March 12 PB Tench + Mobile Phone - Private Pond, Holland, Surrey

As in 2009, I had most of March off to get rid of my excess annual leave so for me the 2010 year/season started today.

With only 3 fishing days to end of the club's season I decided to pay a final visit to the Private Pond in Holland, near Oxted in Surrey.

As expected when I arrived at the pond at 8am there was no else to be seen. I put it down to the fact that it was a Friday and also that the weather was very cold! I made my way to peg 1 which is my favourite swim there.

As the lily pads from the summer had died away I decided to fish diectly in front of my platform about 1 rod length out.

I initially fed some groundbait, hemp and a few casters and then it was a few grains of hemp every cast.

Around midday I finally got my first bite which was a small roach. I had been seeing signs of small fish moving about but nothing had shown any interest in my bait.

I had quite a few of last year's seafood 10mm boillies left so all morning I 'd been feeding a swim about 3 rod lengths away to my left with 2 or 3 boillies every 30 minutes or so.

At 13:30 I decided to cast to the swim using my feeder rod, size 14 hooklength and 6 pound line.

Less than 45 minutes later the rod tip went round and in came this 3.5lb tench, which is a personal best for me.

If you look closely you can see it is unfortunately blind in one eye.

2 hours later, around 16:08 the tip swung round again and in came this 5lb common.

At 17:05 this 3 pound common also took a fancy to my boillies and that as they say was that for the club's season.

I can't leave this report without mentioning the mobile phone incident.

Around 3pm, I was on my way to answer the call of nature when my phone rang. Now, in March it's not too easy or comfortable to go for a jimmy so I was saving it up until the last minute. I answered the phone call as quickly as I could, replaced the phone in my arm pocket and had the aforementioned jimmy. Returning to my swim I threw out some hemp along with my phone - in my haste to relieve myself I handn't re-zipped my pocket!