Monday 22nd March, 0730, Liz and myself headed back out to the pool I previously visited last week (AA-B) and notoriously got the car bogged down in mud when time came to leave. So, as a result of that occurrence plus the desire to fish what was a favourite area of ours on the pool but one which we’d not visited for a few years.

Liz had been a member of the club from 2011 to 2016 but 2016 we had an offer of a place at another club after having been 4 years on their waiting list. For me it was not a problem I simply retained my membership and joined the new club but for Liz, who works full time in the week, it just wasn’t cost effective being a member of two £100/annum clubs due to the limitations to her fishing time and so she dropped her membership to the club in favour of membership to the newer club.

However now, for me with my health issues, the new club’s waters weren’t good in terms of access and my needs and so we decided to give up our memberships there and Liz has now rejoined the original club this year, their waters being ideal in all ways for myself and Liz only ever fishes alongside me…

So, for Liz this was a return to ‘old’ waters – and it was her choice of venue … and it was a good one for us both!

The weather was also perfect on the day – warmer and with very little breeze, the water having a shimmer rather than a ripple. Previously this year the wind movements have been detrimental to fishing results, northerly, easterly or a combination of both and, as the old the old sayings go – ‘When the wind’s in the east, fish bite the least’ and ‘When the wind’s in the north, fishing’s not worth (it)’ – the latter is made up by me as I don’t know of an official couplet for the north wind scenario although it is well known that its not good for fishing. However, on this day the breeze was predominantly westerly with slightly fluctuations towards the south – and therefore the best directions one could wish for as ‘When the winds in the west, fish bite the best’ and ‘When the wind’s in the south, the bait’s blown into the mouth’… 🙂

Plus, the usual wisdom is to fish into the wind – the main reason being, I think, is that surface food stuffs get blown across and end up on that bank. Others might quote ‘thermoclines’ as a reason, a condition in which the wind drag across the water’s surface causes a tilt in the water layers such that the warm water is deeper at the bank facing the wind. However what is usually meant is a ‘tilted thermocline’, a ‘thermocline’ being a band of water whereby the temperature drops quickly from top to bottom throughout that bands. However, in waters of lesser depth than 30’-40’ the water is generally all mixed by natural occurring currents and so the water is virtually a constant temp throughout the whole of its depth and only in the deeper waters of 20’+ is there any likelihood of a thermocline at all, much less a tilted one. Anyway, we were on the east bank with the west wind in our faces 🙂

All looking good – and not even unloaded the gear from the barrow yet!!!

So, swims chosen, we tackled up… myself choosing to floatfish by the lift method with maggot, and Liz with a maggot feeder although about an hour so later she switched to the float rod and lift method float with maggot too.

We made our first casts at 0850 … and at 0855 I had my first take which I lost unfortunately, the hook slipping within a few seconds but only felt like a  small silver.

First fish landed – by me, a roach of around 3oz, was at 0920

Next fish was better – and, in fact, was a PERSONAL BEST!!! 🙂 A tench of 5lb 2oz!

Steve – Tench 5lb 2oz (A New Personal Best)

It was at around 1030, that Liz having been biteless, decided to switch to her float rod..

..and 1100 she was in action landing a 2lb 5oz tench…

Liz – Tench 2lb 5oz

1115 …. Liz another tench … 3lb 10oz

Liz – Tench 3lb 10oz

1120, Liz was again in action … 3lb 7oz bream – PERSONAL BEST beating her 2lb best of 2011!

