Bill Oddie and Spring watch - Sherwood Cavendish 21st March 2010

6.32am A bloody text message after only 4 hours sleep awakes me. 'Just moved K car. Madness. 1 degree.'. Well the writing was on the wall from that point. Dragged myself out of bed and poked my eyes open. Flasks filled, enough tackled to land moby dick placed in tiny car, de-iced windscreen! and off I went.


Which of the seven dwarfs are you?


20 Minutes later - 'Where are you?' - ' I'm outside Next!' - 'where?' - 'by Comet etc' - 'oh ok, I'm going down the lane, I bet there's a match on'. If he touched lead it would have turned to gold this morning. Mystic Nico got it right. Match on every lake. The shaking head as I rolled up was all I needed to know.



Cavendish was the only option, sun was out, it was warm, yes warm. Next to the tree lucky peg 13 for Nico. Fish slapped a hello on the surface of the water as we set up, but the other side at a safe uncatchable distance. Set up, jumpers for goal post and mole hill mud for ground bait. Just enough to fill a few pot holes, over feed the fish and throw 1kg in the hedge at the end. Pellet on hook at 10 metres, skimmer, skimmer, skimmer, skimmer looks like I'm gonna be a winner!

Nico nothing, Nico nothing, Nico nothing.


Spot the Finch competition


Then as if by magic Nico was visited by a small talking Finch, God of Sherwood, he cheeped and churped, he was fed a maggot and left. Nico for his good deed got a rudd and then another. The Finch God of Sherwood returned, another maggot, Dr Bloody Dolitte made a friend and caught another fish. Wedding and stag doo banter prevailed. Peasant popped in - imagine if he had fed that - a carp might have prevailed - peasant God of the Carp at Sherwood! Bored.


Nico looking positively towards a session on Cavendish - someone hold him back!

Rudd, very odd skimmer and roach then followed for both. Nico had a few in quick succession by the tree. Both ending up with 10-15 fish each. Scratching all the way, red maggot best bait with a few on pellet. Over night frost killed it. Got colder as the day went on. Slow but good to be out. Weather reasonable just limited fish. 30lb in week from peg 13? How is it done?



Festival next weekend, feed that Sherwood God the Finch for good weather and a few fish. Things can only get better. Roll on Saturday. Early night, limit the expectations, maggot, pellet, no mole hill mud and silvers will be mine.