After a week away in Yorkshire where I did a bit of fishing on a local lake, I went for an afternoon to Fields End. I didn't arrive until 15.15 and the place was packed. The new caravan park has increased the resident anglers and despite there being only about five cars in the car park, there were literally only a couple of places free around the lake.

It was humid and there was a very light SW breeze that disappeared completely later in the afternoon, leaving us with a picture perfect late evening.

I settled into a spot on the east bank that I hadn't fished before. It was a platform that was awkward to get to as the bank was steep and there wasn't a lot of room to move. However, it was next to a row of small trees that separated me from the next swim and provided a good screen such that movements on the bank didn't disturb any fish in the margins. There was a small reed bed, but on plumbing it was quite shallow in the margin; probably not much more than a couple of feet. Undaunted I fed small pellets and bread flake pellets in before I tackled up.

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After a couple of tentative bites on float-fished flake I had a good positive bite and a fish dashed off taking line against the clutch. After a short battle a fine 2lb 14oz tench was landed.

I resumed fishing and almost immediately got another positive bite only to lose what was certainly another good tench when the hook-hold failed.

A period of frustrating non-hittable bites followed so I started to flick in floating pellets and at about 18.00 carp started to take the free offerings. I changed to my light carp rod with a free-lined pellet and soon had a good take that resulted in a fine 8¼lb mirror carp.

The carp then faded from the surface so I resumed float fishing and quickly was into a good tench that weighed in at 3lb 6oz.

In a repeat of my earlier experience I then quickly hooked another tench only to lose it as I brought it to the net, the hook-hold failing. It seemed around the 3lb mark.

I had continued to flick pellets in and as the evening drew towards night I had two good takes on free-lined pellets. The first fish was a 5lb 10oz mirror and the last one a 10lb mirror.

It was now 9.30 and I could, I am sure, have tempted another fish but light was fading fast so I packed up. As I left a women fishing further along was still battling with a fish and it was almost dark.

For an afternoon session I think things went quite well. In particular I was pleased with the tench and I may target these fish on future visits as on lightish float tackle they are really good sport.