Liz – 3lb 7oz Bream (A New Personal Best)

1215 – Steve, 6oz Bream

1220 – Liz, 8oz Barbel

1230 – Steve, 3lb 8oz Tench

Steve – Tench 3lb 8oz

1235 – Steve, 3lb 15oz Tench

Steve – Tench 3lb 15oz

1250 – Steve, 3lb 12oz Tench

Steve – Tench 3lb 12oz

1255 – Steve 3lb 4oz Tench 

Steve – Tench 3lb 4oz

After that it went quiet with only one more fish being landed (a small roach at 1355) by me until we departed for home, a shower and a visit to the chippie for our evening meal! BUT there one strange thing before we left the poolside…

We arrived back at the car to load up and as doing so Liz said ‘Is that a bird tail sticking up on the opposite side of the car?’ ,,, I looked round and there was a small blue tit looking as if it was trying to gain access to the car … it was flying between front and rear side windows, landing on the frame/glass and trying to peck through … and was doing this all the time we were actually loading up the the car quite unperturbed by our movements and noise for a good five minutes or more until we actually drove away. Maybe it could see its own reflections in the glass and either trying to get to the ‘phantom’ to either court or deter?

NOW ADDED – “BLUE TIT: THE VIDEO”  – AT BLUE TIT: THE VIDEO

PLANS:

For me, a trip on Thursday 25th to a club pool I’ve not fished yet. It’s a pool the club acquired at the start of the 2020 season and we were actually supposed to be able to fish it/them from that April… the date of access got delayed due to Covid, mainly down due to the exchanging of contracts, and so we eventually got the go ahead to able to fish from 1st July. Actually there were two pools involved but then the owner decided to keep one of the pools (the carp pool) as a wildlife pool with no fishing … but has agreed to install 20 fishing platforms on the pool that we can fish – used as an irrigation pool it’s 35’-40’ deep with the water right at your feet at 18’-20’ and 6’ down from bank level! However, I was not able to visit until November and when I did so I was unable to gain access through the padlocked gate – the lock was broken or the combination didn’t respond to the club’s code. I know a few have fished to now inaccessible carp pool but I’ve  heard of one angler having actually fished this pool though since we’ve had it and he lure fished without success. Some peoplke I’ve spoken to about it have said ‘too deep for their style of fishing’ others that they’re afraid of falling in as they can’t swim…’, Anyway… the club changed the locks to the new season’s code on 1st March and also put new locks on all the venues so fingers crossed I can access – can climb gate OK but with a barrow load of gear is another matter. I hear from the days when it was a day ticket water (closed to all fishing from 2013 up to our taking it on) that it produced slabs of bream, big perch and carp up to 30lb … so I’ve my fingers crossed for Thursday to go in similar vein to this last session!

TEMPS:

AIR:                  MIN:    9.1’C      MAX:  12.0’C
WATER:            MIN:    8.0’C      MAX:  10.4’C

WATER TEMPS:

AIR TEMPS:

Thursday 18th March, 0730, on was on the road to a club mixed fishery (AA-B) arriving around 0800 and was parked up and first cast was made at 0830 in Peg 5.

A cool misty morning, I was well glad I’d put my thermals on! The small tree adjacent to my chosen swim was dripping water and it looked like a drop of heavy was in progress but there no such thing, purely condensate falling… and it continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon albeit slackening in slightly in quantity.

Before tackling up my ‘just under 13’ Hardy Matchmaker clone’ for fishing lift method style I catapulted out a few small pouches of half-dead maggots – they were quite old really, and although they were all of the same batch, some were comatose, some lethargic and some almost lively – but whatever, with the temperature of the water as it was, they weren’t going to be performing in the ‘maggot olympics’ once they hit the water. Also a few micro-pellets, small cooked prawns, a few small cubes of meat and some sweetcorn were added – but not a lot, all of those additions together would probably make up 3-4 small pouches in total.

Tackle, as I said, utilised my float rod, coupled with 6lb line straight through to a size 16 hook baited with maggot. The float was a crystal waggler (no insert version) overshotted by about 1AAA (a SSG shot at the bottom 6” above the hook, a AAA shot at 18” from the SSG cocked the float so its tip was just proud of the water – and another AAA shot was added alongside the first to add the required ‘excess’ weight) and this was fished about 10” overdepth in the 4’6” of water in front of me.

0830 first cast was made ….. and catapulted maggots (ca 12 each time) were fed at around 5 minute intervals..

