On Monday night l headed back to Cemex Split Lake in the hope of a catfish slipping up and luckily got back into Catfish Alley.

Instead of placing both baits up against the bushes l opted to place just one here with the other rod scaled down in the hope that maybe one of the big bream may come along. With overcast skies l was confident that things would happen but the three runs that came all came from the rod in open water and as expected they were all from bream. The biggest went 9lbs 4oz so a good start regarding getting a bream on the list for the Cemex species challenge.
As the week progressed the weather started to improve, well that’s if you wanted to sunbath, but with warm cloudless days come the autumnal cold nights and with temperatures dropping away well into single figures my planned two-night stint on Dintons White Swan didn’t look promising. The session was spent in the good company of Alan Stagg who’s been recording some good bream over the last few weeks and placed me in what has been his most productive swim, however apart from a few liners and a personal best tufftie no action came to either of our rods which wasn’t surprising as their was hardly any wind throughout our stay, no cloud cover and as we left at 9am Saturday morning the temperature gauge showed a dismal seven degrees, which was considerably warmer than what it was in the early hours. Alan nearly stayed on as whilst packing up two big bream popped their heads out over his spots but with another target pending he reluctantly set of for pastures new, that’s angling!