The fishery doesn't open until 7 am, so I didn't have to get up especially early. I was on the road by 6:30 and arrived at the venue some 40 minutes later.
After being let in, I made my way down the twisty one mile or so track to the first of the fishery car parks. Not surprisingly it was empty. I put it down to the poor weather forecast.
Being first there of course meant that I had choice of lake and swim! I had already planned to fish Silver lake, which is the venue's match lake. Peg 1 is my favorite swim so that would be today's choice.
I was set up (one rod only today) by 8 am. I started with a single red maggot. It didn't take long for the float to disappear and I was into my first roach of the day.
I had thought hard about my tactics for the day. In the end I decided I would feed a ball of ground bait consisting of brown crumb, corn, hemp, halibut pellets and maggots every hour. With every cast I would feed 3 or 4 maggots. For each fish caught I would feed a couple of grains of corn.
It seemed to pay off in the first hour as I caught 19 fish. This included 2 bream, 2 Gudgeon, 2 Rudd and 11 Roach.
As I had fed corn all the previous hour my next tactic was to try corn after feeding the hourly ground bait. When or if I caught a carp I would switch back to maggot for the remaining time left in the hour. The seemed to work as I caught a 2 lb 7 oz carp a few minutes after changing. I managed to get 2 Rudd and 6 roach on the maggot.
The tactic worked again at the start of the next hour. This time the carp weighed 3 lb 15 oz. On the maggot I got a Rudd and a further 4 roach.
The process would have been repeated again at 11 am however this time I lost the carp almost at the end of the fight. Back on the maggot I managed to get 3 gudgeon, a Rudd, a bream and 6 roach.
Between 12 and 1 pm there was no interest in the corn so after about 20 minutes I made the switch back to maggot. This change yielded 6 roach.
After I'd eaten my lunch I tried again. This time the tactic worked. The result, a carp of 1 lb 15 oz. The switch to maggot got me 2 Rudd and 6 more roach. The highlight of the hour though, was a shock carp of 1 lb 5 oz on a single maggot.
By 2 pm I was feeling confident that I was doing things well. I was into a good rhythm. I lost another one on corn which was disappointing as it felt a good one. As per the plan I then switched to maggot and got 1 Rudd and 4 more roach. Before the hour ended I landed a carp of 5lb 8 oz on single maggot. Today was my day!
Alas it was not too last as between 3 and 5:20 pm when I packed up I only managed 2 fish, a roach and a carp of 4 lb 4 oz with a liking for bread.
As I packed up I reflected on a day where I came up with a tactic that worked, 69 fish, six of them carp. I'd say I had a successful day albeit in quite chilly May conditions.
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