Returning from Torquay I managed to get out once before leaving for China, armed with a spare no 6 section(I have several old poles of the same make so I have spares!)I revisited Crookwood descending on peg 21. Once more I took just pellets and paste – a red and yellow mix with the jellyfish powder. The idea was to fish until the paste ran out- about 3hours. It was hard but I managed to sneak out 5 skimmers, best 2-10, 2 carp a tench and a solitary roach for around 10lb. Tackle was as previous visits.

Monday 28th morning sees me catch a bus to Chippenham, hop on a coach to Heathrow, take a flight to Beijing, have a couple of hours before taking plane to Shenzhen to be met by Gareth and then a taxi ride to Zhongshan arriving at approx 10pm Tuesday!

Wednesday sees Gareth in work so Wendy looked after me and dropped me off with some tackle to go fishing on the river near the apartment while she went to a yoga class for an hour. I was directed by Gareth to fish the high wall in the trees at the back of the sports court that we had fished before.

Now fishing from a 10 foot drop with a 3m whip is not ideal but the overhanging trees ,made anything else difficult but the shade was welcome in the 35C heat. Worm on the hook, depth approx one foot I missed the first bite but then had a small tilapia.

The hour passed quickly with 13 tilapia coming to hand but a larger tilapia was hooked but couldn’t be lifted by the whip, so hand lining up the wall it flipped and came off the barbless hook. While there a guy came along with a reel strapped to his wrist and went past a couple of meters and cast out a heavy spinner, only to hook a white trout of about 8oz that he gave to me but I returned it. Looking at the area close to the bridge there was a large shoal of I am assuming trout cruising around about 20m out. Oh for waggler I thought!

Thursday 1st October, start of the national holiday, Gareth takes me down to the river at 6:30am before it got too hot, to a new area upstream from the apartment. Again fishing 3m whips the depth was about 3 feet so more water to search!I had a climbing perch and 2 bleak with Gareth getting a climbing perch and a bleak, he spent time fishing the margins where bubbles were appearing but no joy!

Yes the bleak are big!!

That afternoon we went to the grass carp lake for about 3.5 hours. I was fishing a 7m whip, Gareth an 8.2m I had plenty of bobs but no definite bites. Gareth however had two grass carp by the end which were weighed in as 4 jin (1jin=500g), this was important as the fisheries here allow you to take the fish away but will buy back any fish caught by weight. Most anglers seem to take this route and get money back on the day ticket. It should be said that we used some interesting electronic floats that changed colour to red when a fish was touching the bait – we could not work out how they worked but they did!Also interesting was the use of old tyres as a rest for the whip, simply put the butt of the whip inside the tyre and rest the whip on the top.

Friday 2nd sees thunderstorms hit Zhongshan so Gareth takes me to an indoor fishery that had shrimp fishing in one area and tilapia fishing in another concrete pound. Given a 1.5m very light whip with the standard two hook rig but with a string of polyfloats as indicator. Very weird but interesting, sounds like hook a duck but trust me it was anything but. In the time allotted I managed 3 tilapia including a rainbow variety and lost 5 to hook pulls as they were not docile fish by any stretch of the imagination. Weight was approx 4lb in total.

That evening we returned to the grass carp lake fishing 7:30 to 11:30pm which produced 13 “red” indications and one missed bite! Was very humid 30c but felt like 36C according to the weather app.

Saturday 3rd Severe thunderstorms again with most lakes closed and very hot and humid. We headed off to Nanlan where I had never caught a fish despite numerous bites, however this time we were going to fish a freshwater lake at the end of the complex- lake 3 in the picture.

Now it has to be said that there were 30 anglers on the lake but only 3 proper fish caught, we did scratch to avoid a blank and by fishing in the margin with worm and slowly lifting the bait I broke my duck with a tilapia and Gareth snared two.

Four days left for fishing before returning will I catch a decent fish?