After a bit of a break, I went to Fields End with my neighbour's father, Mick, as he was up for the week. I had become a bit disillusioned with the lake because of the number of people, and the lack of peace and quiet as some of them communicated by shouting to each other from bank to bank.

However, on this occasion things weren't too hectic and at no time did the lake get too crowded. It was a bright day but the wind was fresh and it got more intrusive as the day went on. It also rained heavily at one point.

I started in the reed-corner swim and was soon landing a 2lb 6oz tench taken on free-lined bread flake. I missed a few 'pulls' and then lost what was almost certainly a carp in the reeds.

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Mick was fishing the other end of the reed bed and after a short while he decided to move because of the wind, which was making fishing difficult and, more critically, making him feel very cold. Shortly after I also moved, to the ‘tree swim', which is in the SW corner and was probably the most sheltered place on the lake.

Sheltered it may have been, but the fish appeared to be completely absent. However, I persevered and having changed to a waggler I finally hooked and landed a nice 1lb 14oz crucian carp. I had been getting awkward bites on luncheon meat and the crucian confirmed that they were the culprits.

Just before 17.00 I had what I believed to be another 'crucian' bite, but struck into a heavy fish that went off at speed and broke me because I had the reel clutch too tight - basic mistake. I reset the clutch and a couple of casts later was into another carp, which fought well and turned out to be a common of 7½lbs.

Around 18.00 there were signs of carp coming to the top so I switched to crust and fed some dog biscuits to try to draw the carp closer to me. This worked and I got a very positive take on crust. The fish streaked off and after a fair old tussle a nice 10lb common came to the net.

I continued to try to tempt them on the surface, and one more fish actually took the crust but shed the hook after only a few seconds. As we left the carp were feeding on the surface like there was no tomorrow but it was almost dark so they were safe from us.