With the latest river report from Offord not being very promising I decided to take a short trip to my local commercial at Fields End. I had also had some minor procedures at the hospital the previous day and had been advised to take it easy, another reason for avoiding carting tackle along a river or stream. Arriving at the lake I found it quiet but with an extremely low water level. I don't like fishing from platforms at the best of times but it now involved sitting uncomfortably high above the water.

I had planned a session of waggler fishing in the margin. With the low water level my usual approach of fishing quite close to the reeds wasn't as attractive so I fished a few feet away, but still very much in the margin.

I started with maggots that I had left over from my previous river trip. I have rarely used maggots on this lake and a succession of missed bites at the start suggested small fish. In fact my first fish, a roach, wasn't that small but it was quickly followed by a minuscule perch.

After a short while I changed to worm, hoping for perch, but this didn't prove to be the answer as I had fewer bites and actually first caught a roach. Bizarrely changing to a bigger worm caused the bites to cease.

My next move was to try Spam. I had caught good rudd on luncheon meat and Spam previously and, sure enough, I was soon catching rudd. I really don't understand why Spam is such a successful bait for rudd on this water. I also caught perch on the Spam, which was weird as they seemed to have ignored the larger worms.

This set the pattern for the session, a mixture of rudd, roach and perch with a couple of the perch being quite good fish, as were a few of the rudd. Occasionally I reverted to maggots when bites on Spam became less frequent but this just resulted in small fish, the bait often being taken on the drop.

I was however quite happy to continue catching in this way as it was what I had set out to do. At the same time I knew that there was always a chance of a carp going for the Spam as they often patrol the margins, despite most of the carp anglers fishing at distance. And, sure enough, I struck into something that proceeded to make its way out into the lake and the battle was on. I suppose I played it for around a couple of minutes, during which time it surfaced out in the lake. I wasn't sure if it had been foul hooked but I didn't get the opportunity to find out as the hook pulled as it made yet another run.

It was a pity that I didn't manage to get the carp in as this would have been a somewhat unexpected bonus, but in the end I was happy with what I had caught, as it was after all what I had set out to catch. A quiet shortish session during which I caught reasonably regularly, with a few better quality fish among the catch.