Well, to be honest, I've had such a lousy Winter, 5 fish between 18/11/2005 and 29/4/2006 , that there was nothing, from my point of view anyway, that would be of interest any sane
carp angler, but then I thought, carp anglers are insane , they'll love this load of misery .

(PLEASE BE AWARE, ALL MY FISHING, DUE TO FAMILY COMMITMENTS IS LIMITED TO BETWEEN 9.00 AND 4.30 ON SATURDAYS, APPX 7 HOURS A WEEK !!!! BETWEEN JANUARY 2005 AND NOV 2005 98 FISH CAUGHT, AVERAGE WEIGHT 12LB 3.5OZ), SOME BLANKS BUT ALSO 4/5 FISH SOME SESSIONS !!!!)

November 19th 2005

According to diary arrived at water 9.15, having collected wife, a night nurse, from workand delivered her home.
Mild sunny day, got The Beach at Northern end of lake, a ex-Trout fishery I've been fishing on and off for 13 years. I have to say here that up to November I could'nt do anything wrong , using a bait formulation originally given to me by Peter B (Wonder Baits) which REALLY has been working well, (Big thanks To Mr B), string of fish to 19lb 7oz, (min was about 13lb).

(Sorry 'bout this but a bit of history is in order here....these fish were stocked 13 years ago,when my lad, who was 9 at the time, and I started fishing it was here, we went from roach, tench
etc to carp, in those days a 3lb fish was a GOOD fish, now they're originals, AND, they've grown on.)

Anyway, much moving of rods around the open water in front of me, I'm a busy carper, dont believe in waiting for fish to find my hook, I eventually had a run at 2.47, from left hand rod placed on end of a well known gravel bar. Eventually landed a nice 19lb 7oz Common, the piccy's dont do it justice, taken by only person available and he was too far back, got lake and sky in picture, you know what I mean .

Recast to more or less same spot, 20 minute later off it goes again, result, another Common of BANG ON 18LBS.

As I said I've had a poor Winter and film has only just been developed and to say I'm disapointed with the shots is a bit of an understatment, especially as the larger Common is currently a
personal best for the type .

FISHED EVERY WEEKEND BETWEEN NOVEMBER AND NEXT DATE BUT NOTHING CAUGHT

February 25rd 2006

Arrived at lake usual sort of time, cold day, over cast. One fish, and that was foul hooked, a 9lb 2oz Common. Worked hard for fish, angling out of an unfavoured swim, however, Matt, the bailiff, had suggested that instead of dropping into same old swim, well same old one of a choice of three which I favour, that I try something different. A kilo of boilies cattied to various spots had not produced so much as bleep, 2 pole anglers, who i know to be good fishermen, stopped for a chat and said how dead it was, to be honest I expected a fish kill come April, but I'll come to that later.
The only thing really achieved was perhaps throwing bait at fish that were'nt interested, but may be at later date

March 25th.

One fish a 16lb 1oz Mirror, not a lot to really say about this one, other than that I had to work my nuts off for it, which did make it really satisfying, especially when you see all the 2 rod set ups sitting there doing nothing between having been chucked out and wound in to go home, those people go home say they caught 'owt, but they sit inside bivvy and do bugger all, dont even watch water, and I'm NOT a good angler by a long shot, but 1/2 of it is locating fish

April 22th

21lb 6oz Mirror , waiting for pictures, caught from open water whiuch was not recieving any pressure, single high attract, home made, Squid/Octopus boilie dbeing said fishes down fall.
I know the swim extremeley well, it usually fishes best your side of a gravel bar about 4 rod lengths out, although most carpers seem to think it fishes better 60 yds out, dont know why, must be one of the unwritten laws of carping on my lake 'DO NOT FISH THE MARGINS', (well nobody else does, other than the float anglers, and they're not intentionally targeting carp in't margins ).

May 13th

No fishing last week, wife decided she was fed up with local curry house and we both went off to India for 7 days, yeah, 7 days...bit of an experiance , Taj Mahal is not what it's cracked up to be, IMHO, but the currys.....BEUTIFUL.

Back to the angling, I've got the bait going in big time now, 1.5K's a week I turn up and get same swim 21b 6oz came out of, only its not fishing very well, despite moving rods, baiting
up different spots etc. Anyway, as I've said, I'm not a lazy angler and spend a lot of time watching the water,and, as you do, walking around looking for fish to stalk or whatever, well, the 2 swims to my right are unoccupied, 2nd swim is appx 3 rods lenths away, and to the right of it is an over hanging bush,I happen to look and see a large common roll, without breaking the surface, under the bush.
Well, nods as good as wink, well worth a bit of bait, so I walk round., or along, the bank, and put 15 crumbed and 10 whole boilies
under said bush.
Retie rig using a long hair to accomodate bait and a nugget of foam, as I know from previous unsucessful attempts to fish under bush theres branches roots etc to contend with, and cast out, bang on the money first cast, and put kettle on. 2 hours later nothing, so more boilies, I have noted that bugger all is being caught round lake, and theres a good few anglers, note I did'nt say a few good anglers , on lake and not many free swims.
Eventually start getting liners from rod under bush, then it's awayyyyyyyyy, STRIKE, only to hit nothing but rig and lead come in with a branch attached.
I miscast back to bush, everything ends up in another bush, so I have to go round and sort it out, WITHOUT causing upset in the water as the spot is literally no more than 18''inches straight out from bank, although it is about an 18 foot cast from swim I'm fishing it from.
Eventually sort it and manually toss rig and lead onto spot, although I have to say I was not too happy with its position, eventually pulling it back about a foot.