0930, not a single indication. So I decided to put out a ‘sleeper’ ledger rod… so the 11’ Grandeslam ‘Des Taylor Avon System’ was set up with its standard tip (also comes with a quivertip top) – again 6lb line, 1/4oz bomb, size 12 hook, was cast out to my right with 2 small cooked prawns as bait and a few prawns fed over it.

Now we come to Matty Territory – and as the famous saying went – ‘All done in the best possible taste!’

BITES OF THE DAY…

All Sainsbury’s Crusty and no paper bags were harmed in the process…

Just Waiting For The First Bite – Wild Cobs – Wearing Their Winter Coats

1030 Bite Of The Morning – Marmalade On Sunflower Spread

1330 Bite Of The Afternoon – Ham And Mayonnaise

LOL!!!

Unfortunately, those WERE the only bites of the day as by 1430 when I tackled down the float had not even wiggled nor the buzzer beeped….

But more excitement lay ahead before I got home…

The area around this pool can get very boggy – and the club had issued a warning about it recently. However, area I wanted to fish was only just beyond the hardcore near end car park and that bit looked fine to me. Also it is a sheltered area in the bushes which would have been handy for ‘my needs’ if I had wanted them. Anyway, I gained access easily enough, no slippage on access and taking it easy…

Home time comes and, the car loaded up, I start to reverse out intending to do a sharp turn as I reach the main path to keep to the firm ground. However, as I come to do the full lock to make the turn I realise I’m too far over and a tree prevents the front end from making the manoeuvre – ok, so I intend to go forward and make a better angle to get on to the path …. however, I’d gone too far back, too straight and the rear wheels had dipped into an old tyre rut on the far side of the main path and consequently the front driving wheels started to spin when I tried to get out of it… so for the best part of the next hour myself and 2 other anglers tried all sort of tricks to get the car free … and after trying old carpet panels, tree branches, etc, etc I deflated the front tyres (to about 12 psi) and finally with a bit of ‘jerky rocking’ by on the clutch and accelerator the tyres eventually found some grip on firm land and I managed to escape from the grips of the rut. However, at that point I was now back to where I’d originally parked and thus needed to make the reverse turn on to the main path … and this time I actually managed to do the reversing as I’d desired to do it originally and got out on the main track facing the way I wanted to!

So, nice and steady up the track, keeping grip with the tyres on the firmer parts up to the exit gate and away.

Just had one job to do then – to get the front tyres re-inflated for which I had to drive back to the city centre Sainsbury’s, about 10 miles. Got there – that’s how I know the tyres were at 12psi – got inflated back to their required 35psi and then got back home without further incident where baits were fridged/freezered before a nice hot coffee and shower J

PLANS:

Currently the plans are that Liz and I will be having an outing at this same pool on Monday 22nd – parking in a safer place and with the bread crate panels along for the ride as surety.

Thursday, 25th, a solo outing for me to the pool that the club acquired access to last year but which I’ve not yet fished although I did make a trip to in November 2020 but I couldn’t get access through the gate for the car and ended up just climbing over and having a look at it before heading off to another pool just up the road.

TEMPS:

AIR:                  MIN:    7.6’C      MAX:  11.2’C
WATER:            MIN:    6.6’C      MAX:    7.0’C

WATER TEMPS:

AIR TEMPS:

Monday 15th March saw me head off on a solo session to one of my local club waters (SAC-DP) leaving the house at around 0730 and arriving at the car park around 0745.

The day was a generally a mixture of white cloudy overcast and blue sunny skies but with a very cooling breeze evident throughout.

Choice of peg for the day was peg 48 – a venture out into the unknown to me as I usually fish over on the extreme left of the photo (peg 27). The only other peg I’ve ever fished is the one where the angler on the far bank is located or possibly one along further to the right. The peg was chosen for the day on advice that the 40’s pegs were generally the best … and the actual peg on the basis that it offered space to store my barrow, holdalls and bags when I had removed the required items from them as the bank along that area was quite tight – a narrow path with a steep bank on the far side of it and the fishing side is a step down on to scaffold and plastic plank platforms. However, this peg did have a bit of grass space to the side of the platform for the storage.

