The setting up of my guiding company continues but this week all the hard work should start to show as on Wednesday the guy who’s been designing the website will be visiting me to get things, hopefully up and running, however on Monday l headed off to St John’s Ambulance to complete a refresher course as a First Aider just in case l need to administer any whilst out with clients. The reason for completing this was bought home earlier this year when l embedded a barbed hook firmly in my finger as well as falling in a river.

Early Tuesday morning the weather decided to make a change from the prolonged high pressure and easterly wind that we have experienced over the last few weeks. Awaking before dawn the clear frosty skies had clouded over and when l reached the river Thames the rain had already started as well as the going swim taken so after trying one swim without any joy myself and brother ended up fishing the wrong side of the bridge, however a few perch did show albeit mainly small ones with one better one of around 2lb coming to my rod. The anglers in the good swim probably had less fish but did manage a three, but by 3pm the rain had started to soak through our clothing due to the position not allowing an umbrella and holding this was impossible due to the strengthening westerly wind. The evening was spent typing up loads of text for the Anglers Mail feature on The Friendly Fisherman lure article as well as colour correcting and cropping photos.

Wednesday it was time to add the finishing touches to my website, learn the basics needed to upload images, blogs and articles then press the green button and let it go live. All a bit mind boggling as lm not the best at finding my way around an Apple Mac but l can only get faster with time so am looking forward to keeping it updated.

The following day it was all about getting ahead of myself so the best part of the day was spent creating images and writing an article on river carp fishing for Blinker, a German and Dutch magazine whilst looking outside thinking that l should be somewhere else, however tomorrow its off to Bury Hill once more but once again its to create an article for the Times on targeting zander on the waggler!

Arriving at Bury Hill it was obvious straight away that the wind was far to strong to even contemplate getting the float out, it also seemed that the lake wasn’t fishing that good, even in what l would consider ideal conditions. Alan Stagg and Dai Gribble were already set up and had managed a few zander and pike the day before, however things had gone quiet and the fish that they had caught were smaller than average. I decided to head for the far bank, an area that rarely sees that much pressure in the hope that the fish had headed here due to the other banks being quite busy but after two hours it seemed the whole lake had shut up. Dad did manage a pike around 8lb but we decided to head back to the long bank for the hoped for late afternoon feeding spell. Dad had a brief spell where he had three runs and converted all, resulting in a 6lb, 8lb and 9lb 6oz zander. I then had two, which came from a 12lb pike and a 7lb zander which dad caught whilst l chatted to Dai. Overall an enjoyable few hours even though the rain came as the light faded getting us a little wet as we packed up.
Check out my new website – www.duncancharman.co.uk