A bit of a mixed day.

A 07.00 start again and conditions were good; clear blue sky with a very light SW breeze that dropped completely at various times over the day. At the reed swim again.

As usual, I threw in some feed pellets and rolled-up bread balls while I was tackling up. Starting with a waggler and flake I caught a 2lb 6oz tench at around 08.30, lost a smaller one as it transferred my hook to the reeds and then lost a better fish that slipped the hook while pulling for the reeds. The early tench activity then subsided and I tried some surface fishing, but without any initial success.

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Having failed to tempt the carp using floating pellet with a controller float I tried casting a pellet on a free line. This is not easy as there is little weight to help the cast, but the approach yielded two mirror carp, of 6lb 10oz and 6lb 2oz, between 10.00 and 11.00. Things then went quiet again.

After lunch I changed bait to luncheon meat fished on the waggler. After a few 'small fish' bites the float went away and a fish ran off at high speed along the edge of the reed bed to the left. I had my reel clutch set quite tight to stop the fish getting into the reeds, but this fish just ripped the line off producing a scream as the ratchet tried to resist. I tried controlling the spool with my finger but this just resulted in a line burn! After running for about 15 yards it careered into the reed bank taking my hook with it. That was a big fish.

Things now went very quiet until just after 17.00 when I took a couple of nice roach, each about 4oz, on float-fished luncheon meat (I must try some roach fishing when the carp go into winter lethargy). Then, just after 18.00, I took three carp on the float, the first two (7lb and 4lb 14oz) on luncheon meat and the third (4lb 14oz) on flake.

It was now well into evening and I tried both floating crust and pellet. On one occasion the crust sunk on hitting the water and I let be, to be rewarded by a line-pulling bite that turned out to be a 3lb 4oz tench that obviously took the bait 'on the drop'; unusual for tench. I then took a 6lb 4oz common on surface crust.

The day ended with me finally enticing a larger carp to take a floating pellet, only to lose the fish from a shed hook after playing it for about five minutes. It felt like a really good fish and this was a very unhappy end to the day.