Tactic for the day – 2 x 1.75lb TC rods, 7g sliding leads on 6” links, 8lb line virtually straight through (as usual I had hooklengths of same BS) and hooks of size 8 (worm) and size 6 (bread). I *HAD* intended to use frame feeders BUT discovered that when I’d swapped tackle back from my last session (piking) I’d not replaced my bag of feeders! So… feeding the swim was via a catapult.

I was all set up and made first casts at around 0840 … had my breakfast cob of marmalade at 1030 and my lunch cob of ham and mayonnaise at 1315…. and packed up at 1430. Yep, think that was the full report of all the day’s action – apart from the occasional pouring of a cup of coffee from the flask and a choccie bar!!

Oh… and I discovered something whilst sorting out my gear the previous day … I seem to have lost my fishing chair! I think when I last fished – on the 1st March. I have a vague recollection that I’d propped it up against a fence whilst I put everything else in the motor and then seemingly missed it out. Not easy – quite a big chair – high backed with adjustable recline – but it seems I’ve managed it. I contacted the club secretary to see if anyone had reported it found but nothing had. I’ve now posted on the club’s Facebook page and on the club’s forum pages – and asked the admin of the club’s main web site if he could post something on there for me. But doubtful after this period of time so I’ve ordered a new seat anyway – a JRC Cocoon 2G recliner from FishDeal.

PLANS:

Thursday 18th March I’m hoping to head to the tench, barbel and bream pool….

TEMPS:

AIR:                  MIN:    9.0’C      MAX:  21.5’C
WATER:            MIN:    6.7’C      MAX:    7.1’C

WATER TEMPS:

AIR TEMPS:

Monday 1st March saw me set off from home at 0700 for a pike fishing session at a local club pool (Pike Water 24).

A special occasion really as the club had closed all its waters to angling from the start of Lockdown 3 (January 7th?) and today was the first day of access being allowed again to all its waters.

The morning was cold with a slight breeze meaning that I needed to spray defroster on the car windows and switch on the windscreen and rear window heaters before I could drive away from home… BTW the window heating on the new wagon is far superior to that of the old vehicle, took all of approx 2 minutes to clear!

[Old vehicle is no longer owned by me actually any more – on Wednesday last week I arranged the sale to a salvage yard and they came and took it away on a low loader – and tomorrow I’ll be dropping the cheque into my bank :)]

I arrived on the pool’s car park around 0720 with one car entering just in front of me … however, as that driver decided not to battle the pools of water up to the pool end of the parking area – the venue is a stables and the path is used by tractors to take the old hay/bedding up to a disposal area and consequently the path is full of holes and is mostly churned up mud although the club has, and does often, lay hard core on it – he parked quite a way short whereas I battled the path and parked as close to the water as possible. TBH you don’t gain a lot parking away from the pool as you still have to barrow/carry your tackle through that assault course anyway. So, tomorrows job now – give the car a Karcher’ing – although it is actually quite clean considering… but its a job that’s been intended to be done for a while now anyway 🙂

I started out by setting up my light float rod to fish for livebaits and intended to fish that way until 1030 or until I’d got enough bait accumulated… However, that time was eroded appreciably by repeatedly having to sort out tangles and resolve knots in the line … and when I did get the line actually fishing I had not one bite at all…

1030 – float rod away and one pike rod was set up for floatfished deadbait using a sardine…

At this time air temps seemed to be on a rise and I watched the thermometer rise by about 0.1’C per minute real time from around 5.5’C to 6.7’C as I watched but going by the end of day ‘MAX’ reading it seems to have got to over 8’C! …. but then it seemed to just as quickly, if not quicker drop again, down to below 4’C! It seemed like a random bubble of warm air passed had through….

