Sunday and Monday were spent on the club-controlled lake. The first night l targeted eels as a rumour came through of a near seven pounder falling last season to a tench angler.

All night tench showed in front so after no eels and just a small pike for my efforts l returned the following night in exactly the same conditions with the tench gear. You’ve guessed it the tench had moved on and the indicators remained motionless.

Wednesday it was back down to Mill Farm Fishery, more to help dad catch a few. Luckily we arrived early and caught a few before the lake died at 9am. Dad managed a personal best silver of 2lbs 2oz plus some tench. The silvers showed but my best was just under the two-pound mark plus a few tench along with a reasonable perch.

Most of Friday was spent preparing for the annual 24hr charity pairs match on Farnham Angling Society’s Badshot Lea Big Pond. My brother had practiced a couple of times and with loads of silver fish to go at we made a plan to fish for these in the hope a few bonus fish would come along to our maggots fished on helicopter rigs and groundbait feeders. Our target was 200lbs although with the hottest weekend of the year forecasted and little wind we knew this would be tough, however the draw was kind and we drew what used to be our favourite swims.

As we walked to our swims we smiled as most anglers were targeting the carp, however these had other things on their minds. The first quarter was good and l took 63lbs of bream with Kevin weighing in 23lbs. We were expecting things to get better but come midnight all l had to show was 14lbs with Kevin another steady 20lbs.

Midnight to 4am we cast bigger baits out for a bonus fish as well as getting some kip before the 4am alarm awoke us to start again after the silvers. Kevin took one good bream in the night and followed this with 25lbs for a total of around 75lbs whilst l managed 38lbs in the last quarter for a total around 115lbs. One other team were matching us with mainly tench and four carp, but the last quarter saw the fish move and we won the match by over 50lbs. During the match we used 40kilos of dry Sonubaits Supercrush Green along with a gallon of maggots!