My fishing tends to be in blocks of six to twelve weeks

My fishing tends to be in blocks of six to twelve weeks. Any longer than this and I begin to get a little bored, particularly if I have been catching well. I now try to break up the year into these blocks with a couple of week rest periods in-between. Christmas is a good example, virtually no fishing for nearly three weeks has got my enthusiasm up much more than trying to sit it out all winter. I’m now ready for the next challenge and chomping at the bit to get back out there. I find it very difficult to make hard and fast plans for the year. The trouble is, I can only fish hard when the mood takes me. Unfortunately, these moods rarely follow any sort of logic! At the moment (early January) I want to catch carp, and have just spent an uneventful twenty four hours fishing (probably for the last time) a lake some way away. Still, although I won’t be fishing there, I do fancy spending the next few weeks fishing a couple of local rivers, mainly for carp, but with the chance of the odd decent chub thrown in. Which spots to fish is easy, I have seen the fish I want with my own eyes and with the floods we have experienced I don’t think they will be going far. If the water does abate for a little while, you will also find me roaming around the banks of the River Frome, searching for the elusive three pound grayling. The end of February will see me having an enforced break for a couple of weeks, which will hopefully re-charge the batteries in expectation for my next campaign. This is likely to be after a big carp, as come March a couple of the local waters switch on and can be quite productive. Productive though is a relative term and on these lakes I would be lucky to get a couple of bites between March and May. That said, if I do get one the chances are that it will be well worth the wait and a new English personal best is on the cards. March also means bream fishing in my book. This year I am on course for my fiftieth ‘double’, which would be a nice milestone to achieve. I would also like a ‘double’ from two new waters, to take my tally to six. May onwards means only one thing, and that is big tench. Although I managed to catch quite a few sevens and a nine pounder last summer, I believe that I was still only getting things half right. I think I have now worked out a better plan for my campaign and things could be really spectacular! This year I am convinced that I will do better and hope for the elusive ‘double’ From June 16th will be spent after rudd in the evenings, returning for the tench in the mornings. This is demanding fishing, and will mean that the tench get kicked into touch by the beginning of July, leaving me a few more weeks to concentrate on the rudd. With the rudd being so specifically timed around dusk, this will hopefully give me the chance to pursue some of the increasingly large carp which now inhabit these pits. I hate those hot sunny days of August, so I don’t expect to be out on the banks much at this time of the year. Generally, I will think about serious fishing again around the middle of September when things begin to cool down. This last bash before the end of the year is generally after predators, although I have some chub fishing that I want to explore and it would be nice to catch my thirtieth ‘five’ in this, my thirtieth year. Which is likely to take us around to Christmas again and the time to start thinking about the future and reflecting over the last year. Perhaps it’s just my advancing years (is that right Geoff?), but something tells me this year is going to disappear even faster than the last!

50 double figure bream? 30 X 5lb chub? Hmmph. Think I’ll stick to the see-food diet!. Geoff