Ken's Fishing Tales: 2011 5 March 30th Mill Lake, Stubpond, Felbridge Surrey

The penultimate day of my annual leave period saw me tackling this lake once more.

The weather although a bit nippy looked ok. The forecast was for some showers in the afternoon.

I was a bit earlier than normal when I arrived at the fishery but was pleasantly surprised to see that the gates were open even though it was only 7:15.

Though the gates were open the car park was deserted. I quickly unloaded my gear and made my way to my swim.

I'd decided in the car coming down to fish the same swim as before but a yard or so to the left in the hope that I would avoid the problem I had with weed on my previous visit. If that failed I would switch to the feeder rod and fish down the middle of the channel.

My setup was still on the light side - 4lb mainline to a size 18 hook. Bait was all the usual suspects for the time of year, maggots, bread and corn on the hook and brown crumb and hemp as the groundbait.

The water was flat calm as I cast in for the first time. The groundbait had worked it's magic as roach after roach fell to the maggot on the hook. A bright start and no problems with the weed.

Everything seemed to be going well, the virtual net had a healthy head of fish and my choice of swim was seemingly weed free until the wind started to pick up and the lake started to produce waves! Next came the first spots of rain which got steadily worse and never let off for the remainder of the day.

I was freezing but the action keep me alive (barely). Around lunchtime the waves made bite detection very hard so I decided to set up the feeder rod.

The set up I chose catered for the carp which as of yet hadn't shown in my swim. I had 6lb mainline to a size 14 hair rig. The boillies were strawberry flavoured 10mm I think, anyway small they were.

I only had to wait about 30 minutes or so before the tip shot round and I was into my first carp of the day. Turned out to be a nice one of about 4 pounds. Ten minutes later a second was in the net.

Time	Fish	Bait	Weight
8:15	10 Roach/Rudd	Maggot
8:44	10 Roach/Rudd	Maggot
9:10	2 Skimmer Bream 7 Roach/Rudd Carp	Maggot for the bream and roach Bread for the carp	1.5lb
9:49	8 Roach Skimmer Bream Crucian Carp	Maggot Bread for the crucian, bream and 1 of the roach
10:31	2 Crucian 1 Skimmer 7 Roach	One of the roach, the crucians and the skimmer on corn the rest on maggot.
11:19	4 Crucian 6 Roach	2 crucian and 1 roach on bread the remainder on maggot
12:17	2 Carp 8 Roach/Rudd 1 Crucian	The carp on corn, the remainder on maggot
13:42	3 Carp Gudgeon 7 Roach/Rudd	2 of the carp on strawberry boillies, the other on corn. The remainder on maggot.	4lb and 4.5lb
16:45	10 Carp	All on strawberry boillies	6lb 5.5lb 5lb 4lb