Too Long since the last post ....................apologies guys

I cant believe how fast time flies by, it must be my age. Work is commanding my time at the weekends so my fishing has mainly been weekday afternoon sessions. Having said this the third round of Binghams Winter league was a sunday match on the Barrow Canal, I drew right in the middle of the match, an end peg is such an advantage on these cold water matches, and so it proved, with the end pegs coming first and second, my mate Dan was pegged nearest the locks and worked hard on punch and worm to take 3lb 5 I believe, second weight from the other end was 2lb 15of roach on pinkie, I was third5 fish 14 oz.
  With the final leg of Bingham AC's winter league due to be fished on a very fickle Fishpool, Richard Landon asked if I could have a quick session on the lake, to asses if the warmer days had prompted any fishy responces. I went to peg 13 as the wind was less of a problem than any other peg, 3 chucks with bomb and corn=3 carp, 3lb ish each, another angler on the lake had caught 60 odd roach and skimmers so I set up a light maggot rig fished 7m out,flouro pinkie was the bait, 2 and a half hours later 4 more carp and 3lb of silvers, this on top of news from our bailiff Alan Snow that he'd had 6 carp the day before and a guy sat on peg 13 had 5 carp. The phonecall to Richard was made and the decision was pretty easy to make, only a downturn in the weather would scupper the plan.
So it was to prove, the wind and rain was forecast to arrive early on the morning of the match. I fed 5 pole lines , one at 4m then 10m to an island and three lines at 14m in open deep water. I had a carp on the 10m line after an hour, it was the only significant fish in the match at that stage, and so the banter began, and so unfortuneately did the wind and rain, with the wind in my face a brolly was a no hoper as was holding a pole at 14m, the 10m line and the 4m line were wind whipped and by now just holding the pole was painful, my hands were so cold, but with 3 and a half hours to go I needed a plan, I went back to the car park to get an extra coat and some work gloves, I was now seriously cold and wet and really not feeling very well. I plonked a method feeder out into open water, the method carried 3mm swimstim pellets with double dead red maggots on a size 18, thankfully the tip went round after 15 mins, another carp of 3lb, that gave me confidence to just sit the match out, keep as warm as I could and to keep fishing up to the final whistle, I had 3 more carp and lost another, 16lb odd for first place in the match and a very pleasant win in the league table too. Thank you Richard and the other guys from Bingham for a thoroughly enjoyable league, plenty of banter and laughs, and a few fish too.
With the end of the river season galloping toward us , my fishing buddy Dan and I had a bit of a think where we could go and catch some fish, I rarely fish the Soar above Leicester and with this being Dans stomping ground I knew he'd have a place we could go, but his e mail confirmed the fishing over there was poor at best at the moment so after reading a match report from the Old Nene at March we thought we'd have a go, with great anticipation I purchased some squatt from Melton Angling Centre, and found all my old river rigs from the good old Soar Valley Winter League days, on arrival we found one angler on the stretch, he was piking, and he'd had 11 in two hours, hells bells I thought we might have some trouble today. Dan fished a worm feeder and a 10m pole line, he caught steadily throughout with some half pound skimmers and perch, plus some rudd. I fished 4m and 11m feeding groundbait and pinkies at 4m and hemp, caster and groundbait on the long line, Rudd came immediately with fish to 10oz throughout the day, switching between the two lines I ended up with 15lb odd, Dan had a big 6lb, the amazing thing was that despite our piking neighbour ending up with 20 pike , both Dan and I didn't suffer a single pike attack all day, surreal.
I'm not sure where I will spend my next couple of months fishing, Broomes BJ's lake probably.


AMAL Business This month's AMAL meeting will be the AGM meeting, all member clubs can send a representative, our treasurer will produce the balance sheet and answer any questions regarding the clubs finances, I will give a resume of the running of the club, and again answer any questions. The delegates will then vote to re elect or not, the present committee if those committee members wish to stand for another year. As a committee we have decided not to increase any affiliation fees or book/season ticket prices. Continuing financial pressures on Anglers pockets means for the time being we will strive to work with the budget we have in place. The AMAL match due to be fished on 22nd March at Fishpool has been cancelled
The following matches are booked on our waters ,

Water Booked                                   Date of Booking     Booking Club

 Fishpool                                                18th April                AMAL

Fishpool                                                26th April                AMAL
 Fishpool                                              11th May                  Bingham AC

Fishpool                                                 26th May                AMAL

Fishpool                                                 31st May                 AMAL

Fishpool                                                 5th June                   AMAL
 Fishpool                                               7th June                   Charnwood Hookers

Fishpool                                                 12th June                AMAL
 Fishpool                                              17th August              Bingham AC
Barrow Deeps                                      28th September       Bingham AC

1860 and Waterside                              5th October             Jones and Shipman
 Fishpool                                              1st November           Ratby AC

Barrow Canal                                        23rd November       Jones and Shipman
 Fishpool                                               29th November        Ratby AC

So that's about the lot for now, any questions, catch reports and the like please let me have them cheers Ian