December must be my least favourite month for fishing, partly because I do not get out as much as I would like due to family commitments plus when I am free the weather tends to be inhospitable! This year is no exception, what with various storms creating havoc, Christmas preparations and family visits I have been reduced to two short sessions.

Session 1 was at peg 10, of course you say!, but even then it was a latish start with the pike rod going out at 10:05 and the pole following at 10:15. The very cold wind and no runs on the pike rod meant this session ended at 12:15 with the staggering total of 5 bites, a roach and two small skimmers/blades for 4oz plus two minuscule fish that dropped off on the way in, probably just holding on to the maggot! Storm Darragh hit the next day!

Session two was on the Monday following the storm and it had uprooted a tree that had fallen across the road at Bowood, but had been quickly dealt with by the estate workers to keep access clear. I had decided I needed to get some action so tackled peg 1 on the Pondtail with a 4.5m chinese whip and rig. Feeding small marbles of groundbait and loose feeding half a dozen grains of wheat every few minutes saw me get plenty of bites on maggot and then wheat with 36 roach and 4 perch coming to the net for a 4-04 total. The remnants of the storm made the fishing difficult for the two hour session with it being very cold and windy with showers off and on throughout the session.

That was my last chance as a trip to Yorkshire then intervened along with Christmas preps!

Sunday 15th saw me arrive at Bowood to try and shake off the effects of the Glebe! Fishing from 9:45 to 12:15 on peg 10 saw me start with the bulk set about eight inches from the 16 hook under a home made teardrop float taking 0.6g over two balls of groundbait laced with a bit of wheat and corn. Things were not frantic fishing my usual 10m and I scratched out 9 rudd, 6 roach and a hybrid for a 4-02 which gives an indication of the size I was catching!

I returned on the Tuesday to peg 10 and fishing the same way managed 28 rudd and 6 roach for 3-15, emphasising the quality of the fish on the Sunday! There was a lot of pike activity with the odd blank period when I am sure one was lying in wait in the swim. As an aside I had bought some Chinese jelly “pellets” in a variety of flavours and I tried the honey flavoured one which was a sweetcorn colour and caught on it!

The flavours minus the Honey left to right are Herb, Fruit, Milk and Fish!

Nothing further was possible as the three day event at Monkhall drew close. I was a running the event but in all honesty I had/have no illusions of me being anything but pools fodder making up the numbers. The methods at the venue are usually fishing shallow with casters, a method I do not enjoy and cannot afford to do with a gallon needed over the 3 days! Given my comments about pools fodder I approach these matches as an opportunity to fish a different venue but use methods I am comfortable with- ie fishing to my strengths.

Day 1 sees me draw Swallow peg 17, on a positive note, the day stayed dry, but the wind we had once the match started was blowing down the other end the lake starting two pegs away, so I had no ripple at all.

Yes I was end peg with plenty of room! The four rigs I set up were a paste rig for 2+2, a pellet rig for on the deck, an on the drop full depth rig and a margin rig for both edges. Elastics were 2.2mm hybrid Chinese ones with rigs mainly 0.16 to 0.14mm with hooks 16 apart from the margin and paste which were 14 and 12 respectively. No groundbait allowed so corn, paste, micros, 4mm, expanders and three week old maggots were the baits of choice! Starting at 2+2 on paste and potting in some micros it took about 10 minutes before I had a bite that resulted ion a carp of about 4lb hooked in the tail- at this point the alarm bells should have been ringing! After the first hour I had clicked 11lb and then things went to pot (literally). To cut a long story short I weighed in 23-13 after long blank spells interspersed with 14 fish hooked- all foul hooked- and 14 fish lost! My worst day at the venue and last in four peg section ! I was not alone as Herbie was opposite me and suffered a similar fate getting only one carp and a few silvers.

On to day two everyone wanted to draw Buzzard rather than Hawk, so with two discs left in the bag, Buzzard was pulled out leaving me peg 3 on Hawk! The photos are deceiving as later in rained!

Setting up same as previously except I went down to the 2mm Chinese hybrid elastic I started fast with three carp in the net for 8lb before anyone else had a fish , then disaster I bumped a fish and they disappeared Fishing out at 10m, 2+2 or margins resulted in the same thing – frustration. I was getting bites, some may have been liners but some were definite bites all of which were missed in the next 3 hours. I did manage to get a couple of fish in the net for a 26-09 total which left me last again, but on the positive side I only lost 4 foul hookers!

So the final day I was scheduled to be on Owl as we had Swallow and Owl on the first and third day, so we always swap to fish the other lake from day 1. I drew Owl 9 which if you recall from a previous blog I had fished in a practice session earlier in the year! (no photos this time!) It was the worst of the three days with one carp in the net after an hour and at times I could not buy a bite. I lost 7 foul hookers and weighed in 20-07 for last again. The overall winner had a perfect score of three points but he did have an advantage- he was next to me on all three days!

