August is traditionally a month where there is good weather and plenty of fish to be caught- right? – I wish! August so far has been a real mishmash – let me run down my August to date (matches first).

Aug 1st Angling Trust Individual Championships- Gloucester Canal, red hot sunny day, gin clear canal (albeit 15 foot deep) weeded margins up to 7m out (7ft deep straight down the side), lonnnggg walk.  3 bites – 3 fish for 0.080kg (2 perch, 1 blade)

Aug 8th Angling Trust Division 1 National Championships – Gloucester Canal (as above in all aspects) 3 bites – 3 fish 1.800kg (a bream of a kilo after 1hour 45 minutes, a tiny blade 5 minutes later and a hybrid of about a pound with 15minutes to go!) Result – 19 points, but at least team stayed up in Div 1!

Aug 16th Match fishing Scene (MFS) match art Weirwood Reservoir in Sussex (2.5 – 3 hour car trip), flat calm reservoir clear sunny conditions (needed a wind!) 7-14 of skimmers on the tip at 40m. A pleasant day day out in good company.

Then there is Bowood!

Visit 1 Peg 4 – the shallow end of the lake had got very weedy and almost unfishable so I had taken a rake along and cleared an area up to 10m out in pegs 4, 5 and 6. I then set up in my usual fashion on peg 4 and caught the grand total of  1lb made up of a few roach/blades taken on maggot to avoid a blank!

Visit 2 Peg 8 – After the shallow end fiasco I moved further up the field and started with 4 balls of groundbait followed by loose fed wheat every 5-10mins. This usually takes 40min- 1hour before the fish respond but I had to work hard to end up with a Tench of 3-14 and two bream of 4-0 and 3-9 plus some smaller skimmers for a 17 08 total.

Visit 3 Peg 8 – Decided to stick with the peg to see if fish had moved in or not. Was a frustrating time as the large weed bed on the right of the swim saw 3 tench find the bed and throw the hook (Lost Tench), however I did manage to get bream of 4- 8 (Bream ),and tench of 3-14 and 3-12 safely into the net with smaller samples for a total of 16-08. I had been experimenting with my shotting pattern given the weed and had settled on the bulk about 18inches from the hook with a second mini-bulk of 2 no 8 shot 4 inches from the hook. I had also changed to a heavier homemade 1g pencil float rather than my lighter 0.5g models  to see if that would counter the weed better. I videoed some of this session and the yellow tip could be seen for a change on the video. This led me to experiment with a flouro green tip with a1g body down homemade float in the following trips to see if the tip was more visible.

Visit 4 Peg 8 – this was a very short evening session and was done in heavy wind and driving rain, to cut a long story short, 1 tench 3-6 and some skimmers for 7-08

Visit 5 – Peg 9 – Moved along again to try the green topped float. Began with 4 balls of groundbait and lost an early fish, possibly a large skimmer, on corn then had to work hard to get 13-0 made up of bream 2-12, tench of 4-6 and 3-10 plus 3 further tench lost in weed bed. Green float was very visible to eye but cannot be seen on camera! The 3-10 tench was caught on camera and led me a merry dance, going into the pads around the platform. Have realised that I need to angle the camera down more in future!

Will see how the remainder of the month goes- MFS match at Ardingley and last of Summer League at Horcott, plus more Bowood!

July has been a busy month and with holidays and various other matches I have only been able to visit 3 times. The first visit was to the same peg (peg 5) and resulted in several bream to 4-4 and a tench of 3-12 for a total of 37-14. The next visit was a week later and peg 4 where the weed had really taken hold- a frustrating short session resulted in tench 4-4, 3-4, 3-3, bream 4-2 for a 19-14 total but also saw mew lose 5 good tench in the weed.

I only had one further opportunity for a short session in July and fished peg 6 which by now was very weedy (must take a rake next time) and I decided to try filming some action!

Bream 4 13  short version

Tench 4 1 

longer clip of tench

August should give me the time to get a few visits in and have a good go at achieving some of my targets.

