After a couple of blanks at Block Fen I went back today to try my luck. I had been waiting at home for the delivery of my pond liner but as Helen was in for the afternoon I decided to grab a few hours fishing.

My reed corner was free when I arrived just after 15.00. There were a couple of ‘carp’ anglers on the opposite bank; multiple rods, big feeders and rather too much bait being fed in.

I started with free-lined flake but there were no early takes. I changed to luncheon meat and missed a good run because I hadn’t seen the line move in time. To improve my chances I added a small indicator stick and the next run came fairly quickly, again on luncheon meat. I tightened into what was clearly a good fish and spent the first few minutes trying to keep it of the reeds to my left. It made a number of lunges and at one point nearly became entangled in a floating log that was dislodged from the margin. I was relieved when it finally moved into more open water but this was short-lived, as it kept trying to get back into the reeds, both to the left and right of me. By this time I knew it was a good fish, certainly 15lb if not more. After about ten minutes it tired and came to the net quite easily.

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Having heaved it out of the water and struggled to weigh it on my little electronic scales, it came in at 18.2lb, my best fish from Block Fen and the best so far this year. One of the chaps opposite asked if I would like him to take a photo, which was better than trying to set up the mini-tripod and self-timer; the result is better too.

Getting the fish in obviously caused a fair bit of mayhem and I didn’t expect any further action for a while. As it was, things went very quiet although conditions settled down to give a perfect evening. No wind and that ‘feel’ that the fish would start to bite. However, despite trying various parts of the margin I could only get nibbles from smaller fish on my large chunk of luncheon meat.

In an attempt to improve my bait placement I experimented with a new float set up. Using a small weighted pellet waggler I put two plastic stops on the line, one about two inches above the hook and the other over-depth. The waggler was free to run on the line between the two stops; a sliding float rig in effect with no weights on the line. With this arrangement the float fell almost to the end of the line when casting enabling me to place the bait and the float, as almost a single entity, exactly where I wanted, whereupon the bait sunk. This worked well and I have high hopes for this approach in the future.

I plodded on and at about 21.00 had a good bite. I tightened onto something solid but within seconds the hook came free. It’s difficult to know whether it was a fish or a snag, although I suspect it was a fish as there was definitely a bite and I’ve never been snagged at that point before.

If it was a fish it would have spooked the swim and sure enough from then until I packed in a 21.30 I didn’t get another touch, although I wasted about ten minutes retackling after a horrendous line tangle. Still, it was a good session and I’m not complaining.