July 2000

Well, here we are in the new season and we can all look forward to a summer of big fish. For me, this summer will be an especially happy time as, with my exams over as of June 28th, I can concentrate on my fishing more than I have been of late.

During my exams, I did manage the odd trip to a few stillwaters. First was a local pit I'd been prebaiting with pigeon seed and boilies. I had four carp in two short sessions. The fish weren't huge, but if I get one of the biggies that I've seen in there, then I'll let you know!

5lb 9oz exam break tench!

I paid a Berkshire syndicate that I fish for carp a visit early one morning, to hopefully catch a tench or two and to find out the state of the weed growth so far this summer. The 5lb 9oz tench pictured fell to sweetcorn dipped in Hutchy's Secret Agent and Mega Sense Appeal, fished over trouties and hemp using the lift method. It was my only action of the morning, but I did find a few nice clear gravel spots which I shall fish for carp this summer.

I also popped up to the Gardner Carp Conference to meet a few friends, and had great fun lobbing spods about! The talks were great, in particular Frank Warwick's, which gave me a few tricks to try out this summer. I even won a prize in the raffle! - some Kryston and Korda goodies. The Kryston leadcore will come in handy and I'll review it here in a few months, when I've had a chance to test it out thoroughly.

My first river trip was the traditional outing to the Windrush in Oxfordshire, where I quivertipped flake over hemp and maggots. I worked the swim up nicely and took a nice roach of about 1lb 8oz very early on in the evening, which would have been a good sign had a large pike not attacked it on the retrieve. With all the commotion and a pike now resident in the swim, it was no surprise that I had no further action.

Next up was a rudd session with my dad, Frank, which was also quite frustrating. With huge fish crashing way beyond casting range, we had to be content with a blank, although we'll be back soon to have another go.

While I was at the syndicate, my mate Peter had this 28lb 14oz common!

My plans for the coming few weeks are to have a bit of a go for those rudd, and possibly sneak a big dace or roach from the Windrush. Then I'm off to the syndicate for the start of the carp season on the 14th of July. I'll probably do a few days over there and see if I can start my second season on the lakes a bit better than my first!

For the past few days I've been cleaning out the garage where I keep all my gear, and have been filling my mum's freezer with ready to go hemp, tigers and bollies. I've also bought myself 25kg of trouties, the 3mm micro size, and a few spods and other bits of kit. Cheers to my mate Colin for the use of his brolly this summer, which will be a great help with keeping light and mobile.

Well I'm off to practise my spodding with gravel in the field behind my house, so I'll say goodbye until a few week's time when I'll hopefully be back with news of a big fish!

Tight Lines,

Fred - 2000