Returning home I was convinced that I had made a major blunder with the addition of the micros as it seemed that too many fish were drawn in to the peg and rooting about causing the foul hookers and liners. Reading my blog from previous visits I gave myself a good telling off as I had made the point previously that 4mm were better at avoiding foul hookers although others were using micros at times and they complained of the same. I must remind myself to reread posts if visiting venues and learn from them!

Sunday sees me head to Bowood to start my pike campaign having picked up a kilo of sardines on the Friday .Peg 10 (of course) looked a bit rough as there was debris all over it. Obviously there had been flooding (the town had also suffered from flooding) but it seemed they had opened the sluice at the far end of the lake to run the excess water off and had not closed it soon enough as the level was about 18inches lower than I expected. I set up slightly differently after ten minutes as I felt the weed might now not be such an issue after the flooding so moved the bulk about two feet up the line leaving two sets of 2 x no9 droppers. Two balls of groundbait but I did not take any wheat with me, instead I had decided to use some of the left over 4mm pellet and also took the expanders. Starting on maggot it was about 20minutes before I had a roach, after 6 more I put on a 4mm expander and apart from one rudd on corn I stuck with the expander for the rest of the session between 9:30 and 12:15 on the pole. I had cast out the pike rod with my newly acquired sardine at 9:15(chimes ringing out from the clock tower) Nd after an hour reeled in to recast to find that the sardine was not there! New sardine attached to my standard two single barbless carp hook rig to 15lb wire and cast out to 12m. Thirty minutes later the pellet waggler I use on a sliding rig disappears, a strike and a feisty pike comes to the net, except the net gets caught on the reeds and an arm comes out, so I have a pike in front of me and no net to use! Slipping the anti-reverse on I put the rod between my legs and sorted the net, picking the rod up again and anti-reverse off I finally get the pike in the net! 8-08 the first of the autumn.

October will see a silvers match at Meadowlands and hopefully more pike action!

Well the second half of the month didn’t get started for a variety of reasons until Wednesday 21st when i traveled down to Witherington Farm on the outskirts of Salisbury to meet up with Clive aka sidestreambob whose write up of the day can be read via the link.

The purpose of the day was to pass on a pole that Tim had asked me to donate to someone as he had been given it and he was not able to make use of it. Clive had never held a pole much less fished with one so it took a bit of persuasion (ie nagging) for him to finally agree to tr it out. I had selected Sellwood as the lake as apart from being reasonably shallow you could usually get the silvers feeding with chances of carp down the margins. Having met up, booked in and got to the selected peg I ran through the basics of putting the pole together, what not to do and attaching rigs. – you can read the details in Clive’s account! Basically the silvers were not playing ball around the lake but after two missed bites and a lost fish Clive hooked into a bream of approx 2lb which he managed to land.

Following on from this he had no more silvers but did manage carp of 5-08, 4-12 and 5-08 on the skimmer rig before moving on to a beefier elastic for the margin. It should be said that the pole did not have a puller bung so it took more time than usual to get the carp in but it is to Clive’s credit that he managed it. The margin produced a few missed bites and a further carp of 7-12.

Various domestic commitments meant that it was not until the following Tuesday that I landed at Bowood on peg 8. Now on arrival there was a breeze blowing left to right and plumbing up found that although I had dragged the swim not so long ago, the weed was still very problematic!. Basically I started at 9:00 and packed up at 11:15 as the breeze had turned into a fierce wind that was causing me all kinds of problems including trying to keep the pole from being dragged around – after the third failed attempt to keep the pole in front of me I gave it best and ended with five roach and two rudd for 1-04 with only one rudd lost. Tactics were my usual ones for Bowood, in fact I have used the same rig for most of the summer! I have mentioned before that Bowood almost has a micro climate and it was certainly in evidence as the wind was non-existent at home which is only 3 minutes away!

Friday 30th sees me at peg 6 at Bowood with a mirror like surface and no wind (until an hour in!). Starting at 8:45 I fished until 11:30 with the usual tactics of loose groundbait, corn, loose fed wheat and maggot on the hook. It took about 10 minutes to get the first indication, that I missed but soon had two roach in the net that were a bigger stamp than earlier in the season. A quiet period resulted in a Polaris type lift of the float and a better fish which turned out to be a bream of exactly 3lb. The mirror like surface was now rippled with, thankfully, a gentle breeze blowing right to left. I was hopeful of more bream but none materialised and I ended with 6 roach and 4 rudd to go with the bream for a 4-08 total. I tried double wheat but it was immediately taken by a tiny rudd so binned that idea.

