With a promised SW breeze the tree swim seemed an ideal choice. I arrived at 07.00 but found the breeze more southerly. However, I stuck it out on the expectation that the wind would probably shift. It did, but not until after lunch, making the morning something of a frustrating affair.

Based on the assumption that colder weather would reduce the fishes' appetite I bought some maggots; a very rare thing for me. I should have stuck to my convictions as maggot only attracted small roach and nuisance perch, some no bigger than a finger.

I plodded on all day with the waggler using maggot and bread, but had not a sniff of carp. There was no tell-tale movement around the marginal reeds and I suspect that they were not actually there. In fact not a lot of fish were taken around the lake, and those that were fell to feeder rigs.

John, a fellow angler, was there. He introduced himself to me a couple of years ago. I went over to talk to him and he told me that he thought at least a couple of season ticket holders had deserted the lake because of the high numbers during the summer. Apparently the lake had been closed on a couple of occasions because it was full. I missed most of July and August because Mum was in hospital, so it looks like I wouldn't have been too happy if I had in fact gone.

Anyway, back to the fishing. The breeze did indeed shift to the south west giving nice calm conditions through the latter part of the afternoon, but this did not improve my luck. I tried dropping bread and luncheon meat down the margin on a free-line but there was absolutely no interest. I also tried catapulting some pellets out but these were similarly ignored. The carp are obviously now in their colder weather mood and different tactics are required.

Basically a blank then, if one discounts the smaller fish taken on maggot.