Apologies for the lateness, I've found 1001 other things to do instead of this.. It doesn't help when you're writing it on a phone either, oh well.

For a month that every serious angler waits for, my October was a big disappointment. Although it started very, very promisingly.

The beginning of the month I smashed by PB 4 times, one fish after the other.

First one being 2lb 1oz

Second 2lb 9oz

And third 3lb 6oz!

(The final fish did not get photographed due to p**s poor weather) 

I went out that day to catch a big river perch and I caught 4! I'm still "buzzing" about that session now.

A week later I returned to the same river to see what else was patrolling the murky depths. The conditions were perfect, it was mild, overcast, and the water had a slight chocolatey tinge to it, air pressure was ideal, and I had a westerly wind. But for the first time in a while I blanked! I was stumped, I could not put my finger on what the problem was. This happened again, and again. After 4 sessions of pretty much nothing (apart from a couple of little perch and chub) I thought I'd try somewhere different. 

21st of October I scrambled into the car, picked up my dad and headed off to a secret location where I knew monster chub were living. Unfortunately this was one of the days when we were hit by the tale end of that hurricaine. We spent the journey convincing ourselves that "it's not that windy" and "it'll be alright, no rain no gain".. We couldn't of been more wrong. I parked up, opened the car door and I almost lost it! The wind was blowing the wind in sideways and all I could here was my dad saying "you muppet, why have you brought me out here?". We walked to the river, trudged the 2 mile walk up to the end of the field holding on to our tackle for dear life, set up the kettle and made a brew while we set up. The river was up slightly, nice bit of colour, it looked promising. The normal plan of attack is lobworms fished over bread crumb, leap frog up and down the 3 miles or so of this tiny river. 3/4 hours passed not a nudge. Several of my under armed gentle casts ended up in the field opposite due to the wind! Just as we were ready to give up my dad hooked the biggest chub I'd seen in real life, and lost it at the net! I was gutted let alone him. I was practically suicidal when I found out he was fishing the same line as me 10 metres down stream, bloody poacher! That was my fish! I got over it in the end and we spent the last hour or so huddled up next to my ghillie kettle keeping warm. A slightly disappointing day, but the company was good. 

I had one last session after that stick floating, really good day catching little silver fish ready for a day's fishing in Sheffield with Chris the week after.