Another day at The Lake.

The day started perfectly. A mist over the water; classic 'tench' conditions. It was very hot with a light wind.

Went for the same swim again as I felt I knew 'all the tricks'. However, things didn't go too well.

I had treated myself to a new reel, conscious that I didn't have a back-up capable of handling the larger fish. I didn't get on too well with it, and missed quite a few strong bites. Later on I got into a couple of horrendous line tangles. All in all a bit of a disaster.

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But I did manage to catch a couple of good fish.

Mirror (9lb 12oz) - floating biscuit [13.00]
Common (8lb 10oz) - floating biscuit [14.15]
Mirror (4lb 10oz) - floating crust [16.15]
Mirror (5lb 8oz) - floating biscuit [16.45]

The 4lb 10oz fish was foul-hooked near the pectoral fin, which makes me think this is a high probability outcome with floating crust, having foul-hooked two on the last visit. The 8lb 10oz Common was magnificent. Despite the reel problems, scaling up to 10lb line (from 8lb) gave me much greater control, all fish having been 'hauled' out of the margin weeds, having tempted them by bait literally placed at the edge of the reeds.

Others were doing well catching fish further out, so I think it was just a day when close-in fishing wasn't the best bet. Probably due to a week of hot weather that warmed the margins too much.

One of the other problems of the day was the moorhens that kept coming out of the reeds to help themselves to my carefully placed bait. This culminated in one of them getting hooked (in the leg I think) and disappearing sharply back into the reeds, from where I couldn't extract it.

I had no choice but to cut the line, but the moorhen concerned reappeared later so hopefully no long term harm was done!