1200 – still not having had one sign of action despite trying depth and location changes and with the temps still dropping I decided to call it a day and head home….

PLANS:

Undecided – but unlikely to go again this week – a bit cold!! LOL
So next Monday (8th) is most likely to be the next day’s outing. Temps forecast to be 9’C and might even talk Liz into an outing 🙂

TEMPS:
AIR:                  MIN:    2.0’C      MAX:   8.3’C
WATER:           MIN:    6.5’C      MAX:   6.7’C

WATER TEMPS:

AIR TEMPS:

Thursday 25th February, I set off at 0915 – I either have to set off pre-0730 or post-0915 to miss the rush hour traffic although, in these times of restriction and home-working, the congestion is less than it used to be – for a local club pool (SAC-DP) for the first ‘proper’ days fishing since the end of November 2020.

December  is usually a virtually, and often a reality, fishing-free month for me due to Christmas preps and other engagements also seem to work their way into my calendar/diary for the month.

January, I do generally fish often but not this time around … the planned purchase of a new car was brought forward due to problems with the current vehicle of the time and this led to Liz and myself travelling by train to Preston, Lancs to view a ‘Click-n-Collect’ vehicle on the 4th of the month (and 3 days later we were locked down so was done just in the nick of time). The rest of month was taken up with up hospital/medical appointments including, but not limited to, colonoscopy, CT scan, diabetic eye scans, etc. Good news on all fronts – all were absolutely fine! 🙂 And cold wet weather wasn’t enticing me out either!

The viewed vehicle was just the job for us – a silver 2013 Ford Galaxy to replace our old blue 2005 model – and was driven home the same day. Nice vehicle with the added bonus of its road tax being £50/year less than our older version despite being of a larger engine size (1997cc vs 1897cc)! And amazing how the ‘comforts/gadgetry’ have improved in the interim period – voice control, DAB radio vs the old FM, auto-lights that come on/go off as required – and 101 more things to be discovered and studied upon as how to work them!! Plus a BIG bonus for us as we generally only have 1 or 2 of the 5 rear seats in situ, the rest of space being utilised as needed for shopping, fishing and holiday/camping, is that the 2 rear rows of seats fold down flat to become ‘the floor’ of the boot – with the older motor you had to manually unclip and remove the seats – and big bulky and heavy things they were too! Plus it was not an inconsiderable task to release and replace them and space had to be found to store the removed items in the home! None of that any more! Just release the pull a lever and fold down or pull up – just 5 seconds between having a seat or not! 🙂

February, had my CV19 jab – Astra Zeneca (aka Oxford) one – all good really. Only thing that might have been a side effect was strange dreams overnight afterwards. Arm did feel a little bruised if you pressed on the area of the needle’s entry for the following week but I stopped doing that! LOL. No stiffness, etc.

Weather improved a little and Liz and I planned a joint short walk/lure session along a local canal but on the day the weather deteriorated and it was cancelled … but then we managed to fit that plan in on Tuesday (23rd) as posted about previously…

SO… on to this session.

A beautiful day, quite mild and largely bright and sunny.

I was expecting to be a fair number fishing to be honest and there were but not as many as I had anticipated given that the club had, at the end of the previous week, did a major stocking with roach, etc – and bream, some of which exceeded 9lb! Actually on my arrival there were 3 cars on the car park at my end of the pool although it seemed to me that the great majority of anglers arriving at the pool appeared to be parking at the other end… certainly more anglers than cars at my end and more anglers down at the other end to me too.

Tackle … 2 ledger rods, 8lb line, frame feeders. One rod size 10 hook, one rod size 6 hook.
Baits … initially worm (10) and bread (6) changed to meat (10) and prawn (6) at around half-time.
Groundbait … my usual mash of crumb/particles/dead maggot with added molasses fed via the frame feeders and supplemented by catapulted golfball sized balls.

