Another early spring session that turned out to be a bit challenging. A high pressure system had been giving us cold nights and clear blue sky days and it seemed a pity not to enjoy such beautiful weather. Unfortunately such conditions aren't always great for fishing and so it proved. I managed a few fish but it was challenging on a water that usually is far more reliable.

I had planned to fish a far corner of the lake to escape the slight breeze that could make waggler fishing a bit tricky, but the high water level stopped me from getting there as the path was under water. I therefore fished the main section of the lake and was troubled on and off by the breeze. I had fished the same spot quite successfully the year before so was hopeful of some sport.

I had brought maggots from a previous outing but unfortunately bar a few they had all turned. I groundbaited with some proprietary mix laced with hempseed and the casters, although most of the latter just floated up, providing a meal for a couple of ducks.

I started with sweetcorn but other than a couple of half-hearted lifts on my lift-method setup, there were no positive bites. A change of bait was needed so I managed to pick out three surviving maggots, which rewarded me quite quickly with a roach that gave a very positive lift of the float. A smaller roach soon followed.

A combination of a single maggot and a couple of casters finally produced the first of four bream. After this I alternated between the maggot/caster mix, bread flake, sweetcorn and luncheon meat, all of which provided lots of half bites with the float lifting quite positively but for the most part I was unable to hook the fish.

On reflection I perhaps should have put on a finer hook length and smaller hook, although having lost carp in this lake in the past I was reluctant to do so at the time. As it was I managed three more bream, bread flake proving to be the most reliable bait. Luncheon meat provided a lot of float lifts but I didn't connect with any of them.

My conclusion is that the bites were down to the bream and, being relatively small fish, perhaps the bait size was too large to result in more positive bites. I have had difficulties hitting the bream in the past on this lake when legering, bobbin drop backs not resulting in contact with the fish. Colder water conditions probably made things more difficult on this occasion.

There was another chap float fishing a little way along from me and he didn't have much success either, saying that he had a lot of knocks that didn't materialise. I've not fished the lake so early in the year before so perhaps it's a matter of waiting for the water to warm up a bit more as I know that there's a good head of fish in this lake, including a lot of tench.