A Summing up of my year.

Well with the Xmas Dinner soon to be under way with us skipping the traditional Roast for a nice juicy piece of Rump Steak" I thought I would do a quick summing up of my year on the bank after ripping through the presents in the hope of adding more kit to my armoury only to find the usual array of smelly's , boxers and the bonus' present of a Muppet Show Onesy" which I cant see myself wearing on the bank in the near future..??

I've had quite eventful year on the bank, fishing a variety of venues and different methods, I never really been a fan of accumulating massive weights of fish and much prefer to chose venues that usually produce close overall weights at different times of the year. In the early part of the last after the viaducts teams of Five I started off with the Acorn individual league, After A disaster in the first round mainly down to the gale force winds I was pleased to end up Finishing joint 2nd overall missing out by just one fish at the end of the league, A lot of the fishing was small expanders or maggot on the long pole and a method that seems to suit my style of fishing.

 

Further on in the year when the weather warmed up I really enjoyed fish the meat on the short pole as I have found once the fish take a liking to it the swim often just gets better' And most of the time the bites are un-missible!.

Going back to my routes before most of these commercials were even heard of to the River Huntspill for the Somerset Super League was a good change of scenery and although it wasn't that productive for me a change to a natural venue made a welcome change, I have always had a good record on the venue for catching some decent weight building nets of EELS' but the biggest mistake I made was to try and fish for them to far out' As everyone knows with this venue on the Somerset levels it can look spot on when you tackle-up but can have some big waves on it at anytime" so a lesson learned there.

 

 

Ending the year taking part in the Viaduct Silvers league along with my own silvers league on Emerald Pools again made a change from catching battling Carp'. I felt I did ok at the first attempt at Viaduct but losing fish late in the day on most matches cost me dearly, Something that I will be hoping to adjust in the future but it showed I must be doing something write to get them in my swim in the first place?.

Emerald pool failed to produce the expected silvers weights of last year but nevertheless with careful feeding it proved there were fish to be caught and to finish the year taking the league was a nice end to quite an eventful calendar.

 Going back through my year in total I have fished 82 matches picking -up money in 37 of them so nearly a fifty present record collecting a total of £1987.00 , It doesn't sound a massive amount but if I was to put it all in a jar to collect just before Christmas it would be very welcome! To be fair I have fished a number of cost cutter matches this year and although being popular in numbers you cant go with the hope of adding much to you wallet but I tend to use them more of a learning day under match conditions. As you can tell I tend to stick to just a few patterns of pole floats simply because I believe you can get used to reading a float and making it work for you, I cant remember the last time I didn't work my rig' to induce more bites so getting used a float certainly helps. Well with the new year on the horizon the popular teams of 5 starts soon which is well attended so some nice draws will be hoped for' as well as it being a time on canal lakes I enjoy weather permitting? So good luck to all.