I made up my mind early that I would if possible try and get swim number 1 as I did last visit. Apart from the obvious success I had there it also has the advantage of haviing a reed bed coming off the end of the island that I could fish to with the feeder rod if the weather turned nasty.
I arrived at 7am sharp and made my way from the gate down the 1 mile or so track to the car park. After parking up two lads who had been fishing there overnight gave me all thier unused maggots!
I knew by the number of cars (or lack of) them to be precise that I would be on peg 1 again today. I reached the lake and was not disappointed. The whole lake was free.
On the way down I'd decided that I would try and fish a little further out than usual so I set up with a 1.3g waggler instead of the usual 3bb one. Also I'd read recently on the forum a set of posts on the importance of plumbing the depth of the whole area surrounding the swim. I normally do just around where I intend to put the float. Anyway this time I spent a few extra minutes plumbing up and discovered a hole around a foot deep just after where I normally fish followed by the 'normal' depth.
The plan now was to fish the far side of the hole so I groundbaited that area with brown crumb, corn and fair amount of hemp.
I started with corn as the hookbait. I didn't have to wait long as a 2 ounce carp took a fancy to it and his fate was sealed. Ten minutes later I'd had a bream of about a pound, a carp of 1.5 pounds and the first roach of the day.
The swim was on fire now as in the next hour I managed a carp of 2.75 pound, 5 bream (all largish skimmers) and another roach.
Around 10:30 I decided to give some bread flake a go, now usually I'm pretty wary using this bait in the main swim as I tend to get pestered by the smaller fish, that is the float dips but when I strike there is nothing there not even the flake. Anyway initially my fears were correct as the small roach did the dirty on me. Eventually the float took a real dive and in came a carp of at least 2 ounces! Thirty minutes later so did his brother. Undeterred I tried again - this time success a 2lb common!
All morning I'd been feeding lumps of flake and meat into the reed bed on my right. At noon I decided to give it a whirl. It is pretty shallow there so the float was laying on. Once it lifted and started to move away I stuck and eventually out came a 2lb common. Meat was the bait this time.
Apparentlly fish have lunchtimes too because until 2pm the swim(s) went very quiet. Not a sign of any feeding activity. Then at 14:00 they came back to life, a common of 2lb from the main swim and one of 2.5lb from the margins on meat again.
Another couple of quiet hours followed in the early afternoon. Undettered I carried on feeding the swim in an effort to get them back sometime in the early evening.
I was still fishing with corn and was rewarded just after 4pm when I caught 2 roach and a 3.5lb carp. The evening dinner bell apparently had been sounded!
I only had to wait 30 minutes or so before the float went under again and I was into what was then my best carp of the day - a 4.5lb specimen(!).
Fifteen minutes later a 5lb'er took the bait. They were coming quicker and bigger! The quiet afternoon spell long since forgotten.
Alas it was a false dawn, I had to wait a further 90 minutes before I caught my last fish of the day, a 2lb common from the margins.
I packed up around 7pm and headed home for some fish and chips, well it was a Friday.
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