All at Sixes and Sevens

Well my quest for a big northwest tench continues. I'm making progress, it has to be said, but that progress is oh-so-slow. My run of males has come to an end and I've started picking up some female fish. As you might expect they are a good bit heavier than the males and I've just heard that the water record has recently been broken again - not by me though.

I'm just not getting the fish shoaled up. It doesn't seem to matter whether I feed heavy or feed light, I only get one or two bites a session and the bites always seem to come just before I'm due to head home. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I'm fishing the same times every day, sometimes I leave early and sometimes I leave late but the fish always come in the last half hour of the session. I stayed until dark last night and picked up my only fish of the session at half past ten, with the light well on its way. The bobbins hadn't moved all day and I only had a couple of line bites shortly before I caught the fish so it was probably that fish that caused them. I stayed on for another half hour, packing up in the dark but never got another indication.

I'm feeding maggots and casters at the moment with a third rod out fishing method at range. the method rod is picking up the odd bonus fish and I'm catching with corn, lobworm or caster on the hook. I've had four fish since my last report but nothing big, all sixes and sevens with the biggest a nice fish of 7lb 13oz. The water and the weather are still cold and I expect they won't spawn for a couple of weeks yet so the chances of a big fish are still high.

While I'm waiting for bites I've been creeping up on some of the bird life and trying to get a good picture. It's not easy without specialist gear but I'm quite pleased with my pic of a yellowhammer.