Calling into San Francisco for 3 nights on the way home was also very good, Alcatraz especially.
Arriving home on Sunday 17th July we did not have time to get over our ''jet lag'' as we set off to London on the 19th for our youngest daughters graduation, so proud of her.
The remainder of the week saw me sorting my life out and doing some prep for a Super League Practice match on the Huntspill.
The practice match was well attended despite the current mood of the venue, well it's always moody and can be a difficult nut to crack. Most anglers, me included end up chasing those ghostly bream and only the odd angler connects with them.
Lance Tucker was in charge today and he did run a very good match. Sections used were Woolavington Bridge up and down and Withy Grove up and down so good access and not many long walks.
I drew 138 which was upstream of Withy Grove a section I had not fished before but word was there was plenty of roach there. The peg looked quite good when I got there with quite a few small fish topping and what looked like a few blows from the middle across to the far bank.
Set up today as it was a practice was Feeder for all the way across, waggler for the middle and pole at 13 meters.
I will not go anymore technical than that as it was all very simple. Depth was more or less the same all the way across and around foot.
As usual I fed 5 hard ball of ground bait laced with squat, hemp and caster at 13 meters then fed around 8 feeder fulls of chop, squats and caster across.
After that I started on the tip loose feeding the waggler line halfway across. I had a couple of bits on the tip in the first 20 minutes (small rudd) but after that it went quiet. 50 minutes in I was bored so came in on the pole and started to catch small roach. I re-fed and rested this line after 30 minutes giving the waggler a go and had a few small fish on that as well.
The rest of the match was really spent between the waggler and the pole apart from the last 20 minutes on the tip.
I ended up with 1kg 450grms for around halfway in the Section. On reflection i wish I had stuck to either the pole or the waggler all match. The Section was won by Martin Barrett with 6 kgs of waggler caught silvers. 3 kg odd was second.
Overall Kev Rowles won with 8 kg of bream, Clive Branson was second with 7 kgs on the waggler and Martins 6 kgs was good enough for third.
We have the pleasure of Calum Dicks fishing for us in the last three matches and he is giving us some coaching tomorrow night so looking forward to that.
The following day I went on the River Kenn for a 3.5 hour session in the afternoon as my car is getting repaired this week after some twat keyed it while I was fishing a Bristol City Docks Match.
I settled in on peg 22 and fished the pole at 13 meters, with a 1.5 gram float using double caster on the hook over Sensas Roach and Brown Crumb with left over squat, hemp and caster from Sunday. It was a great short session with a mid double figure bag of mainly quality roach and a couple of hybrids.
Great to see the roach showing now.
So.... it's good to be back and looking forward to sunday on the ''spill''.