Have been a bit busy lately so not been blogging. Various matches have come and gone, some with success others not! June 16th has always been a special day in the past with the end of the close season (as was), Bowood still retains the close season so it was with some excitement and trepidation that I approached my first visits to Bowood a few days after the 16th.

I was surprised to find that there were only a couple of anglers present, one on the opposite bank, well up from where I intended fishing and the other not visible, presumably in the top swims. Based on last year I decided to fish the shallows and picked the third peg into the main field.

Plumbing up I found just about 2 feet of water with some weed visible under the surface.I found a clear patch and attacked it with 6 balls of groundbait and a liberal helping of wheat. I had set up the pole with a hollow elastic rated as 10-12, a homemade float taking 3 no 6 shot and 0.16 main line straight through to a size 16 Kamasan 911 hook (I was not in the mood to take any prisoners!) Hook bait was a single kernel of sweetcorn.

A slow start with few indications suggested that there were bigger fish in the area (or pike) so it was going to be a waiting game, after about 40 minutes the float dipped and then slid away – a bream of 3-12 soon lay in my landing net. Loose feeding a few grains of wheat every couple of minutes saw me steadily catch skimmers around the pound mark until the last cast saw me land a bream of exactly 4 lbs which brought my weight up to 23-5. A pleasing few hours fishing with no disturbance apart from the fledgling crows in the trees opposite constantly cawing to be fed!

A couple of days later saw me back to fish the same swim, same tackle and same approach but this time it was a real struggle. The weather had got very warm and I could see the black shapes of the bream moving through the shallow water but after an hour and a half all I had to show was 3 small “blades” for about 5ozs. Then the float lifted and slid away, lifting into the bite I was met with a solid resistance from a large fish that powered off towards the far bank, side strain turned it and there was a huge swirl in the water where the fish turned, after a coupler of minutes I had my first glimpse of the fish as it leaped clear of the water – a pike about 9lbs. It became obvious after a while that I had foul hooked it in the tail and following two further tail walking episodes and a 10 minute fight I finally had my first pike of the season in the net. The hook was firmly hooked in the tail and the fish took the scales down to 8-4.

.Next put in saw me get another bite which resulted in a bream of exactly 4lb. The next couple of hours saw me get the odd skimmer up to 2lb but the stream of bubbles that kept erupting after the small fish scattered across the surface told me the swim still had several pike in it. I left them so it with a total weight of 16-10- low by normal standards but better than I thought after the slow start.

It was several days later before I could return, this time at midday and I decided to move further up the field and settled on the fifth peg.

Plumbing up saw a more respectable 3-4feet of water and I set about my usual approach. Forty minutes in I had my first bream, 3-12 followed by some smaller samples before a more powerful fish took the corn and made a bee-line for the weeds. Steady pressure saw the first tench of the season at 3-8 grace my net,the first tench of the season is always special,

and would be followed by two further samples of 3-4 and 2-0 plus several more bream to bring my total to 41-1 after 4 hours.

That was my June at Bowood completed as I already had commitments for the remainder of the month but it was a satisfying start. I try to set myself targets at the start of each season and the ones I set myself for Bowood were to catch (each with a tariff according to the level of difficulty)

A thick fog greeted me on the day of our test fish, car packed with flask food, rucksack/seat and rest of the tackle I made my way to the meeting point. A couple were there before me and we had a quick walk down to take a look at the canal. With the fog beginning to lift we were not happy to see that the colour that had previously been in the canal had gone and you see right across the canal through the gin clear water. Things were not looking good!

When we all arrived I set off and walked about 600 yards up the canal around a bend and stopped in the middle of a straight with hawthorn bushes opposite.

It did not look good when I found I only had about 2 1/2 feet of water at the deepest but I thought I had to give it a go.

