A slow start to the month mainly caused by various health appointments, visits from friends and various jobs I had been putting off! As I write this my new passport has just arrived prompted by the impending election (although my bus pass would do) and Gareth’s short trip from China to Jurassic Fishing Lakes in Thailand.

Gareth and family arrived at the lakes on the Thursday evening, fished all day Friday and half a day Saturday before leaving for China. So they draw for choice of pegs on the day before so there is no mad scramble for the “best” areas and Gareth ended up on peg 14 both days. On the Friday he missed a run second cast and then finally latched into a Siamese carp that went 50lb.

Things went a bit quiet as the day got hotter and it was Wendy, Gareth’s wife, that talked him into buying chicken hearts to try. Chicken hearts delivered a whole kilo of them were deposited into the margin and two put on the hook, ten minutes later and a run produces a 85lb carp, ten minutes after resuming it goes again with another at 95lb and a bit later one of 105lb.

He also had a run on the predator rod that resulted in his mackerel being bitten clean in half. Day 2 sees him back at the same peg which again produced, this time a 95lb carp and a 20lb Chao Praya catfish with seven missed runs, probably off the catfish before they had to leave.

Anyway back to more normal sized fish! With the Monkhall festival approaching I decided to make my way there to finalise arrangements and to have a short session on Owl pool which I had not fished before. I decided to limit myself to testing two areas and baits – paste and expander in the margin and at 8m. Feeding micros the long swim was soon fizzing and the 0.16mm line was teamed with a size 14 hook for both paste and margin. First discovery was that there are too many fish in my swim! I was getting constant nudges/liners and the first 4 fish hooked were foul hooked, second discovery was that the new 2mm elastic I was trying was perfect if the fish were lip hooked but was definitely undergunned if foulhooked .

I persevered and ended up with a clutch of F1s up to 2-12 and a few carp plus 10 tench, but at least now I had an idea of what tackle and bait I needed! The time before the event will be preparing the paperwork and tackle plus slotting in a three day trip to Yorkshire!