Cupping out larger cups of groundbait meant that current groundbait supplies had to be replenished. The large groundbait tub that once held fat balls for birds was kept, the remaining micro-pellets and two-millimetre pellets were added to it, green and brown groundbait were ordered, delivered, and added, large scoops of bird seed were then added along with some table salt, and the sweetcorn that wasn’t used on the last fishing trip was mixed in to give a bit of stand-out colour. Minimal liquid added was fish oil, hot and spicey liquid, drops of mango concentrate, and then the whole thing was mixed with a large spoon to give what looked like enough for two-week’s fishing. My experimenting brain worked on overload throughout the week. In my head, whichever lake we fished in the coming week, this would be the procedure that I would follow. My three top-two kits would be set up for and plumbed up for ten-metres in front of me, that’s for normal drift down to the lake bed, and also for a so

The day after fishing, a new bottle of pink haze arrived in the post because we were getting low, and although I had half a tall tub of eight-millimetre pellets in my pellet safe, I topped this up with eight-millimetre tiger-nuts pellets. I also had an idea about making things simpler and hopefully more effective with regard to the cupping out of oiled micro-pellets and ground-bait in layers, be it in an initial big cup to get fish interested or later small cups to keep them in the swim. Into a gallon tub that once held fat balls for our bird feeder went a few handfuls of birdseed, then the tub of micro pellets soaked in fish oil, then the tub of what was left of the green and brown groundbait, followed by more fish oil, some ‘hot & spicy’ liquid fish attractant, and finally a couple of squeezes of mango extract and a squirt of krill oil. All was stirred vigorously and would be used for cupping out on my next pole venture. A late start was ordered for hazel Court. Wil is working on a n

We’d talked about a return to Hazel Court during the week, so I didn’t pack my chair or the umbrella but did pack my large box that I sit on when using my pole, and of course, the pole. The tent went into the back of the car with folded down seats as did one mattress and sleeping bag for Wil who would have the alarm receiver while I fished my pole. That was the plan anyway. When I got to Wil’s house to pick him up, he seemed to be in a strange mood, but then teenagers often are. I asked him if anything was troubling him and his answer was that he’d been thinking all night about the peace and tranquillity of Mallard Pond at Tri-Nant, which we often had to ourselves. Did ‘thinking all night’ mean dreaming? Plans went out of the window, a quick return trip to my garage saw the tent, mattress and sleeping bag back into the garage and my chair and the umbrella into the back of the car because Mallard is as close as a commercial can get to a natural pond and the pegs are not flat enough or

Tuesday was due to be fourteen degrees Celsius during the day and raining, with night-time temperatures staying at fourteen until ten o’clock Wednesday when the sun was due to shine and the temperature was due to raise to fifteen. That was the forecast, anyway. Tuesday morning may well have been warm but it was raining and blowy. Gardeners welcomed the long-awaited-for rain but we had mixed feelings. The idea of putting up and later taking down a wet tent in a wind did not appeal, but on the other hand, because it was the half-term school holidays, maybe the rain would keep a lot of families away and we might have a good choice of pegs at our twelve-noon arrival. Yes, we were fishing twelve noon Tuesday to twelve noon Wednesday. On arriving at Hazel Court at noon, after a hearty drive-through lunch to keep us going, we looked over the lakes while standing in drizzle. One angling family on Reed Lake and another on the Pleasure Lake but nearest the cars. This meant that our favourite pe

Last weeks adventure into fishing did not make this blog, and to precis, we arrived, the fish were spawning, we went home. Deprived of the fishing bug, the next few days were taken up with watching YouTube videos that cover fishing, plus an element of reading about fishing. It seems that every time I go into my local Co-op these days, there’s a new Angling Times staring at me out of the magazine section. This week’s issue was partly dedicated to modern technology, its use in fishing, and whether it has gone too far. Those that read this fishing blog are unaware that most blog posts are future chapters in a forthcoming book that describes the journey that Wil (15) and me (72) have taken from roach and rudd on a waggler, through two-to-four-pound carp to the dizzy heights (for us) of nine-and-ten-pound carp, and our hopefully continuing progression thereafter. The reason I mention this carp journey with regard to the title of this blog about technology is because preceding chapters of th

At seven-thirty, when I picked Wil up, it was already warming up and overnight temperatures of 10 degrees Centigrade (50F) were forecast to reach twenty-six Centigrade (79F) by noon, hotter that Mediterranean countries the forecaster had said. I knew, or thought that I knew, that Carp would be high in the water today and that Wil would want to fish the bottom with his method feeders, but I also knew that I’d continually told him that he was fourteen, no longer a child, and had to make his own decisions. Arriving at Hazel Court, parking up, and looking around, it became obvious that the six or seven anglers that had already arrived were on the closest pegs to the car park on each of the three ponds. It seemed that nobody wanted to lug gear to the far end of a pond in the heat, but then, maybe we are bonkers, because we chose the far end of the pleasure pond where success had come previously. Wil set his method feeder rods up and alarmed all three on his rod-pod while I set up my pole an