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A couple of pinkies were catapulted out and a single red maggot on a 22 to 0.07mm soon joined them in the crystal clear water. To cut a long story short after two hours only two of us remained and I decided to have a walk further down the canal in case it showed any signs of life other than newts and ducks! Half a mile later I decided enough was enough- the water was devoid of anything resembling a fish with the bottom clear all across and of a similar depth, no where near the 4 1/2 feet we had been told. Apart from disturbing a couple of water voles there was no activity and the most telling thing was that there was no sign of any kingfishers. In this area, if there are fish, there are kingfishers in residence. Walking back I packed my stuff up and made my way back constantly looking for a sign of a fish – nado!

As a water it was ideal apart from the depth and no fish!

The club I belong to has been offered a stretch of newly refurbished disused canal. No information is available other than the owner thinks there are fish in it as a heron is often seen on the water! We have been invited to do a test fish in a couple of days time and I thought this may be an opportunity to look at how a new unknown water can be approached.

We had previously walked the length with the owner and in most parts it is between 10 and 13m wide with some colour in the water. The water has been in existence for 18 years but it is only recently that work has taken place to dig out the reeds that covered it and create a depth of approximately 4 and a half feet down the channel. No sign of fish when we walked the length but it was a cold February day when we did so.

My experience of similar waters has led me to adopt a different approach to the rest of the members who will turn up for the test fish – I am guessing they will turn up with their usual match gear and fish a pole or whip. On these unfished waters the disturbance on the bank plus having a pole over their heads can send any fish away to find shelter. So my plan is to take my trusty haversack seat, a few essentials in a plastic tub, a net bag, bucket with small box of maggots and one of pinkies and a little groundbait, oh and a few slices of bread; this will be teamed up with an 11ft Silstar Ian Heaps canal rod and landing net. I will let the others go first and then decide whether to walk to the far end of the stretch or stay at the near end where there is a wider section and the canal is blocked off. The groundbait will only be used as a last resort with loose feeding pinkies being my main line of attack.

We will see in a couple of days if the plan works! (or if there are any fish in there!)

One of the things I have been trying over the last two seasons is the use of wheat as an alternative loose feed. I bought a sack (25kg) for about £14 including delivery (would have been less than half if I could have picked it up!) and after two seasons I still have half a sack left! So what myths and  questions arise with wheat, as it is not a common bait.

1. Preparation – there are a lot of myths and legends but preparing wheat can be very easy if you are able to boil a kettle (more later in a separate blog with pictures on how to prepare it!)

2. Storage – “it doesn’t freeze well”, I keep being told – wrong! If prepared sensibly it freezes well and can be used on several trips if placed back in the freezer.

3. “It is easy to over feed it” – so is any bait!

4.”It is mainly for pre-baiting for bream or roach fishing” – it can be used in those ways but I have caught carp, bream, tench, roach, rudd, gudgeon, chub, dace and perch on wheat !

Preparation I will deal with as previously stated. Some people swear by stewed wheat, I have had plenty of success with my method but I will at some point try some stewed just to see the difference.

Storage – I put approximately 2 pints of prepared wheat into a large freezer bag and seal- the key with this is that the wheat needs to be damp/wet and the sealing takes most of the air out of the bag. A bag can last me 2-3 sessions and is resealed and put  back in the freezer each time. I simply take the bag out the day before or sometimes on the morning I am going.

Feeding – I will loose feed about 6-10 grains every couple of minutes If I am after anything that swims, if i am targeting bream, tench or carp I will put in the equivalent of a large pole pot (250ml) and spread it  in a line  over a metre or so, then loose feed 10-20 grains every 5minutes or so.

Hooking  – I will start off with a single grain on an 18 or 16 hook. The way I hook the grain is by the thicker end so the point of the hook comes out on the side the kernel is split on. If I suspect there are bigger fish present I will go up to a size 14 with 2 grains.

Venues – I have used wheat on all types of waters- canals, rivers, commercials, natural lakes and have always had a response from fish – they like it even if some people think they don’t!

Sometimes it is worth trying something different- you may be pleasantly surprised!

(When I do my next lot of wheat for the freezer I will do a follow up blog with pictures so you can see how easy it is!)