“Milton Lake continues to fish really well with plenty of our regulars catching good mixed bags of crucians, tench, roach, rudd, carp and the odd big perch. Catch 22 held their recent club match on the lake last Sunda, and, although there were no massive weights, it still took a nice mixed bag of nearly 35lbs to win with Gary Smith taking the honours from peg 21. Opting to fish with a short pole in the margins and light pole tactics baited with soft pellets Gary kept the fish coming to win by at least 10lbs over his nearest club rival.

Bonds Lake is starting to hit top form and anglers that really know their salt have been catching some incredible bags well over 100lbs with the average carp going 6-8lbs, which is a nice size for some superb rod bending sport.

The Old Lake has been a little up and down after the recent spawning but a few of our night syndicate members have hade some cracking carp catches over 20lbs on baits such as Icelandic Red, KG1, Cell, Maple 8 and the new XLR8 frozen boilies. Bream and tench have been coming out to all methods around the lake with red maggots still working best until the water really warms up when baits like small boilies and halibut pellets really come into their own.

Cold Northerly winds and the World Cup is clearly keeping anglers away from fisheries up and down the country. I speak to plenty of angling media on a daily basis who confirm that the angling industry is finding it tough going at the moment. In my experience it is par for the course and I am confident that when the World Cup is finished and the summer weather starts to pick up then the anglers will be flooding back to their favourite haunts and pastimes.

The new season officially got under way on the 16 June, which now means the rivers are back open again so many an angler will be spending the first few weeks of the 2010/11 season back on the rivers trotting their favourite stick floats against over hanging trees, what a great way to spend a day and try and winkle out a big one.

Back at Bury Hill, I have been busy putting together a new open match diary and I can confirm that the first match takes place on Wednesday 14 July on the Long bank of the Old Lake with a draw time of 8.30am and fish times of 10am to 3pm, tickets will cost £20 all in. You can call me on 01306 883621 to book in and put your name down. The matches are basically every fortnight but will go weekly as the run into the September two day festival gets near. I will also hold a couple of the matches on Milton Lake as it is fishing really well and the weights will be decent. I am also in the process of organising a winter silver fish league, again on Wednesdays and they will run through the months of October, November and December so when I have finalised the details I will post on this blog.

On a personal note I have been keeping very busy with some more filming on my new dvd series ‘The Obsessed Angler’. I spent a long day at Bury Hill last week filming on the Old Lake before switching to Bonds Lake for some nice carp on the small groundbait feeder. It was action all the way and with the scenery around the fishery looking at it’s best with greenery and flowers plus the wildlife in abundance the images caught on film look fantastic. I also plan to make some short shows for Horse & Country TV to be screened on their excellent website with the emphasis on “How To” catch a variety of species like bream, carp, crucians and tench plus some good methods to use and why.

I have to admit I like being put on the spot to deliver the goods and having to produce for magazine features and filming, is being put firmly on the spot as there is nothing worse than failing to catch anything of note with a film crew or photographer waiting in the wings for action. Thankfully to date I have always caught fish worthy of the importance of the day and long may it continue.

Next week I have some coaching to do which I really enjoy doing; in my books, there is nothing better than helping others to catch, in fact as I was typing this blog I received a text message from the father of a young pupil I have been coaching and he informed me that his son has just won a three hour evening match on the pellet waggler with a superb 96lbs of carp, how satisfying is that!

Until next time. Tight Lines,

Russ Evans.”