About 1/2 hour later it's away again, now, my personal best is now 24lb odd, BUT I've never had a fish pull the way that pulled,other than a Cat of 16lbs. After 20 minutes of it pulling and me pulling I bullied it too much and the hook pulled, never did get to see it.

I immidiatley recast to spot, no good crying over spilt carp, and 45 seconds later, had'nt even clipped up or put alarm on, and rod is away again,who said the margins were no good on this lake?, in about 5 minutes I've bundled a nice 16.5lb mirror into the net.

How big was the other fish, no idea, but there is (was) a 28lber in lake, but there was a kill 18 months or so ago and the survivors are deffo piling on weight, since April 1st 2006 there have been 8 different scraper 20T's out, last season the best fish were a couple of sraper 20T's...it looks as if it might be good season after all

Saturday 21/5/2006

Having kitchen done,ceiling to emulsion, pimtwork to finish prepping, dog to poodle parlour, unused travellers cheques to bank....in a word....no day session, BUT, did manage to arrange Saturday night, first night for nearly 2 years.

Bit low on bait, so quick trip into town to drop off dog, into bank and then a detour to Lesly's...couple of packs of ESPS size 6 Raptor Teflon Long Shanks....they've got a lovely BIG eye ,compared to standard Raptors, should be good for tying up 25lb ESP stiffies , 1lb odd of lead and £20 lighter headed home.

Rolled up a 15 egg mix and got into into freezer, looking at weather, drizzling and overcast I'm in two minds(schizo, must leave the greens alone )wether to bother going, BUT loaded all the gear into car anyway at about 6.00.

Dropped her at hospital and got lake land bounds, 15 minutes up motorway from L&D Hospital, arriving at 7.05. No bailiff and quite a few cars in park, but closing is 8.00 and I know there a 7 other angles on tonight.
Cop Ruck out of motor and plod off up towards middle lake, deciding to fish Motorway bank as eveyone is facing the motorway, I've got about 90 yard of bank I can fish and I'm in the swim with the overhanging bush

First get rods out, quickly set up and put rod under bush, leaving rod on platform with a really loose clutch while I sort out gear on barrow and get some feed in around tge hook bait. No breeze and lake is flat dead calm, fish heaving and splashing evey where but only silver fish, one odd carp crashes raher more than 1/2 way acx lake, i can easily get a bait to it but dont know where t they've got their rods opposite, but I cam make educated guesses as 2 of them are sitting under umbrellas, and the next morning I realised I could have dropped one the their side of the island with no problems

11.00 all activity and banter dies and bivvy lights are out oppsite, I'm still watching water, with M1 behind me the lights make for excellent vision, even better from opposite bank, but not a lot going on, I've set extension box up earlier so as not wake everyone up (wishfull thinking ) and decide to move rod under bush, cant believe where it drops, absolutley blinding cast considering I'm using a head torch to sight on bush and lead drops perfectly under bush, previously it was in fron, my side of bush rather than under it.

Daughter got me a sleeping bag for chritmas, bless her, and thewife one of those self inflating mattresses, as I've said in other posts I sleep on the deck, BUT I am now giving this serious reconsideration.

Said bag is one of those tapered, skin hugging mountainering types, and could I get into it properly, could I feck, the main problem being I having my first migraine attack for years , all I wanted to do was sleep, but I could'nt get comforable in the bag, I had a rolled up poncho type thing as a pillow which was annoying me cause it was hairy, and nothing else felt right....I had a really miserable night, even the beeps I was getting from thye sounder box were excrutiating and entireley UNWELCOME, I could'nt leave either 'cause gates locked up, and to be honest I was that naff I dont think I could have driven anyway.

I came to, operative word although I did'nt feel as if I'd slept, but a least head ache hasd abated, (note:must pack some respectible pain killers), checked right hand rod, the one repostd in dark and reeled into refresh bait, fantatic chuck my ar*e, lead and bait are in water, line is hanging over a twig, I pull and it comes over and away, the beeps must have been branch moving , and recast it.

Start packing up and am away by 7.05, 8 anglers on lake and not one fish landed, we must all be doing some thing wrong, well they are, I'm not

The floor , get a bedchair dan.

29/5
No fishing was planned for Saturday, and as it turned out did'nt go Sunday either. Be Blo**y glad when the kitchen is finished, saved £80 by taking all old units apart and taking them to dump, funny innit, these women moan about the state of the car and the fishy smell but dont give a monkies when the mess is because it's caused by something they want you to do...funny that

Did get down Sunday, arriving just after 8.00, alarm clock did'nt go off as planned at 6.45, Andy was just packing up after 2 nights, he's lost one fish, landed another of 17lb odd about 1.00 Sunday morning. A bit of update from him on lake ensued it turns out Wayne, another fishing aquaitance, had fished through from Wednesday ( 2 fish first night, inc a 23lb7oz) and even he eventually packed up Saturday afternoon, instead of Monday, after catching nothing else.

I thought this looks good, bloody right it was good...the heavens opend 4 times, including hail stones twice, it got that cold you could see your breath and sods law I had'nt got thermals on, hey this is Bank Holiday Monday 29th of May, WHAT is wrong with the weather, and Global Warming it aint well miserable ALL DAY !!!!.

Could have fished till 8.00 in evening, but by 5.00 had had more than enough of the vagries in climate, oh, and the only run I had, which was the icing on the cake for a real excretement day, was when a young lad, fishing with his dad a couple of swims down, picked up my line, but that was my fault .

Roll on next week, it can only get better, cant it ?

3/5 AM

Arrive at lake, 2 - 3 18+ fish over bait in margins, thats it, go home