I had the opportunity to get to Bowood a couple of times before the Pellet Guys Pairs at Makins, so Monday 24th sees me trudge down the field, now occupied by sheep, to Peg 1. The colour had dropped considerably but there was still sufficient for me to give it a go. Shadows moving through the water gave a big hint that the colour would soon be gone but I set up as previously and introduced two cups of loose groundbait with some wheat and about 5-6 pieces of corn. Starting at 8:45 I fished through until 11:45 and things did not look good at small rudd were attacking the corn and their slightly bigger brethren were taking it. Eventually I had a bream of 3-08 followed by further ones of 3-10, 3-02, 3-06, 4-01, 3-06 and 3-02 together with 9 rudd, a small skimmer and a roach this gave me a 25-07 total.

I had brought the rake with me and intended to prepare some swims as Peg 1 would no longer produce with the colour dropping out. To my horror Peg 3 was gone, the posts were there but the platform boards had gone and the access was blocked by reeds! Moving up to peg 4 I was pleased to see it had a good colour and after putting the rake through a couple of times for minimal weed I decided raking would not be necessary for the other swims.

Next day I was back at Bowood, this time at peg 4 and fished 8:50 to 11:20 by which time it was getting very hot and I called it a day. The session was another that you dream about, apart from16 bream I also had a tench of 4-15 and a pike of 5-01 that took a fancy to the corn, combined with 8 rudd a roach and two small skimmers I surpassed the 50lb mark again with 56-06. Groundbait was cupped in loose again but this time I used a 0.5g Chianti style homemade float. Over the five sessions in June I have averaged over 49lb but only used half a tin of corn and a litre of wheat.

So Friday sees me travel up to Makins Fishery, just outside Nuneaton for the Pellet Guys Pairs two dayer. The format is simple in that the pairs are drawn so that there is a Makins regular teamed up with an MFS angler, the Makins anglers are on three lakes and the MFS on a separate three lakes with each lake treated as a section so the pair with the lowest points win after two days. Day one and I draw peg 30 on Lizard which is a nice short walk from the car!

From left to right – left margin, front of peg and right margin. The margin on the left was deep over 3 feet and sloping out sharply, the right margin was a lot shallower but still with a slope. I planned on two areas in front the first at 10m and the second at 2+2 plus the margins, I also set up a shallow rig which went unused! Starting on the short line in 5-6ft of water on 4mm meat feeding meat and 4mm pellets I could only get a couple of roach and one solitary carp when I tried corn over it there was no joy either. The 10m line produced a roach so I ended up looking at the margins, apart from one carp from the right, all my fish came from the left one. Unfortunately the only area I could get interest was very close to the tree which had roots into the water I ended up being snapped 4 times by fish going into the roots despite being on 0.20mm and lost a further two to hook pulls. I did manage to extract eight carp including a koi close to double figures and weighed in 36-10 for joint 5th on the lake, beating the anglers near me.

Day two sees me draw peg 10 on Severn.

The margins looked featureless and on plumbing up were very sharply sloping with no flat spots and about three feet deep. The weather was very sunny and hot and although the point of the island was crying out for me to put a method feeder there I didn’t feel as it would be that productive in the hot weather as the fish were high in the water and were looking as if they may be getting ready to spawn again. Same set ups as previously and the 2+2 line only produce a few twitches before a two pound carp came to the net and that is how it stayed until the last hour of the six hour match. Despite making changes and trying the margins plus straight lead there was no joy apart from two hook pulls and being snapped on the paste by a good fish when I think the lane caught on the jagged dorsal fin. Fish were coming in to the left hand margin but were spooked if they touched the line or each other! Straight lead down the margin with a longish tail produced one liner and that was it. I was now in desperation mode so I cupped in 3 cups of loose groundbait and a cup of micros and began to put 10 4mm pellets in every few minutes. This began to get the fish wait longer and by the weigh in I had somehow managed to get 24-10 which put me 8th on the lake. To put it in context, the angler on my right who had tried the island tipped back as he reckoned he had just over 20lb and the one on my left weighed in 26-08, so I felt I had not done as badly as I feared, just that area was the worst on the lake on that day. Needless to say we came nowhere as a pair!

July beckons with the arrival of Gareth et al for a couple of weeks, so Bowood will be on the agenda.