March arrives and it is not until the 6th that I am able to get to Bowood arriving at peg 10 with a frost on the ground, air temperature of -1C and fog! I was ready to fish by 9 and continued to 12:30, the fog eventually lifted and the day turned very warm and sunny, however the water was highly coloured with a max of 3 inches clarity. Anyway the usual set up was in place and by 10 am I had one micro perch that dropped off! There were two others in the top field and another regular, Bob, turned up and went on 9 as he assumed the other two had gone on the other bank and had been planning on going to the top field. While chatting the float started going against the tow, a strike and a solid resistance followed by a goodly amount of elastic came out. Unshipping slowly I finally put the net under a 3-08 bream hooked in the pectoral! I had a small bream of 1-12, five roach, 3 skimmers/blades and 6 rudd for a final total of 6-10.

With the close of Bowood approaching – it keeps the same close season as the rivers- I went on the last Sunday, thinking it would be busy, how wrong I was- I had the lake to myself! Back on 10 with the usual approach I managed to get another bream of 3-06, a tench of 3-00, 25 rudd, 4 roach and 3 skimmers for a 7-12 total.

However there was a point when I quickly unshipped the pole as the pike float bobbed and started to go then stopped. On finally retrieving the bait I find there was a piece of flesh cut out with almost surgical precision less than 5mm from my top hook.

There have been no reports of crayfish in the 10 years I have been going to Bowood and I have never seen one there. Showing the picture to Jackie in TK Tackle she was bemused at first but came up with the possibility of it being a catfish. The lake was design and built by Capability Brown and many of his lakes at that time had carp and catfish introduced, it is quite feasible that some offspring of the original fish may still be in the water as 80% of it is not fished. A thought to ponder!

I decided to go on the Wednesday and leave the last day of the season alone! Bowood 10 was the peg again but the wind was blowing very hard and the water had got very coloured with a couple of heavy overnight downpours. I started at 9 but packed up at 11:30 having to fish the last hour or so just using the top two of the pole as the wind was extreme. Seven roach, twelve rudd and seven blades finished my season for 1-03.

To review the season – I have again succumbed to peg 10 during the autumn and winter due to it being the deepest area and with bait going in it does hold the fish (possibly!). Anyway the initial outlay for a Bowood ticket of £205 may appear expensive but given it is only 3 minutes from door to gate it is convenient plus the 55 visits I made means each outing cost me £3.93 so it is financially worthwhile.

I netted 555lb 5oz of visit making an average of just over 10lb a visit. That breaks down in the following way Pike 17 caught for 168-05, seven over 10lb (18-11,17-06,14-04, 14-04, 13-00, 1`2-04 and 11-13), Tench 13 caught for 51-15, the best 5-06 with 6 between 4 and 5lb and 6 between 3 and 4lb, there were 82 bream weighed the best being 5-00 with five between 4 and 5lb, 35 between 3 and 4lb, 32 from 2 to 3lb and 9 from 1 to 2lb for a total of 234lb. That leaves 101-01 of other fish. I made 25 fewer visits this season, partly down to spending more time on matches and Gareth dragging me to the canal or river!

Who knows what next season will bring, if it follows the usual Bowood cycle it will be a tench year with few bream!