2019 - 27th February , practice on the Sutton Soar with Dean and Colin

You could be forgiven thinking the three of us today were in June instead of February such was the strange warmth and total sun we endured. As part of the 'river' team in readiness for the competition for March 10th we decided to meet up with Captain Dean Cherrington and use the B+J . Under Deans's scrutiny we applied our measurements of ground bait / soil / leam / so much joker and we all fished in a line using same methods which was all pole at 11m to 14m .

Well ! less said about the first 2 hours as neither of us gained a bite ! However Dean started to lay on and fished a rig over depth with 4 blood worms and he extracted a decent 1.75lb Perch . He took another later with a decent roach a bit later . Colin and myself were fish less at this point and i started to walk the bank looking for inspiration.

It was later in the afternoon that i took a rest and laid my pole down at 5m and i had a bite on red maggot . Tried again 15 minutes later and float down and a decent 5oz roach came out . I started then to fire consistently 7-10 maggots over the balling line and went out on my light 0.5gr SENSAS Abbieville float with shot spread but tight and 20's SENSAS 3405 hook and as the sun got lower in the sky the fish came on , be it slowly and all three of us took 10 plus good roach up to 8oz .

Conclusion of the day where we fished on pegs 62-63-64 , dont draw these pegs and the need for a cloudy day would somewhat help .


3 x top 5's with Maurizio Schiepatti 0.75gr , Abbieville 1.0g and later 0.5gr , MAS-Sam Merry special.

Office for the day

Early morning mist and cold cleared and we were soon in T-Shirts

Dean fine tuning rigs

Colin also tuning

Dean master class in getting the b+j correct

End of day - very slow start and near the end we took some good weight builder roach.

Dean with a large Perch , roach and skimmer