bon repos Rr BLAVET may 07

Each year for the last 12 or so I have travelled to Brittany in early May for a weeks fishing and a total break from work. Roger Coombes from Bridgwater has accompanied me on every trip joined by various other friends. Joining us for the last 4 years has been Keith ( the Chief ) Dowdell. The format for our days fishing is a lie in , lunch at leisure then kick off at 2.30 ish. We take it in turns to choose the area to fish , draw for choice of swims and have little side bets on the outcome. Today it is Roger who will choose and we go to Bon Repos . Roger draws first and chooses the upsteam peg .Chief draws second and sits in the armchair peg in the middle and I get the downsteam peg. Normally I would be more than happy with this but there is a snag. My swim is a bit of a parrot cage to say the least and I do not have the time or equipment to improve it much. For this reason I am more or less obliged to fish the pole, so I set up a 1.25g jolly to 08 shogun hooklength and a b611 sz 18. I blagged some groundbait from Chief because he had a mountain of it and I was feeling lazy. I put in 6 babies heads at about 12 metres and one in short on the shelf. Both Roger and the Chief opt for the feeder and the Chief is first on the scorecard with an early bream. 1 hour in and I have not had a bite, I am sratching my head a bit because usually there are plenty of roach and skimmers here. The chief lands another bream but I am still biteless. Going into the third hour I am still biteless but I hear Roger land a fish and can feel my grasp of a 5 euro note slipping painfully away. Out of desperation and to rest arms and back I come in on the inside line and to my supprise the float slips away. It felt a decent sized fish but I pulled out, not my day! By now Roger and Chief were catching odd bream, skimmers and hybrids but its tough going. I still cannot get a touch at 12metres and the flow has increased slightly. Back on the inside and voila at last a skimmer of a pound. Chief has a camcorder now and insisted on filming the event but at least I have made him wait to use it . He really is becoming a Mr Gadget but a few minutes later he realised that he had left the cooker on back at the cottage so he was off to turn that off and its courgette and tomato crisps for supper. Mr Gadget, Mr Pastry! what next? Back to the fishing and I start to make the odd bite and catch a few fish. 12 to be precise. Chief is back now and catches a few more but Roger is being very cagey. At weigh in, Roger estimates 15lbs and weighs just over 24lbs Chief weighs in 18lbs and I feel I may just get the nod with those late fish but alas 12ozs short with 23+ lbs. Slow start but Roger is off with the loot and we are on the way to the pub.