My current target is a new personal best Tench, but to be honest I feel that I have my work cut out for me. Now I  do try not to be too superstitious, but I can't help but think that these are by far my "bogey" species. My current personal best stands at 6lb 4oz, and even though it was a good fish for a Fenland drain, it still isn't a monster; especially considering I've witnessed fish landed to 10lb + in recent years from Stillwater's.

My Tench campaign started about three weeks ago, and even though it is still early days yet, bad luck has not been far away. So far I have watched good friend Winky land fish of 6lb 13oz, 7lb 5oz, 7lb 11oz and a 6lb 10oz on my rod whilst I made a quick dash to drop of some tackle to my car; typical! For myself, I have had no shortage of fish, but I'm frankly getting a little fed up with 5lb males! Not to mention a silly amount of Bream as well (one did weigh a couple of ounces shy of 10lb though....). The icing on the cake was definitely when I landed what looked like a possible PB a couple of days ago, but after much excitement on mine and winks part, this turned out to weigh 6lb 3oz; 1oz away from my PB! At least I know i'm not doing anything wrong, i just need to stick at it.

As well as the Tench, i have also had a few sessions on a local fen water and landed a few Tench to 5lb 14oz, along with my Girlfriends Dad Brian catching his first fish in 30 years; a 25lb 10oz Mirror on a 4lb line and a size 16 baited with 2 red maggots! As well as this I have had a bit of fun on a water I am now looking after, catching lots more predatory trout on quiver-tipped mackerel strips; one fish being a 4lb 5oz Brownie.

As well as the fishing I have been doing an awful lot of exploring. during these exploratory trips I have seen many more things than just fish however. Before this year I had only ever seen grass snakes in the wild, but during the past few recce sessions I can now add five adders to that as well; I even managed to get a close up picture of one of them.

I have recently started a 6 friday afternoon fishing course at my Girlfriend Lisa's school, so this has also taken up some of my time; I now understand why Lisa spends so much time preparing lessons, keeping kids attention for more than five minutes isn't easy! Hopefully I will have more to report soon, for now though please click here to see a few recent pictures.