School holidays.....

The kids broke up for Easter last Friday and I've been too busy to get on the bank since. I've had one session since my last update, a failed attempt for pike on a new still water. Nothing of note to report from the session, a difficult session in horrible weather conditions. No pike were landed, 3 pike anglers, 3 blanks. The water holds a decent head of pike to upper doubles and as it is only a 45 minute drive from home it is another option for later in the year when the rivers are up.

The water also holds a good head of bream, carp and tench that are larger than my bests, as well as reportedly holding eels to a good size. I'm hoping to spend some time on this water over the coming months.

By not spending any time on the bank, it's given me the opportunity to have an overdue end of season spring clean. The braid on my pike reels has been reversed, a punctured barrow wheel has been repaired, waders repaired, winter bib and brace cleaned, new line for tench fishing bought, and a few odds and ends found that I have no use for (which will eventually up on eBay).

I've been doing some preparation for a mini tench campaign, probably no more than half a dozen sessions before the rivers open. I bagged a bargain pod from eBay because the seller listed it as a 'Solor' pod, found some cheap alarms, some decent indicators, narrowed the rigs/methods down I'll be using and have starting to think about bait.

The methods I'm planning to use are an inline maggot feeder, scaled down carp tactics with small boilies and the method feeder. I'll also do some float fishing in the margins. I have a few waters to target where I stand a good chance of catching a few fish and one water in particular where I could possibly catch a new best. The tench in that water go over 8lb, not particularly massive to the lads fishing down south but an 8lber would be a fish of a lifetime for most lads up north. The biggest tench I have seen on the bank is my best, a fish of 6 pound.

My best tench, should any like this grace my net this season I will be more than pleased.

In the next week or two I will be having a go at making some 10/12mm boilies, probably sweetcorn and crushed hemp. I've watched a couple of YouTube videos and bought a few ingredients, it seems easy enough and will be more cost effective than paying the £10 per kilo most shop bought boilies cost.

Even though I haven't wet a line for over a week, I'm not climbing the walls yet. I am looking forward to my next session on Wednesday though, which will also probably be my last pike session until autumn. Weather permitting I will be heading over to the Lake District for the day, checking the weather forecast (daily) I think should be ok, but I have a backup venue just in case as conditions over there are hard to predict.