The forecast was for a warm day, but windy. The morning was, in fact, far from warm. Cloudy with a strong SW wind it was quite chilly. I benefitted from being in the Tree Corner, which is protected from south-westerlies.

Having succeeded with luncheon meat on my last visit I started with this bait. A couple of missed bites in over an hour convinced me that, today, this bait wasn’t working.

I switched to flake, which resulted in more bites, in fact a bite almost every cast, but I couldn’t hit them; small roach, maybe. At 9.20 a nice roach of 11oz was a welcome relief but other than a couple of smaller roach, and what I think was an Ide of about 8oz just before midday, things were quite dire.

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At 12.30 I hit a better fish, which turned out to be a fine 1lb 15oz crucian carp.

There followed a spell where I caught a total of nine crucian carp (see table). All fish were over a pound, with the largest at 2lb 7oz (photograph) being a personal best for this species.

The crucians:

12.30 - 1lb 5oz
13.00 - 1lb 13oz
13.50 - 1lb 11oz
14.50 - 1lb 3oz
15.20 - 1lb 7oz
15.50 - 2lb 7oz
16.25 - 1lb 9oz
16.40 - 1lb 8oz
17.10 - 1lb 12oz

After the last crucian was caught I decided to switch to luncheon meat in the hope of picking up a carp or barbel as the evening approached. In fact, at 17.50 a tench of 2lb 9oz took the luncheon meat. I persevered and at 18.30 a nice common carp of 7¼lb was landed after a spirited fight on light tackle. Twenty minutes later, after an even more impressive battle, a 12lb leather was landed (photograph).

It was now nearly 19.00 and I debated whether to have another cast, worried that an even bigger fish may not be landed before nightfall. I succumbed, and at 19.10 landed a 6lb mirror that really battled. It took more line in a single run that either of the other fish. My new Shimano Exage reel in combination with the match rod is working extremely well.

Again I debated another cast as the carp were obviously now patrolling the margin. But caution prevailed and I packed up. A fine day’s fishing.