It was not until Wednesday 16th that I ventured out due to the rain that had been falling, even so I only fished from 9:45 until 12:50 as the rain returned from 11-12 and then again at 1 on my way back to the car from peg 10. Ah yes, I am getting ahead of myself!I began in my normal way with three balls of groundbait cupped in, one soft and two hard with one hard ball dropped from a foot or so to give a plop and ring the dinner bell so to speak. Anyway it was quite slow but I managed 9 rudd, 7 roach, 3 small skimmers/blades and another gudgeon! These totaled 1-04 but I did also get a feisty pike of 10-04 after about an hour.

Now that is the last of my fishing this month as I was on call to collect my son, his wife and my grandson from Heathrow if they could exit China with the various Covid lockdowns and restrictions. They were collected on the 21st late on and are now in the throes of finding somewhere to live so I am on taxi duty!

That Friday (25th) I had arranged to meet Tim, a fellow Maggotdrowner, at Blacklands for a coaching session on the pole. He had been gifted an old pole and although a competent rod and reel angler had admitted he had no clue with the pole. I set him up on Heron lake by the overflow and went through the basics.

The first two hours were as expected more difficult for Tim as he got to grips with the pole but the second two hours saw him hit and land most of his bites but did lose what looked to be a very nice net roach. At the end I had a few minutes on Tim’s box so he could see me put into practice what he had been doing (when coaching I never fish as I feel I need to constantly watch and amend the learner’s actions).

One of the first things Gareth had done was to sort out his rod license and buy a Calne AA permit. On the Sunday I took him and grandson Zachary to the River Marden at Hazeland for a short session in the top field, again I was not fishing as I had not got a Calne ticket. The river was pushing through and very coloured. Starting on a bomb Gareth tried various areas before I suggested he tried at his feet where there was a small eddy albeit very snaggy. First put in he had a bite that was missed but resulted in a sucked maggot then he managed to get a roach, at which point 4 year old Zachary wanted to get in on the action, he missed a couple of bites and then had a gudgeon. It was at this point I set up a 3m whip that he could use and drop into the eddy at his feet. Several minnows came to the net as well as a good few missed bites and snags. After about and hour or so we made our way home.

The final fishing related visit was taking Gareth, alone, back to Hazeland to fish the weir. Fishing the bomb again we were pleasantly surprised by the number of bites despite the ferocity of the water coming over the weir. A perch of 1lb 8oz and a roach of 13oz were added to the net along with other smaller samples in the hour and a half we were there.

So next I must go fishing myself!