After some warmer weather I returned to this Earith lake in the hope of catching a tench. There was nobody there when I arrived so I was looking forward to a quiet and peaceful session. Unfortunately my hopes were misplaced as a lot of people turned up later, and the owner was grass cutting throughout my stay, adding a loud background drone to a lot of talking and occasional shouting. But I managed one tench, so you could say that it was a qualified success.

The back of the lake was still difficult to access because of the high water level and after a chat with the owner I went to the end of the thin island that projects into the lake. He had said the spot was good for tench. There was a patch of lily-like plants in the swim and I decided to fish over the back of these, where the water was probably a couple of feet deeper than the spot where I fished on my previous visit. I pre-baited with small rolled up pellets of bread flake and started with bread flake on the hook.

In a repeat performance of the previous visit I started getting lift bites that I couldn't hit. This went on for a while until a more positive bite, where the float was dragged sideways, resulted in a decent fish being hooked. It didn't feel that big but fought hard and I wasn't surprised when a tench broke the surface before being netted. So, my target species was in the net and I hoped that more would follow.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The unhittable lift bites continued and more and more people turned up. There were quite a few youngsters because the schools were on half term holiday and there were some carp guys with all their accoutrements. But everyone was 'carping'. I find it quite sad that youngsters start angling apparently thinking only of carp, and equally sad that it is difficult these days to find a stillwater fishery that isn't biased towards carp.

After a while I tried luncheon meat and although I had one good bite, which I missed, no further interest was shown. I did, however, hook something that powered off in an unstoppable fashion, only to lose contact with it after a few seconds and bring back a large scale on the hook. So there were carp down there but they weren't interested in what I had to offer. I think that the carp in these lakes are becoming preoccupied with pellets and boillies and that more traditional baits are perhaps being largely ignored. Not that I was tackled to deal with a large carp!

After a lot of frustration with missed bites I finally hooked a fish that fought well but clearly wasn't a tench. In fact once landed it had the form of a roach but with dark tinging on the fins, suggesting perhaps a roach/bream hybrid. If it had been a true roach it would have been a good one!

And so the session progressed, with periods of little or no activity on the float, until I finally hooked a heavyish fish that proved to be a bream. It fought quite well and then embarrassed me by flipping out of the landing net while on the unhooking mat, and ungraciously sliding down the sloping bank into the water.

And that was to be my last fish before packing up at 3.00pm. To be honest the amount of chatter and occasional shouting around the lake had spoiled my enjoyment, and the fact that there was the almost constant drone of the large grass cutting vehicle throughout my stay detracted greatly from the tranquility I seek when out fishing.