Today I had planned to fish the SW corner. A tricky swim that requires you to clamber down a steep slope, with about ten feet of water over the edge should you fall. Overhanging trees make it even more difficult to fish but I have had past success with carp on the couple of previous occasions that I’ve fished it.

I took my compact float road, a 10ft 2-piece that punches well above its weight, so to speak, in terms of handling bigger fish. It’s ideal for this corner swim because of the low tree branches overhead.

So much for the planning; I sat there nearly two hours without a touch, save perhaps a nibble from some small roach that hardly moved the road top.

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Reluctantly I decided to move and went back to the lily pads swim. The bank side vegetation there was more overgrown than I’ve seen previously, this particular spot usually showing clear signs of anglers’ presence, namely sufficiently vegetation free to allow ready access to the water. I cast out between the two beds of pads and was soon getting touches from smaller fish, with some more positive pulls on the line (I left an amount of slack and was watching the for line movements). However, nothing really materialised. I decided therefore to have a look at the east bank, where I had fished last month.

This spot was also unfortunately blocked off by growing reeds, and although fishable, just, with only a 10ft rod I didn’t fancy my chances of landing anything decent as the rod top hardly cleared the reed bank.

Weighing up the options I decided to go back to the lily pads and stay there hoping for some action as the evening set in. The small fish bites continued and I started holding the rod to give myself a better chance of hooking a roach or rudd on one of the firmer pulls. This worked in that I landed a nice rudd (at least I think it was a rudd, or else a beautifully coloured roach). I didn’t weigh it but I think it was a good pound.

Finally my patience paid off, and at 19.20 a firmer pull resulted in a good fish being hooked. I certainly wouldn’t have classified it as a carp bite, but that’s what it was. After an initial struggle to keep it out of the lilies it seemed to be coming in easily, but this was an illusion, as one sight of the bank and it was off. Repeatedly it surged off after I had worked to retrieve it, and it also tried to find refuge in the reeds along the bank. At one point I feared I might lose it, but eventually I netted it, a lovely fully-scaled fish of just over 9lb. It was now getting on for 20.00 and after the commotion created landing the fish I decided I would probably need to wait a while for another bite. Plus the fact I had managed to tangle my line necessitating remaking the terminal tackle. So I decided to call it a day. Ending on a high if you like.

Once again I was badly bitten by insects despite using ‘Jungle Formula’ protection. There are certainly some nasty little critters around this lake and they like my blood.