2015 03 March 22nd Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

For once this week's trip was on a Sunday. That was different but the poor March weather wasn't.

It was about 2.5 degrees when I loaded the car around 6.30 am. It had been very cold as well when I last visited the venue two weeks previously and the fishing had been very hard. Still today was another day things may be better.

First piece of luck of the day occurred when I arrived at the gate, someone was there before me which meant all I had to do was close and lock it - result. As it turned out we were the first two arrivals.

As usual I headed up the lake to the top swims as these had always been kind to me at this time of the year. To add to the good omens the wind would be blowing in my face, perfect. What could go wrong?

After last week's one rod attack I decided to revert back to my favorite tactic, a swim feeder placed close to the far reed bed and a waggler set up fished about half way across. I used a size 16 hair rig on the feeder and a size 20 on the waggler.

I fed the swims and made my first casts at 8:10. I then sat down and waited for the action to begin.

Unlike my previous visit I could at least see the movement of small fish. None of them however showed any interest in my solitary red maggot. I had to wait nearly two hours for my first bite. When it arrived the culprit was a tiny roach (See below).

By 11 am I was beginning to get cold despite wearing several layers of clothes. The fishing had improved, 2 more small roach had made the net.

Same thing happened the next hour, another two roach. So the morning session was over, 5 roach on the waggler and nothing on the feeder.

Another hour another roach. The next was my most productive by far, three roach! Had all the other species flown south for the winter and hadn't yet returned? The buzzer on the feeder rod remained silent,

Between 2 pm and 3 pm I had another roach and my first bream of the season albeit a very small skimmer.

The next hour brought another small skimmer bream. I was now getting very cold. Only an hour to go before I could head home for a warm bath.

Can you believe it? In the context of the day the fishing went mad in the last hour. Five roach made the virtual net bringing my total for the day to 17. Fifteen roach and two bream.

One strange thing happened today. In the middle of the afternoon two members, one with a saw came and begun to cut some old sticks from the trees directly behind me. It turned out they needed them for their runner beans!