Being March and pretty cold (1.5 degrees) when I set out about 7:20 and coupled with the fact that the venue hadn't fished very well last year I wasn't all that optimistic.
There was a heavy mist as I made my way through the country lanes, across the M25 at Limpsfield Village and then down through the Surrey Hills to Edenbridge.
When I arrived at the fishery's car park I discovered there was aleardy three cars there, a good sign the lake was fishing well? I hoped so.
I unloaded the car and put on my winter warmer gear as you never know how cold it is going to be sitting still all day. Better to be safe than sorry. I then quickly made my round to the top of the lake.
When I arrived at the swim I took in the new landscape, no trees! All the trees on the bank had been heavily pruned. At least I wouldn't have any casting difficulties today.
The mist was still very much in evidence as I set up my match rod. Today my terminal tackle would be a 2AA float, 4lb line and to start, a size 20 hook.
Single maggot was going to be the bait of the day as I thought that being early March it would be the roach that would turn up to feed first, if anything did of course.
After I fed some maggots and hemp I set my seat and was ready to make my first cast. The time was 8:40.
I knew it would be slow to start with and I was proved right as for most of the first hour the float never moved. I did keep feeding little and often and was finally rewarded with a small roach. I wasn't going to blank today.
The next two hours were a struggle. I kept plugging away though. I maanged to winkle out another small roach and my first skimmer bream of the season.
During the session I'd assembled my feeder rod and loaded it with a small crab boillie. I'd then cast it to the far bank. I'd fed the swim with a generous helping of these boillies in the hope of maybe tempting a carp later on in the day.
At 11:30 after adding another small roach to the virtual net, the tip of the feeder rod went round and I was into something that definitely wasn't a 2 oz roach. It turned out not to be a carp but was one of the lake's tench. I would say it was about 1.5 lb. That lifted my spirits.
It was now lunchtime and the day had warmed up somewhat and so had the fish. By 13:40 I'd added another two roach to the net, almost a rush!
The next hour was even better, three roach and my first rudd of the season.
All day I'd been feeding the reed bed to my right with one or two pieces of corn. At 16:00 I gave up on my float line to concentrate on that swim. I switched from maggot to bread flake and was immediately rewarded with a carp of around 2 lb!
Thirty minutes later the tip went round on the feeder rod and I was into another carp, this one with a liking for crab. When it made the net I estimated it at around 4 lb.
As it was getting near to packing up time I dismantled the feeder rod and concentrated on the reed bed to my left. Again it was with bread flake on the hook.
I had to wait about ten minutes before the float dipped and I was into a 'biggie'. It took me all over the swim before I began to get on top of it. Alas it was not to be as it broke the hook length. At that point I decided to call it a day.
So the tally at the end of the day was thirteen fish, two carp, one each of tench, rudd, and bream plus eight very small roach. Not a bad start to the season.
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