Fishing wise since my last blog my matches have been pretty dire to be honest. It started off with the South Wales Summer league match at Cefn Mably. I drew willows which was the old stock pond and was suppose to be full of F1s. I drew at the top of the lake by the car park with the wind coming off my back on a scorching hot day. This turned out to be the wrong end of the lake and I ended up with half a dozen F1s from down the edge for no where! A horrible day if truth be know and I couldn't wait to get in the car and get the hell out of there! It fished difficult all over and there was even a couple of blanks. Those who did have a few fish in front of them must have had a great day though. But sadly it was one to forget for me!
Following that match it was back on Hartleton for the same league as above I drew in the field which I was pleased with at the time.
My Jona run of luck though saw the field fish the hardest of all and a couple of skimmers for a mid section finish was all I could muster out.
The final match before I headed off to Madeira was my first team match for Browning West Midlands in an Evesham Team Qualifier on the Avon.
Was really looking forward to this one as was the first time to meet the new team mates and it was a chance to qualify for the Evesham Festival.
Captain for the day Dave Ward drew and said we got 4 good draws and one terrible one. Guess who was on the terrible one.....you guessed it me! Peg 59 was my destination and looking at the board, 6oz had come off there the day before and a DNW the week previous to that so the signs were not good!
Still got to go there positive so of we went and set up the usual Evesham weapons of a 6g flat float, 5g Sensas float on a 13m line for running through, one for down the edge for perch and a feeder rod.
Whilst I was on holidays I read the fantastic book the best of Barlow and Frank even gives this peg a mention in that as being "One of the worst cesspits known to man". I nearly fell off my sunbed laughing when I read that casting my mind back to this match. Anyway after 2 hours I hadn't had a bite, not an indication, not a sucked maggot nothing what so ever so was starting to panic!
It was pretty obvious there was no Roach in the main flow despite regular feeder nor could I snaffle an Eel on the flatty so I went scratching just to try and put a few fish in the net. I somehow managed to winkle out 12oz of small perch on the worm but was sadly as good as it got for me.
Team wise we were 6 points off qualifying with a mixed bag of results, Ken Roberson framed though and as they share the winnings there was a few beer tokens to take back to Wales.