I had proposed to go to a river but because of torrential rain the previous day I decided to go over to the local Clay Pit and fish a side pond. I had had a fair measure of success in these ponds earlier in the season but hadn't fished them in colder weather. I hoped for some roach and perch but things actually worked out a lot better.

I was lucky to get the swim I had fished on previous occasions since a number of cars arrived just after me and I'm sure that spot would have been taken. There were also some carp guys fishing the main lake so the venue was in fact fairly busy.

I had maggots and worms from the prvious week's outing. This meant that I didn't really have enough maggots to feed liberally, so I fed little and often. At first it was only small roach and hungry little perch that kept swallowing the hook. The bites were verty tentative and on a few occasions a fish was on as I retrieved without having registered a bite. A small crucian was taken in this way.

Things were livened up by a small carp that took a bunch of maggots but it was mainly small rudd and roach after the perch seemed to stop feeding.

I took a few more crucians before I struck into a powerful fish that I assumed was another carp. But it was in fact a tench that had to be muscled out of brambles that overhung the water to my left. It weighed in at 3¼lbs and came as quite a surprise as I had assumed that the tench might not be feeding so late in the season.

I continued to catch occasional roach and rudd and was contemplating packing up when I made contact with another good fish. Once again it was a tench, this time slightly smaller at 3lbs.

I was now getting very low on maggots and was definitely considering calling it a day when once again a good fish was hooked. In trying to keep it out of the reeds I had pulled out line in addition to walking along the bank, but the fish then came towards me creating a risk that the line would go slack. After a few worrying moments it ran out into the pond allowing me to retighten the line and regain control. This was the smallest fish at around 2¾lbs.

After this I started catching small perch again so decided it was definitely time to pack up. It had been a really good session and I was starting to get a bit chilly.

So, a few hours to use up some maggots certainly rewarded me far more than I had expected.