:-/but when you set sail the holiday mode soon kicks in a long with a few beers 
we started meeting up with the stainy boys pedro Snider and the colmic lads and all agreed it could be on of the hardest years we'd fished
as the weights had seamed to go up and down everyday and no real patten to the fishing one day you could catch 15 to 20 kgs of bream and the next you could sit bite-less 
after collecting bicko's fags during the the crossing
it was cheaper to pick up 40 fags with every round of drinks [4.89] per 20 than duty free which was 59.99 per 200 
anyway i thought i'd pick his brains when i arrived needless to say we got to bed in the early hours ready to dock around 6am and having listened to the lads that had already traveled the drivers all took there time and a couple were stopped at the docks 
needless to say our lads were all safe 
after docking its only a matter of 20minutes before you are at the citta complex .as we disembarked yes your guest it the windscreen wipers were on YES it was raining and as windy as hell
we decided to take a look at the canal before heading into town for some breakfast
this was our first look at the canal and none of us could believe the damage the long hard winter had done
normally reeds hide every peg and stand anywhere from 3ft to 5ft this year they were still in the ground perhaps 3cm with no fish topping apart from the odd roach .normally where this photo was taken is almost the end of the canal where most of the fish spawn not much signs of that and after a few minutes standing outside i was soaked
and as we drove down the canal which is the best part of 3 miles long we didn't see another angler
this is unheard of normally the regular first week-ers are fishing somewhere anyway off into town for some food and few extras like cheese milk and other bits and bobs you think this country is expensive 
from there we headed to the citta which looked like a ghost town still no signs of any of the anglers that had fished the first week 
so we collected the keys and off we went still getting over how cold that first day was .i asked the question that we should really go and fish the canal as we were heading straight into a match the next day .this really did get thrown out the window no one wanted to get there kit wet through on the first day by the time we had sorted our digs out which happened to be next to pat the organiser it was nearly time for a few beers again
first in the bar was our old mates the colmic boys and of course hogging the pool table
that was until they met Mr Barr our secret weapon [well we were is carers for the week ::) ::)]HAY-UP-LADS would become the saying of the week and you could expect to hear it a 1000 times a day
that was unless he fell a sleep and then it was giant ZZZZZs and snoring
but as always good for a laugh
part 2 the beginning of extracting info which seamed to be like rocking horse sh#t
8-)about it YES everyone powers up the whisks and mountains amount of groundbait and start mixing 
that the voices in my head]so again setting up 4 top 5s one cupping kit and a bomb rod again mixing a bucket full of G/B and the bait tray looking spot on
you can often get a free beer on the bank too 
witch is a end peg in the past ive had some weights off it and really fancied it my traveling partner Mark had drawn ok in the early pegs so we were quietly confident
