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.