For the greater part of the morning, until 1230 I should say, the area I was fishing was a bit noisy with horny Canada Geese honking, pairing up and chasing each other around the island near where my baits lay.

Results: Not a touch until 1500 when I packed the rods away.

After packing the rods away I then setup my Deeper CHiRP to scan around the area of my swim…

Depths of the 4.6ft- 4.8ft range were recorded – and seemingly a fair few fish were around the area albeit it seemed they were mainly located in the 2.5ft-3.5ft depth range.

PLANS:
The club that closed all its waters as a covid prevention has now decided the time is right to re-open access to the members – and so on re- opening day, Monday 1st March, I’m planning a pike fishing session! Due to operations in 2019, covid restrictions in early 2020 and early 2021 and my usual Dec fishing lull I’ve not done much piking for 2 seasons (the club only allows pike fishing – in all its forms – between 1st October and the following March 31st) and so I’m straining at the leash to get back out to them now!

TEMPS:
AIR:                  MIN:    9.9’C      MAX:  12.8’C
WATER:            MIN:    8.6’C      MAX:   8.9’C

Tuesday 23rd February, Liz and I actually had our lure session that was intended to take place some weeks ago on a local canal for an hour’s walk with the light lure rods.

With the errant rod/reels that had caused our cancellation of the intended trip earlier replaced and re-tackled we left the house around 1130.

The weather wasn’t as good as forecast though being very breezy which made casting with our SSG (1.6g) micro-jelly jig lures – attached to 15lb braid mainline and 14lb fluorocarbon traces – difficult to say the least. After neither of us having a touch after an hour or so we decided to call it a day and call in the supermarket on the way home to pick up a few essentials. Actually, Monday’s (yesterday’s) weather was far better – bright, sunny and calm and with none of the forecast rain.

Anyway, it was good to get some exercise – I’d not been out of the house in about 10 days other than to get the ferrets in a couple of times for some exercise of their own!

Next trip already planned … going to a local club pool on Thursday (25th) – a solo outing as Liz is working. So today has got me ‘in the mood’ for that as I was getting a bit lethargic having been sat indoors for weeks on end … and I’m further motivated by news that the club stocked the pool with a lot of bream (up 9lb+) and roach last week … so have that happy thought in my head! LOL.

Boris announced ‘the way forward’ today but not sure how that will affect my clubs’ waters as fishing already allowed legally but currently one of my clubs has closed all its waters until further notice and another has placed a restriction of being within 5 miles from home (ie actual travel distance, not as the crow flies) as they have interpreted the word ‘local’ in the guidelines as being that… However, one other club has no restrictions and the neither does the BAA. I am suspecting it may be the end of April before any changes occur but that’s my only personal view… have to see how it all pans out really.

Anyway, my latest SENIOR moment – and its a masterpiece!
I said in my own blog posting about the aborted trip that due to a broken reel that Liz and I ended up just walking the canal instead of the intended lure fishing. SO given that you’d think that what I’d need to do would be to purchase a new reel? Common sense? Well, what did I do? I went and bought new spinning rods – and no reel! And to compound the error of buying rods instead of a reel – I bought FOUR rods! Thinking that when I ledger I use TWO identical rods – plus the same for Liz – and thus we’d need 4 rods between us …. However, when lure fishing/spinning each of us using two rods simultaneously is going to test our dexterity!?? DOH!!!! However, I suppose use can be made of them by setting up one rod each as braid with fluorocarbon leaders for small lures for perch, and the other rod as braid with wire traces for larger lures for pike. I read that renowned Gord Burton (aka ‘The Piking Pirate’) uses fluorocarbon leaders for most of his pike lure sessions these days so that adds some weighty recommendation?

Or possibly rig one of each of our two new rods with fluorocarbon main line and the other with braid as one of our clubs does not allow braid main lines (although braid leaders are OK).

The new rods are quite nice …. Okuma, 8’6″, rated for 10g-30g lures but seem to have enough ‘whip’ to send a 2g micro-jigged lure on 15lb braid across to the far bank of the canals around here without problem.

