Well the sneaky last visit of June was 6:20 to 8:30pm fishing peg 3 at Bowood with Gareth on 4. It was hard!Fishing corn and feeding groundbait with wheat and corn at the start, thereafter loose feeding wheat I managed a solitary bream of 2-12, a skimmer and a roach for 3-04, Gareth managed to get a tench of 3-04 plus some rudd as well as losing a second tench.

The first proper July visit was on the Wednesday to the Glebe outside Hinckley for a Maggotdrowners match. I was draw on peg 24 and set up a feeder, a pole rig for 11m, one for 5m and one for the margins.I spent too long on the feeder for two carp of around 2-3lb a piece and a couple of skimmers. The day fished oddly with a real lack of activity for long periods in the first half before some more spasmodic action in the second half of the match. The 5m line and the margins did not produce a single fish bar a foul hooked roach which was very odd. All my fish came at 11m to corn with 6mm pellet fired out and the action was a bit like carp, carp, nothing, bream, carp… I ended up with a level 64lb with 17-04 of that made up with silvers. This put me 4th in the 7 peg section beaten by the pegs at the ends but they were paying 4 places so I had a small windfall. Looking at the results after it became apparent that I had drawn down the wrong end of the lake as the bottom 5 weights in the match were from our section!

Friday sees me dragged off to Bowood in the evening by Gareth, this time I took the weed rake as peg 4 was pretty much solid with weed so raked it first while Gareth went on peg 5. Fishing 6:25 to 8:10 there was little sign of activity anywhere on the lake, no pike striking, no fish topping or bubbling anywhere! To say it was hard was an understatement and I finished with 4 rudd on wheat or corn for 0-06while Gareth had a few more on maggot for just over a pound.

Tuesday sees me make the trip to peg 1 at Bowood, fishing 9:30 to 12:30. First put in to the stalk sticking up at 11m to the left of the swim sees the float glide under and a bream of 2-06 come to the net. I was using a light chianti style homemade float with the 0.3g bulked about six inches from the 14 hook. Five minutes later another bite on the corn sees me lose a bream in the swim – this slowed it a bit until I had another of 2-10. That was it from the left had swim, the bites dried up, possibly due to me losing and catching fish but also due to pike strikes that were taking place in the area. Moving to my other previously fed swim directly in front it was about ten minutes before the float shimmied and lifted , a strike saw a bream of 4-08 come meekly to the net – how often does that happen, the larger bream put up less fight than their smaller brethren! Three further bream came to the net at 3-02, 3-04 and 3-00, there was a large gap between the last two bream as I had a pike take a 3oz roach and played it for about five minutes before it let go of the roach! A second pike strike later bit me off, so apart from the bream I had 1 small skimmer, 2 roach and 5 rudd for a combined total of 20-02.

Next evening Gareth and I went for a session on the Pondtail, he wanted to put a pellet out for the bream/carp while fishing the 4m whip so he went on peg 2 and I settled on peg1 just fishing the Chinese whip Chinese style! I put in three handfuls of soft groundbait with a small handful of wheat over the top, thereafter loose fed 5-6 grains of wheat every put in. It took a few minutes but soon I was getting bites from the roach and after having the fifth 3oz+ roach drop of while swinging in I changed by hook from the barbless 16 to what is best described as a micro – micro barbed hook that is not available in this country but I have a stock of them left over from previous dalliances!I use the term micro-micro barbed as you cannot see any barb but the hook retains maggots and fish but unhooks fish as easy as a barbless hook! There are no rules regarding hooks at Bowood so tend to use them here. Anyway we fished from 7-8:30pm and in that time I had 51 roach for 6-07 Gareth fished caster and had 15 roach of a better stamp for over 3lb.

No matches this month so more Bowood trips to come.