My season on the rivers came to a cracking end with two big chub off the River Severn, the biggest being a stunning 6lb 15oz fish caught on breadflake fished over a bed of Sonubaits hemp.

With the abolition of the Closed Season it’s possible to fish 365 days of the year, however I still like to take a break of at least a month at the end of the river season – I find this means I’m raring to go when I get back on the bank and the garden is under control!

I was also able to visit Ian Day at Sonubaits and stock up on some goodies. I particularly liked the look of the new Action Strawberry boilies – surely bream would take a liking to them. Ian also talked me into trying the sweet fishmeal based F1 groundbait for the bream – he was confident that they would love it.

My first trip of the season on my syndicate lake was after tench and proved to be frustrating – no sign of fish and two biteless days was the result. On my return I was able to get a swim in an area that has a good record of producing big bream. On the first night I was undisturbed, however on the second night  I’d just zipped up the sleeping bag when the bobbin dropped and I was into a good bream. Everything was going well when it got tangled in the line from one of my other rods. I had to don my lifejacket and paddle my boat out to net it. It was worth the effort – my first bream of the year weighing 16lb 3oz. The fish came over a mixture of Sonubaits F1 groundbait and brown crumb with lashings of molasses and a couple of bags of Sonubaits 4mm S pellets. The hookbait  - a 10mm Strawberry boilie tipped with a bit of pop-up rubber corn.

No more bream visited the bank but the following morning I had a 9lb 9oz tench, once again the Action Strawberry 10mm’s doing the business.

Soon it will be time for tench and I’ll let you know how I get on.