River Welland Sunday 28th August

The river Welland was in a strange mood today with the better fish conspicuous by their absence on what seemed like a perfect day. The only reason I could think of for this was the extra water that was in the river from the recent heavy rain we have had but everything else was spot on. The water had a good tinge of colour and there was a decent ripple on it and most of the day was overcast.
I was torn between the waggler 1/3 across or the feeder 3/4 across but when Graham said he was going to fish the feeder so I decided to fish the waggler as we would get a better feel for what was going on fishing 2 different methods. On plumbing up I found about 9 feet of water a 1/3 of the way across and this is the range I saw most of the proper bream topping last week.



 Insert Waggler ideal for Skimmers

The River Welland Shows its Hand - Sunday 14th August

We had decided to give the Welland another try this week because a mid week trip had shown that most of the river had a tinge of colour in it and we had also been told of a few fish being caught.
Now although I wasn't overly confident of a good catch I was quite looking forward to having another go and to be honest I didn't fancy the 2 hours travelling over to Norfolk and back to the Middle level or river Ouse. A look at the weather suggested that we would have a favourable wind to fish the float which would make a welcome change from the feeder.
When we joined the river at Crowland Bridge we could see that there were already quite a few anglers on the river on some of the better Bream pegs and so we went downstream a little way below Four Mile Bar footbridge. When we arrived at the pegs there was a reasonable colour to the water and a moderate breeze coming over our left shoulder and causing a nice ripple on the surface.



The River Welland between Spalding and Crowland 



Shimano Beastmaster BX 12ft Feeder Rod review

Having purchased this rod a few weeks ago I have now used it a number of times and feel its time to give a full review of it. The general appearance of the rod is quite understated with a satin finish on the blank and gloss finish on the whippings and joints, a quick inspection soon reveals the quality of finish which is up there with the best. The handle is part cork part hypalon and it has a screw reel seat, now I must admit that Brown is not one of my  favourite colours but I am coming to terms with it.

Shimano Beastmaster BX 12ft Feeder Rod

The Middle Level at Magdalen High Road

This Sunday almost turned into a complete waste of time for me but I managed to save the day with a last ditch effort on the feeder.
It was my week to drive and after a very poor nights sleep I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30 as I had arranged to pick Graham up at 7.30, when we pulled away from his house we still didn't have a firm plan of where we were going. Earlier in the week we had discussed going down the Welland as it had been fishing reasonably well but the weather wasn't the best for the venue and I had struggled when I had a short session on Thursday night and so we headed out to Ten Mile Bank. On arrival it didn't look very inviting and on speaking with a few anglers  it was apparent that it was going to be a difficult day and so we decided to head for the Northern End of the Middle Level at Magdalen.

Map showing the Northern end of the Middle Level

Preston Innovations Hardcase Luggage

Having spent a long time pondering over replacement luggage I decided to invest in the Preston Hardcase small holdall and the Hardbase Carryall, I have now owned them for a few months and feel its time I gave you my opinion of them.



The small Holdall and Hardbase carryall