First of August sees me have a session between 9:45 and 12:15 on the Pondtail peg 1 fishing my usual Chinese 4.5m whip.Feeding a pinch of wheat every cast after an initial ball of groundbait I was soon amassing fish on a regular basis in the 5+ft of water on double maggot, ending the session with a satisfying 9-00 made up of 65 roach and 9 perch.

That was my lot until the following Monday when Gareth joined me for the long trudge up to the Stockpond for a shortish session of 3-5:30. We both fished peg 1 (the big fish peg), me on the waggler with wheat and Gareth on the method trying for a carp. He did indeed hook a carp down in the corner amongst the old staging but the carp managed to secrete the hook in a weedbed after a short fight/ I managed 2-13 of roach (about 30 as I lost count), although I did let Gareth have a go to avoid a blank.

Friday I tried peg 7 on the main lake but left frustrated after 13 rudd, 1 skimmer and 2 roach for 2-04 due to pike moving in and killing the swim. Indeed I did lose a big fish in the weed after a few minutes of the fight, I am still unsure what it was as at various points in the fight I was thinking a large bream, then a pike then a tench – I’ll never know!

Monday sees me up at the Glebe fishery at Peckleton for Herbie’s Invitational Pairs over 2 days which I had been delegated to run! We had conducted a draw for partners during the week on line with the essence of the pairs being the Pros (Open anglers) were teamed up with a Numpty (Club angler) to form the pair, but all the Pros would be on Lakes 5,6 and 7 and the Numpties on Lake 1 on the first day and then swap on the second, so Pros were al;ways fishing against each other as were the Numpties.

So draw done and I end up in Section A peg 7 with Chilli (Andy Winters on peg 8) both margins were plumbed as was a 2+2 line and the 13m line. Bomb and pellet was tried after a couple of casts on the feeder showed no activity and after 30 minutes the rod was back on the rest and I was out at 13m. To cut a long painful story short the margins did not produce for me in the last 2 hours of the 6 hour match although Andy had a great period with putting carp after carp in the net and overtaking me by a large margin. I ended up with 68-00 made up of 31lb of bream and 37-00 of carp for last bin section.

Day 2 sees me fare no better on Lake 7 peg 102 with me being biteless after 2 hours with the wind blowing left to right straight into Andy’s end peg! All you could hear was splashing as he made the most of it.

Once again I was finding the 2+2 line devoid of fish, both margins produced the odd fish but the right hand one was slightly better. My day was like this hour1 BLANK, hour 2 BLANK, hour 3 one carp and 2 small skimmers, hour 4 no change, hour 5 up to 20lb now, then the margins helped! Corn did the business as pellet or paste was ignored, apart from 2 skimmers for 12oz my 57-04 were carp taken mainly in the margins for another last in section. The only thing that cheered me up was the lake had fished hard and the next weights were 62 and 66lb while the “Pro” the previous day had managed 51lb from the peg when the section had fished better. Doing the results saw my partner also being last in section and us being the strongest team, ie holding everyone else up in last position!

Wednesday and the Maggotdrowners match, one when I could focus wholly on the fishing with no duties. Peg 11 was my draw, a peg that had seen 100lb weights come off it on the previous two days. However, that had been when there was a fairly strong wind and now it was mirror like for most of the day with just the odd ripple very occasionally!

To say I struggled would be an understatement with just one carp and a couple of skimmers in the first two hours of the six hour match, the right margin looked great but produced just one carp and a bream, the left margin produced some action towards the end but I had most of my 15lb of skimmers at 13m with only 4 carp for 19lb from the margins, I also lost 3 carp that I felt were foul hooked by the way they fought. My 34-00 left me last in section again, meaning my 3 days were abysmal from a competitive point of view but I was fishing and it left me more determined to crack the vagaries of the Glebe in future. I managed to get home at a reasonable time to find that Gareth had gone for one last hurrah on the Marden before setting off for Heathrow on the Thursday to return to China! He also struggled with a solitary rudd on the last cast!

My next match is a 3 day seeded event for Herbie (yes I am running it) at Monk Hall fishery near Bridgenorth. Bowood beckons for the rest of the month.