England international and Fox-sponsored angler, Neil Rivers, has been making the most of his limited time in recent weeks...

After the lows of not making it to any finals in the competitions this year, I could now concentrate on my own angling and prep work for a practice out in Hungary with the England squad. My angling has been limited this month, I did however, manage to get out to a new day ticket fishery down near Plymouth called Milemead Fishery. I had done a bit of homework and had found we had to book in for a overnight session. So it was going to be just a midweek over night session - get there for 7pm then up at 5.20am and off to work. A friend of mine was also doing an overnighter and he had already got there before me and had chosen swim 7.I noticed a few fish just under the surface cruising around in front of peg 5 so opted to set up here. The brolly was set up and rods were just about to be put out when I heard a big splash further on down to my right, which I thought I better investigate. On walking the margins slowly down to my right I came to an area that was slightly clouded with four fish very close to it, one of them was a big common of upper-20 to low-30 whilst the other three looked to be low 20s. I stood watching them for 10 minutes seeing what they were doing. They were going round and round in a quite big area coming back to the marginal shelf to then have a feed on what looked like old bait that had been thrown in. I snuck back to my peg grabbed a rod, net and a pocket of bait and made my way back to the clouded area. As I approached the area two of the fish were tails up feeding, I crumbed a few 12mm NuttaS boilies up and flicked them over the top and they then moved off but sure enough the other two came back and started to eat the crumbed baits! I did the same again and the fish again moved off allowing me to lower my rig in. Shortly afterwards the first two fish came straight back in and then stopped!  They had seen something! They turned around and swam off. I lifted the rig, checked it, lowered it back in making sure the line was out the way and then crumbed some bait up flicked it around the spot. This time all four fish came back and all four fish stopped! This went on for a good hour, with the fish acting very cautiously as they approached my rig. I used blobs of putty all sorts to pin everything down but every time they came back they wouldn't come any closer. I did notice that when they turned around they would make a big flick of their tail and any bait left would blow back up to the edge, which they would then in turn come back and eat! Lesson learnt, it was now getting dark so it was back to the main swim, but before I left I sprinkled 50 x 12mm baits around the spot to check in the morning.I managed to get the three rods out in my swim for the night nice and quietly and into three close-in areas that I saw the fish patrolling earlier. It was then time to get some food and some sleep before getting up at the crack of dawn and getting back to site for 7am. I was kept awake from about 2am by liners on my left hand rod, willing it to go off, which it did eventually and I managed a small common at first light - not massive but it was still a fish and a welcome sight. After the small common the liners stopped and it was time to pack up and get to work. It's a lovely venue and before my time is up in Plymouth I'll definitely be heading back for another visit.My next trip was an outing with my other half, Sophie, who had said that I never take her fishing so an afternoon in the sun was planned. A good friend of mine has just purchased a new fishery in Kent and it's only five minutes from my house so it was perfect to take Soph to learn all about why I go fishing and love the sport so much. We set up on The Reservoir, and whilst I got the stalking kit out Soph sorted the picnic. It wasn't long before one of the rods had let out a few bleeps and it was screaming off. After a bit of guidance Soph managed to steer a small mirror into the waiting landing net. After a few hours we had caught about 20-25 fish up to 13lb using simple KD rigs tied from size 8 barbless Edges Medium Curve hooks and 15lb Coretex Matt in brown. A wafter was used as a hookbait and a small PVA mesh bag of pellet attached to complete the setup.  Sophie had even got the knack of tying the meshed bags so they were nice and tight and not wasting any PVA!

After that trip out with Soph it was prep time for me for the match practice in Hungary. Rigs were tied, reels spooled up, new line put on spare spools and gear all cleaned down ready for the long drive. With all the prep work done I had one more trip planned before departing for Hungary. This was another social for my mate Luke’s birthday, which we headed to Orchard Place Farm for. A few of the lads had got down the night before and had already started, I wasn't getting down until the Saturday due to family commitments and by the time I had got there the lads had already banked a few fish. All in all we had about 60 fish up to 27lb during the weekend, which is great fishing considering the hot sunny conditions that we were faced with.