Well after a pretty dismal May I have high hopes that June will be full of promise and big fish. Many of the National Trust waters that offer so much open up as well as the rivers, although apart from the odd carp and eel session they will be left alone till the later in the year.

The Cemex Challenge Cup has also started so not wanting to waste any time I headed for a venue in the hope of catching one of the harder species, eel. Being absolutely knackered from the night before I didn’t hear the take and awoke to see the drop of indicator on the ground. Luckily the eel was still on and although not a monster at 2lbs 6oz it’s a platform to build on.

Tuesday evening I had an invite to fish Tri-lakes after hours to see if it was worthy of an article or two. It’s a lovely looking day ticket water with loads of features and in a couple of hours I managed seven cracking commons to around 14lbs on Sonubaits Oily floaters. My god these fish fight hard and I realised what l had been missing, especially when most of my rigs are based around short fragile hooklinks and playing a fish is more about leading it into a waiting net! I certainly want more of this and will be entertaining the carp, and maybe a catfish or two over the next few weeks.

Thursday night and Friday was spent in the company of Paul Garner who had requested my photography services at Old Bury Hill. Unfortunately for Paul he became the photographer as a few hours spent in a punt on the main lake only produced three fish, all falling to my rods! We then tried to catch some crucians from one of the other lakes but these proved difficult and we managed around a dozen fish each including tench, roach and bream.