-6lb. Weighing in 27-11 I was disappointed in the sense that I was hoping to get among the carp, but happy that I had a short walk and a day’s fishing.