Life took on a different meaning for me in April, following the birth of my daughter. Despite having the usual best of angling intentions and a good handful of club / syndicate tickets, the fish rarely got a look in during 2019.
I've been limited to snatching short sessions whenever the going at home has been good. A far cry from being able to throw myself into decent length sessions pretty much every week. I'm not complaining though - family wellbeing is now the priority - but I've sure missed my regular dose of piscatorial therapy.
That said, what a miserable run of wet weather we've had in the last quarter of the year. All too frequently my short sessions have coincided with the rivers being badly our of sorts. I've even resorted to the odd stillwater, which had little impact on my success.
A run of 7 blanks stretching back almost 3 months was endured at the peak of my misfortune and only ended with my final session of the year.
Amongst the limited offerings I've had, there were occasional highlights with a couple of pb's.
A completely unexpected specimen canal silver bream that was actually my first post baby capture in May. It went 2lb 8oz and the sheer scale of it didn't really hit me until I started discussing it with others afterwards. I just wish I'd taken some better shots of it now.
The other highlight was finally breaking into double figures with an Anker bream of 10lb 2oz, taken on stick float and centrepin in June. Again I didn't do it justice with the self takes and a mat shot will have to do.
2020 will hopefully see me hitting the bank a little more often again and I'll duly follow with a few more blog posts.
Tight lines all.
