Another trip to Earith hoping for a tench or two. I returned to my favourite spot at the back of the lake and for most of the day I was the only angler on the lake. So it was very peaceful and the ambiance very satisfying. As for the fishing, not so good. An early bream kicked things off, after which it was a bit of a struggle with lost fish and a spectacular break-off.

I had taken my Drennan barbel rod with a link leger set up. A breeze was forecast, which can make float fishing difficult. The swim was attractive but very tight, thus my choice of a stronger rod and line.

I groundbaited with a mixture of a proprietary powder, crumbed bread, some old 4mm carp pellets, hemp and sweetcorn. The groundbaited area was in front of a reed bank and lily pads some ten yards out. The spot looked really inviting and my hopes were high. I had caught tench in the swim in the past.

I started with flake and was soon getting bites on the bobbin indicator. They seemed like bream bites with drop-backs and after missing a couple I hooked and landed my first bream. Slimy doesn't begin to describe it! Another fish was hooked but shed the hook as it darted into the lily pads.

Missed bites continued and after a while I decided to give sweetcorn a try. This provided a fairly quick response and I was into a good fish that fought to gain access to both the far reed bank and the nearside lilies. Just when I thought I was winning the hook pulled, probably because I was bullying the fish a bit too much. The nature of the fight suggested a good tench, so its loss was a great disappointment.

As time passed the bites fell away, which isn't unusual towards midday. I continued to alternate between bread flake, sweetcorn and luncheon meat. What bites I was getting suggested the attention of smaller fish, probably rudd, with bread flake coming back greatly reduced in size and sweetcorn often not coming back at all. Only the luncheon meat survived the attacks, coming back nibbled around the edges.

I had a bit of a wander and spotted a carp nosing the surface in another bed of lily pads. Trying to catch it on my tackle would have guaranteed a breakage so I just threw a bit of crust out to see what happened. Sure enough after a while lips appeared and the bread was slurped down. The attention of a number of black headed gulls that were constantly picking stuff off the surface actually made any thought of using a surface bait very risky, so I didn't even try.

As the afternoon progressed I finally managed to hook one of the fiddly bites and this resulted in a second bream around the same size as the first, although fortunately not quite as slimy. I had earlier felt a fish on the strike but it was only on for seconds.

I had put my brolly up as a sun screen and the breeze was occasionally catching it, requiring a readjustment. I was fishing luncheon meat when one of these 'readjustments' was needed. I turned around to swivel the brolly back to the correct position when I heard something. Turning back I saw my rod in the water and at risk of disappearing into the depths. During that brief moment a carp had taken the luncheon meat and run into the reed bed, hauling my rod off the rest.

The fish was deep in the reed bed and a break off was the inevitable outcome, the line breaking above the leger stop, suggesting perhaps abrasion by the reeds. I was never likely to have landed the fish, even if I had been watching and struck immediately. It was obviously one of the larger carp and made short work of my tackle.

I retackled increasing the hook size from 10 to 8 to work better with the bread flake, but no more fish were forthcoming.

It was an eventful session but in the end only a couple of bream made it to the net. But I enjoyed the ambiance of the place and the peacefulness, which is rare on many commercial lakes these days. I will try again for those tench but perhaps not for a while.