With September on the doorstep there are two three day events I need to prepare for, the Pairs at the Glebe and Herbie’s festival at Monkhall.

Well I managed to sneak an hour on the Pondtail before the end of July between 9:30 and 10:30 by which time it was too hot for me (I prefer the cold!). Don’t think the fish were enjoying it either as 8 roach and 4 perch for 1-04 on maggot was my lot.

The hot weather continued and it was the Sunday when I went to Boddington for a silvers match I had been invited on by Darren Edgell. The match was pegged on the dam wall but I had not known that and had parked in the usual car park so had to trudge all along the wall to the far side with the kit for the draw which left me on the end peg- peg 5. I had left the whips at home and had taken my Bowood pole and a waggler rod so I decided on a short line, another at about 8m and a waggler line at about 20m, feeding maggot on all three lines with the occasional pouch of wheat. I had set up a rig taking 0.8g bulked a couple of feet from the hook with two droppers to a 16 hook on 0.10mm, plus a BGT2 wire stem in 0.5 fished shirt button style again to a 0.10mm hooklength and 16 hook. The match was a bit stop start, the short line produced a few fish but very slow so I spent most time on the 8m line which was frustrating as I would catch 3 or 4 fish then it would go quiet and Darren who was drawn next to me on peg 6 would catch, I reckoned the shoal was moving back and forth to avoid the attention of pike as every so often there would be a plume of bubbles as the pike cleared it’s gills after a strike. In the quiet periods I eventually turned to the waggler with a slow sinking set up and picked up the odd roach out there. By the end I had amassed 100 roach and 7 perch for 12-12 with most of the fish being smaller than the usual stamp at Boddington. This left me 9th out of the 12 anglers taking part with the majority of the better weights being down the other end of the match length!

The weather was just not conducive to me going fishing so it wasn’t until the Friday that I ventured to Bowood fishing peg 6 from 9:30 to 12:00 The weather had had an effect on the water as the weed growth had sprouted like topsy and I was having difficulty getting a bait down to the bottom. Using my usual tactics and rig with the bulk moved right down to the hook length it was hard going but a bream of 3lb, 3 skimmers,3 roach and 26 rudd for a 6-04 total kept me busy.

A visit to Yorkshire then took out the time until Wednesday14th when I returned to Bowood with the weed rake. I decided to fish peg 10 as that was likely to be less affected by weed but raked pegs 6, 7 and 8 for the future, peg 5 was left as it was very dense! The raking meant I only fished from 10-12 and it was not brilliant with problems always being able to find the clear patches and just 9 rudd and 5 skimmers for 1-13.

Friday 16th sees me travel up to the Glebe for a Maggotdrowers match. I drew well for a change peg 75 on lake 4- the last peg on the lake.However,apart from a short 15minute period the wind was starting at the middle of the lake and blowing down to the other end leaving me with a mirror like surface to fish in the bright sun.

Peg 75 left margin, in front, right margin shown above. I set up 4 rigs a mugging rig (that in the end didn’t get used!), a margin rig with 0.20mm line to a 14 (the left margin being deeper than the right by about 5 inches), a paste rig for the 5m line angled to the right and a bottom rig for the 11m line. I also set up a light bomb rather than a feeder. Due to the bright and very hot conditions I opted to put two balls of groundbait laced with micros and acorn on the 11m mark, one ball with some micros on the paste line, the left margin received a ball plus micos, 4mm and corn while the right margin had a full cup of hemp with a few grains of corn.

Starting on the bomb I cast out towards the aerator with first corn and then 8mm pellet, while firing 6mm out, a couple of plucks from probably roach saw me put the rod up the bank after 20 minutes and look to the 11m line which at this point was fizzing. The float remained motionless! Finally it went under and a 1lb skimmer was in the net. Shipping out I saw a carp cruising over the fizzing area so dropped the corn in front of it, down it went and the float went as well! Soon a carp of 6lb was in the carp net but that was it on the 11m line. The paste line was next and a couple of missed bites and twitches on the float eventually saw a porpoising bream come to the net and that was it! By now I decided to go down the deeper left margin that I had been feeding since the off with loose fed micros alternating with 4mms. After a short time the float went and another bream was netted, in fact it was bream mainly with the odd carp from the left margin with the odd fish coming from the right when resting the left. The highlight was a lump of 12lb from the right margin I ended with losing 4 carp in total, two hook pulls and two that snapped me that I feel were foul-hooked. The scales showed I had 38-08 of bream and 51-00 of carp for a 89-08 total. The peg next tipped back and didn’t weigh in, then 49lb then where the wind started to ripple the surface 125lb, then 95lb then 112lb.

August now is quiet so more Bowood with one trip to Witherington to meet up with sidestreambob.