Sunday – The afternoon and evening was spent with three enthusiastic youngsters hoping to catch their first ever barbel on the river Loddon during a FAS barbel teach-in. All three had chances and hooked fish however two were unfortunately lost with young Max landing the only fish of the session, a 3lb 5oz chub.

Monday – After completing the standard start of the week paperwork l picked my brother up and headed for the Loddon. With other anglers around l dropped into a swim rarely fished and after forty five minutes received a knock. Twenty minutes later a chubby bite turned into an angry barbel that did its best to snag me in the rising river, however luck was with me and she finally dropped in the net. The picture shows how happy l was with this 12lb 4oz barbel but not wanting others to see rushed the self-takes and when l got back home kicked myself for making some fundamental photography errors. Another lesson learnt!

Tuesday – Mad keen comes to mind, but even with the wind blowing a hooligan and constant heavy rain myself and Martin headed to the Loddon to see if he could catch his first ever barbel. Read the whole story titled ‘Top Bombing’ on the blog page of my website – www.duncancharman.co.uk

Wednesday – My weekly crucian trip saw myself back at the lake that holds a five-pounder. Arriving at 7am l tried a different tactic, Hemp, pellet and corn spread accurately off the rod top by means of a spod then the standard scaled down bolt rigs fished over the top with corn on the hook. Unfortunately the method didn’t draw the fish into the swim like Sonubaits Supercrush Green did and with the lake fishing hard l decided to change, taking around a dozen carp in just three hours.

Thursday – Spending so much time on the banks lately l needed to put in a long day to drum up some guiding and wedding business and the twelve hour day certainly did just that.

Friday – A few weeks a go l was sent a Preston Dutch Master Rod and although my thoughts were on using it at Frensham l decided to head off to Godalmings Broadwater. The water holds plenty of carp to over thirty pounds and it was these that l had in mind when l cast out my feeder which was covered in scolded pellet and perfectly formed as l was using the XL method mould. The loaded feeder must have weighed nigh on 3oz but the rod easily cast this accurately over sixty yards. It took a while to get in the swing of things but after around an hour of repeated casts the tip pulled round and the first of seven carp was netted, the best going 16lb 12oz. I eventually balanced everything by using an 8lb mono hooklink and a size 16 PR 36 baited with an 8mm Sonubaits S-pellet, but it was the addition of an Avid sight stop that seemed to make the difference. My Dad and brother had joined me and both caught steadily with Kevin landing two twenties, the best 24lb 4oz on Sonubaits 13mm Hard Pellets. If your thinking of targeting these carp on the feeder, don’t forget to take a big landing net, l use a Korum 27’ Specimen Spoon that’s far easier to manoeuvre than a standard triangular carp net.

Saturday – It’s the girlfriend’s weekend of, so no fishing for me till Monday.