One thing I need to do is resolve the reel issue… I’ve a couple of still boxed Shakespeare size 30 reels I can use plus one still boxed Okuma size 30 reel. So I either need to get another matching Okuma reel OR look through my setup rods and see if there’s one that I could remove/replace OR remove a matching pair of suitable reels from those…. 

So here we are on the 30th January 2021 and not yet kicked off the start of my 2021 fishing … and as the Wii is not set up I’ve not even been able to play my ‘Rapala Tournament Fishing’ or any of my other fishing games… 

Yep, the ‘national lockdown’ ably assisted by the weather and my current state of health (not that its bad but I need to attune my body functions with the days I possibly could go fishing and I’m a bit out of sync at the mo) and medical appointments (had a colonoscopy and my diabetic eye screening, both with good results – and a CT scan for which results are still awaited) have put to any chances to make it out to the waters.

Also, the car, which had been earmarked for replacement anyway, started to play up and was refusing to start which led to a search for a replacement … terminating in a train trip to Preston on the Monday preceding start of lockdown on the Wednesday … and we returned home in our new car…. another Ford Galaxy, this time a 2013 Titanium model. Since then, with the help of a battery charger, we’ve coaxed the old 2005 Galaxy (now named ‘Epsom’ as we bought it in Derby – ‘Epsom Derby’?) 🙂 back into life and its now sitting on the drive alongside ‘Duncan’ (Duncan Preston) awaiting the weather to improve so it can be Karchered and Hoovered and a ‘For Sale’ sign stuck on it.

Anyway, possible fishing locations are a bit scarce too at the mo….

One of my club’s has opened all its waters BUT fishing is allowed only if you have to travel 5 miles or less to reach them – and that’s 5 actual road miles NOT 5 miles as the crow flies. As the closest waters of that club are at least 15 miles distant from my home those are all a no-go. And you also have to present your driving licence along with your membership cards to the bailiffs in order to ascertain if you are complying with the 5-mile rule.

Another club has closed all its waters completely until further notice….

My third club has its waters open – but that’s only 2 pools. One is local and is only about 10 minutes from my home but the other is 20-25 miles away and is not a favourite of mine – small and so stuffed with carp that the chances of catching anything else is minimal – went there once, won’t be going again!

And then there’s my Birmingham Anglers Association card which I get mainly for the local canal stretches but they also have river/pool/canal waters further afield including a short stretch of the Worcester Stour … and their waters are all open. In fact, Liz and I discussed going out on Monday to the local canal for an hour’s walk with the light lure rods but today the weather is awful – light snow/rain and extremely cold! – so maybe not – will have to see what happens over tomorrow.

Will be going out the the local Halford’s AutoCentre on Tuesday – booked an appointment there to have Duncan wired for the dashcam that we used for Epsom – and whilst waiting for that to be done, and if the main Halford shop over the road from the AutoCentre is open, then I’ll pop over there to maybe get Duncan some rear seat covers with the £20 voucher which we received from Confused.com when we used them for the purchasing of our car insurance last year.

January 1st 2021 has arrived and I wish one and all the very best for an exceedingly Happy New Year – with hopes that the covid vaccines recently released get into the right hands quickly for the vaccinations to be made – and that they do make the differences wished for!

Our New Year has been a bit marred by the car refusing to start for the past 3-4 days – hopefully due to the temps – and engine won’t even try to turn over (just a ‘click’ heard on the turn of the ignition key but that’s all apart from dashboard lights dimming/extinguishing).

BUT just after Xmas I was looking for the planned purchase of a new vehicle – and found one that looked good to meet our needs and desires bar it being 100 miles away in Preston – and Liz and I are off to do a ‘Click’n’Collect’ viewing –  and a purchase and drive away if all meets our desires via train on Monday 4th. So, a bit pushed into by the failure of the current vehicle but certainly meets my wants if all matches the description, etc.