Friday 1st October, went to the Pondtail peg 2 with the whips for a short session, the weather was supposed to be dry but once there the Bowood micro-climate kicked in and we had some heavy rain but worse still it was very cold rain. so I lasted 2 hours but only had 4 bites, 2 roach for 7 oz , a missed bite and a roach that dropped off. Not an auspicious start to the month!

On the Tuesday I headed down to peg 10, this time it was dry but very windy. Getting the right presentation was proving difficult and my ten roach, five rudd and a solitary skimmer was looking a meagre return after 3 hours when I decided to pack up, lifting the pole I hit into a good fish which took a goodly bit of elastic out when the pike float disappeared, initially I thought it had got tangled up in the pole line as the fish had run in that direction but it soon became obvious that a pike was the cause. So now I had a good unseen fish on the pole and a pike on then pike rod, I managed eventually to get the pole fish in and netted – a tench of 4-08, the pike turned out to be a jack of 3-03 and the hook fell out in the net, one of the beauties of fishing two single barbless carp hooks.So my fortunes had changed from 2lb of silvers to a 9-11 total just as I decided to pack up!

Back to 10 on the Friday, a sunny day but 2 missed runs on the pike rod and a hard won 13 rudd, 9 roach and a skimmer for 2-12. I am not totally sure that the runs were from pike as Tim , the gamekeeper, had related to me that several members had commented on “ghost runs” – perfectly good strikes at runs that resulted in nothing. His theory was that they were not pike but possibly the bigger tench or even the odd carp taking the fish, this certainly has some merit as on calmer days the float would sometimes give slight bobs without anything developing, the bait on inspection had been stripped of flesh in areas.

The following Tuesday sees me back in the rut – peg 10! Now I made a fatal mistake at the start of the session, I had a quarter pint of old maggots that I was going to add to the groundbait but on setting up I had a visit from a young swan/older cygnet who I have named Cyril. He made a beeline for me and made the usual throaty sound asking to be fed which I duly obliged with the said maggots. Cyril has so unwary that he even took the ,maggots from the tub that I was holding. Anyway apart from a couple of occasions Cyril stuck around for the whole session.

I fished a slightly lighter float this time, another homemade rugby ball of 0.5g and three balls of groundbait saw an immediate response from roach before the rudd arrived. I started as usual on double maggot but spent a fair amount of time on the corn with not much joy, a couple of fish on wheat and then back on maggot. The pole caught fish weighed 5-02 made up of 26 rudd 10 roach, a hybrid and a skimmer, but this time I had two runs on the pike rod, the first a scrappy 7-02 followed by a double of 11-02

both on sardine, the bigger one taking the bait just as the bells were chiming noon- this seems to be a regular feeding time as I regularly get a run between 11:45 and 12:15! Cyril was a spectator for the pike as you can see in the video!

Friday the 15th arrives and peg 10 beckons! I returned to my more usual heavier rig on the pole and the usual three balls of groundbait did not bring a response at first, in fact after the first hour I had 5 roach 3 rudd and 2 small skimmers on the maggot. At this point I decided to turn my attention to the wheat with the odd dabble on corn. Double wheat was immediately interesting the fish and by loose feeding 10-15 grains plus similar amounts of hemp I managed in the next two hours to bring the total up to 26 roach, 31 rudd and 6 skimmers, giving me a 5-10 total. This time no interest at all from the pike.

I must try not to fish peg 10 next time! Anyway this is what Cyril thinks of it.