Monday came the long awaited Zander trip to Old Bury Hill Lakes in Dorking.

Unfortunately the weather had bought far from ideal conditions with bright blue skies, high pressure and little if any wind. Teaming up with Alan Stagg we delayed our arrival till mid afternoon with the aim of spending a couple of hours after dark in the hope that they would switch on. As expected nothing happened until dusk when we both started to receive the odd audible indication on our sprat offerings. I was away first with a zander of 5lb 2oz followed by two rods going at once. The outcome was a 4lb 10 zander and a bream! An hour later two quick runs to Alan produced fish of 6lb 15oz and 7lb 8oz a new personal best, with myself managing a best as well of 7lb 6oz just before our 9pm departure.

Wednesday we once again headed to the roach lake and although it proved tough, with once again far from ideal conditions my feeder tactics proved best on the day with at least a dozen quality roach falling the best exactly 2lb.
Friday morning l headed to Teddington, arriving just before daybreak and a short two-hour spell saw numerous small perch grab my small livebaits. Unfortunately reports are that it’s a numbers game trying to get a reasonable fish this year.

Friday night was spent on Cemex K1 in the hope of a big roach as well as a pike. A pike around 10lb started the session with another lost however it was at 5-45pm that my roach rig screamed off, definitely not from what l hoped for, however as soon as l lifted the rod it was obvious an eel was the culprit. On a tiny size 18 hook and delicate 3lb hooklink l prayed the eel would stay on. Luckily it was hooked in the bottom lip and at 4lb 8oz easily replaced the hope of the roach that stayed away. Three runs in the morning on the deadbaits produced two pike, the best 11lb 4oz.

Another productive week, l wish they were all like this.