I had had a raging toothache over the weekend so went down to London to see my dentist on the Monday morning. He saw me very quickly (root canal treatment!) so I was able to get back to Chatteris around 14.00, and decided to go over to the lake.

The south-west corner spot under the trees was free, where I had the 17lb fish on 23 May, so I thought I would give it another go.

Things were really very slow, and speaking to Charlie, the owner, it seems that it had also been slow the previous day (Sunday). He mentioned to me that he was using the photo that I sent in last year for a newspaper advert for the lake; can't be bad.

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I persevered trying both luncheon meat, bread and crust. There were a couple of chaps to the right who were standing on the next fishing platform and that didn't help, as any carp in the margins would have been aware of them. I missed one good pull, and cursed my luck, but around 20.00 I had a cracking pull on luncheon meat and as soon as I hooked the fish I knew I was into something good. It felt really heavy and powerful. It's the first time that I've felt my rod bend under the cork handle, although I was using the 1½ lb test curve rod with 8lb line, so for large carp I was quite light.

It seemed to take an age to get it in and I could hardly lift the landing net out of the water. I thought to myself this could be my first 20. Well, it did weigh over 20lb, but after allowing for the weighing net it was actually 19lb. But who's complaining.

The chap to the left of me had been there when I caught the 17lb fish on my previous visit and I went over to ask him to take a photo, as I didn't fancy struggling with the self-timer on the camera with such a big fish.

So, I only got one fish, but it was magnificent and I really had to work to land it. Maybe the next good fish will be a 20 - who knows?