“With England’s footballers now out of the World Cup after a very disappointing show, footy fans/anglers are cheering themselves up by lining up on the banks at Bury Hill to enjoy some great fishing and of course the sparkling weather that the country is experiencing right now. The smaller lakes, Milton and Bonds are really fishing well with visiting anglers catching crucians and tench in big numbers whilst those targeting hard fighting carp are having some great fun on Bonds lake. The biggest piece of advice I can pass on to our day ticket customers, especially when the conditions are bright and sunny with flat calm conditions, are to seek out the fish by fishing really tight up against the reed lines margins or place an accurate cast up tight against the over hanging features around the islands that run down the middle of the lakes.

Fish will always search for some shade after long spells of sunshine only really coming out to play when the sun disappears behind the trees in the late afternoon. The Old Lake fishes much better early doors when the fishery opens at 7am in the week and 5.30am at weekends and bank holidays but also the last four or five hours of the day when our evening tickets kick in at 5pm do anglers really get some great action in the way of some big carp and bonus tench.

Tench have been feeding well in the margins on the Old Lake and after following some advice and pegs to fish for the tench earlier this week, Colin Dobbs and his pal Mike Henderson both from Basildon in Essex had a great day catching tinca tincas right under their rod tips. After sorting out some bait for them in the onsite tackle shop, I pointed them in the direction of two shady pegs along the front bank where I knew some big tench were holding up and more importantly feeding well. With small balls of green swimstim ground bait cupped gently in the margins, I suggested that both anglers fish slightly over depth using a single piece of sweetcorn on a size 16’s hook to 3lbs hook length and a 4-5lbs mainline. With a small 2AA waggler float flicked just over the top of the feed on a running rod and reel set up both anglers were soon into the tench catching over a dozen between them with the biggest going just over 6lbs, big smiles and happy customers all round.

The Dukes Head fishing club at Wallington in Surrey held their latest club match on Milton last Saturday and all enjoyed a great days action in superb weather, with the winner boasting a great catch of 51lbs from peg 26 which included a cracking net of crucians, big roach and a handful of nice tench.

Top Tip: In bright, hot and flat calm conditions which can make the fish feeding habits very finicky and lethargic, it is best to scale down your terminal tackle by using lighter lines than you would normally use, smaller hooks like 18’s and 16’s are best plus feed little and often rather than large amounts all at once.

Last Sunday I was on the Royal Military Canal near Hythe fishing the first round of the Kent Angling Canal for my team NDP10 along the Seaview to Seabrook section and, with temperatures in the 30 degrees it was going to be rock hard, especially A section which I was competing in. I fed two lines, one chopped worm and the other pellets in the hope of a nice bream or two, as I knew one really good fish should be enough to win my section. Further up the canal the bream are always shoaled up in numbers so I knew I could not compete for the individual honours on the day but it was team points I was after and set out my stall accordingly. The first two hours passed by without too much to cheer about and the only action in my section was one of the anglers managing to completely fall in the canal taking most of his tackle with him. Happily apart from some embarrassment on his part he was okay and not hurt but it left him scrounging bait from other anglers as he lost all his bait in the mishap. Of course, we laughed, wouldn’t you?

My only proper bite of the match, which saw my float lift right up in the water (a lift bite) resulted in me bumping off the fish, probably a bream and, as disappointed as I was, I got my head down to try and catch as much as I could as my whole section apart from one bream which had been caught was still up for grabs. As I studied the canal I could see the odd bubble over my chopped worm line; ‘Eels,’ I thought to myself. Apart from one small eel and a few silver fish caught sporadically through the match I had to try and tempt the eels to feed and give my weight a boost. The plan worked as I managed a late flurry of four eels but it was not enough to win the section, as I was just six ounces short. Good news further up the bank from my teammates was excellent as we had three section winners and despite one of our lads coming last in his section our joint effort of 37pts gave us victory by one point in the end.

Oh and the chap who fell in from head to foot, yes he jointly won my section having the last soggy laugh in the end.

‘Tight lines,’
Russ Evans”