Returning from Yorkshire I had two days to get ready before I was off again to the Glebe near Hinckley for a Maggotdrowners match organised by Whisker. Arriving in plenty of time after setting off at 05:45 I was hoping to be on Pool 6 or 7 rather than Lake 1 but drew peg 2 on Lake 1. Still I was not too disappointed as it meant a short journey with my kit.

I set up a cage feeder with a 20 inch hook-length as is the requirement at the Glebe but was sure I would be on the pole mainly so set up a11m rig, two 2+2 rigs and a margin rig. The two 2+2 rigs altered only in that one was bulked , the other with spread shot in the last half. Line was 0.16mm Shogun or Tornado with a size 16 Matrix bander. The margin was 0.20mm straight through to a 14 Chinese hook.

The match started and after depositing three balls of groundbait on the 11m line and a single ball with corn and pellet on the 2+2 line I reached for the feeder that I had clipped up for a point short of the far bank. So the next two casts ended up well on the far bank! Still don’t understand how that happened so after a quick adjustment I spent 20 minutes having 5 casts and staring at a motionless tip. The feeder went back up the bank even though Chris on peg 1 was getting a bite a cast on the feeder! On to the 11m line, 6mm pellets had been fed every few minutes and the first drop in resulted in a bite and the elastic coming out of the pole, only after a few minutes for the hook to pull as the fish got within netting range. That was it for a while before a bite out of nowhere saw a three pounder being slipped in to the net. Another bite and another lost fish with yet another hook pull, at this point I took the Matrix bander off and replaced it with a size 16 Chinese hook and didn’t suffer any further losses.

After a couple of hours I had clicked about 12lb, made up of 3 carp and some skimmers on a mixture of pellet or corn hook baits, Chris on Peg 1 was way ahead and still catching. I moved onto the 2+2 line and starting on corn was rewarded with an immediate carp of about 4lb then nothing.

I had primed a line just off the tree at 2+2 distance on my right and this produced a few skimmers and a further carp, swapping between the lines and baits I managed to nick the odd fish but with two hours to go I went for the margins, the right was deeper but produced nothing. The left was at least a foot shallower.

I had been loose feeding corn and pellet into both margins but I now potted in three big pots of loose groundbait into the left margin and went in with double corn, strangely, no response until I changed to single corn and I then had a slow but steady run of fish until the end. At the weigh in I put 13-14 of silvers on the scales (all skimmers except for a solitary perch) and 64-10 of carp for a 78-08 total.

It was an unusual week as Tuesday got taken up with household shopping and Wednesday the car had it’s MOT and thankfully passed which meant I could go to Bowood on Thursday which is when we usually do the shopping! Peg 6 was my selected swim which was very weedy but had a good colour and I was hopeful. Priming the swim in my usual fashion with 3 balls of groundbait with corn, hemp and wheat I started with a homemade “chimp” type float to 0.18mm main line and 0.16mm hook-length to a 14 B911X and double maggot at 9:30, my first fish was a small skimmer followed by a rudd, at which point I switched to corn. As the bell was chiming for 10am I hooked into a good tench that I managed to extract from the dense weed on two occasions before a typical swimmers roll dislodged the hook. Twenty minutes later similar story except it came off in the weed. I began to wonder if I should have brought the rake but although dense the weed should not have been a problem. A further wait and this time I managed to extract the tench out of three weed beds and land it safely at 5-07.

The session was frustrating as rudd moved in when there were no tench around but I lost a further tench, two big bream and and unseen torpedo that snapped me- pike/carp/tench- I’ll never know! I ended up with the solitary tench and 14 rudd plus two skimmers for 7-03 plus 6 lost fish!

Next day I was back at peg 6 again to see if I could improve on the situation by using a heavier elastic, the big change was the weather was now very sunny and hot. The water had cleared a bit but unfortunately the session went the way of the previous one. I had 16 rudd, 7 skimmers and a solitary roach for 3-14 on wheat and the following losses:

Tench – hook snapped- yes hook snapped at bend after getting fish through two weed beds

Tench – snapped in weed to my right

Bream – hook pulled close in prompting my to put slightly lighter elastic on

Tench – snapped in weed.

Can’t remember the last time I snapped the line so often in a session.

Following Friday’s session and the weather getting hotter I opted for a short session on the Pondtail on Sunday. I fished the 5m whip from 9-15 to 11-15 and had a pleasant session with 23 roach and 1 perch for 3-07 on maggot, feeding wheat and hemp.

So avoiding the very hot days I ventured to peg 5 on the Wednesday fishing 8:45 to 12:30. Setting up as on peg 6 I had a couple of early maggot fish before switching to corn. It was just past 9:30 when I had my first tench of 3-07 that I landed together with copious amounts of weed. I had reverted to a 10-12 elastic that seemed to be soft enough for the silvers/bream but with enough grunt to deal with the tench. The next tench hooked I lost with it coming adrift in the weed bed to my right. I had one further tench of 3-08 to go with my 10 rudd for a level 9-0.

Sunday sees me at Clanfield for the penultimate leg of the Summer League (which has not been going well for me!), sandwiched between that at the final leg is a visit to Bromley Mill near Stafford.