2014 14 June 13th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge, Kent

Finally my first chance of the new season to go to the club's premier venue, Nursery Fields had arrived. I was up at 5 am and because I prepared everything the night before I was on the road by around 5:45.

I didn't expect to be first there and so I wasn't disappointed to see three cars already in the car park. I knew I would still have a good choice of the swims on the far side of the lake when I saw one angler fishing the near side and one on the pegs at the bottom.

The peg I eventually chose was number 12 which has it's lily pads on the right hand. This makes it a lot easier for a right handed angler like myself. As a bonus the reeds around the platform had been cut back so that I could easily put my bank sticks in.

Today I intended to return to my normal dual attack tactic, one waggler rod for the lily pad swim and a feeder rod and feeder for the island bank. I also made the decision to only ground bait the waggler swim at the beginning of the session and just rely on loose feed to keep the fish interested.

I was ready to make my first cast at 7:30. The first out was the feeder rod. On the hook I had a 10 mm monster crab boillie. After casting in the feeder, I sorted my peg out so that everything was just where I wanted. A few minutes after that I was ready to cast the waggler in.

Just as I'd put the maggot on the hook the buzzer went on the feeder rod. I struck and immediately knew that I was into a good one. My luck was in, as a few minutes later I'd netted a 9 lb 9 oz common carp.

I released the carp, re-cast the feeder and sat back down to cast the waggler out. As soon as the float hit the water it disappeared and in came the first roach of the day. As I released the roach the buzzer sounded again. This one was not as big as the first, coming in at 3 lb 12 oz.

I managed after that carp to return to the waggler rod and put another seven roach into the virtual net. At the end of the first hour I'd accumulated 10 fish. A good start.

In the second hour the buzzer went off a further 4 times, alas none of the takers were carp. Instead it was three tench and a very nice crucian. On the waggler, I had four more roach and the first bream of the day.

Between 9:30 and 10:30 the feeder rod slowed down somewhat as it only produced 1 tench. The waggler however was slowing but still produced the day's first barbel, a tench and a further two roach.

It was about this time that the feeder rod's reel got in an almighty tangle so I put it down. Over the next two hours bit by bit I managed to sort it out. On the waggler rod the next hour gave up another barbel and a tench.

I switched swims on the feeder at 12:30 from the far bank to the reed bed to my left. Over the next hour this change of tactics brought in another barbel and another tench. The waggler rod's swim was still going strong, a barbel, a tench and a bream all falling victim to sweetcorn.

Over lunch, which consisted of mini sausages and mini pasties, both rods produced, Yet another barbel and tench on the feeder and just the one roach on the waggler.

I was having a lot of trouble seeing the float in the mixture of sunshine and shadows so I decided to switch floats. Boy, did that make a difference. Lesson learnt, always try another float instead of struggling with your original choice.

The next hour was the first one that the feeder rod drew a blank. The waggler however produced another barbel, tench and bream. My total for the day was now 36. Not bad at all.

After I'd netted another six fish consisting of roach, tench and barbel I decided to have a complete change of tactics. Over the winter break I'd bought loads of  6 mm halibut pellets. I began to loose feed these instead of the corn and maggots. For hook bait I had some small hookable halibut pellets.

The effect was instant. A barbel took the first pellet and a roach the second. The hat trick was completed with the arrival of another hard fighting tench.

This was the roach:

As the afternoon made it's way into evening the fish kept coming in on the pellets. Then for no reason at all the swim died. I switched baits to meat and the fish started coming again. They were made up of the usual suspects, roach, bream, barbel and tench.

I finished the day on 58 fish. The sun on my head had finally taken it's toll! I shall return in a few weeks to put right what I did wrong.