Having dragged myself out my pit inordinately early and driven to my first choice venue, only to find it rammed with anglers and with very little activity going on, I decided to get back into the motor and take a trundle to another local venue “Ringwoodshire”, in the vein hope that there would be room to angle and active fish to fish for…

I pulled up at my second-choice club lake at 6AM, and joy of joys, I could see the place was packed as usual too! But all was not lost, as there was one swim free, a plot that fishes out to a roped ‘out of bounds’ area. As it’s a swim I had fished a lot in the past and was very familiar with my interest peaked.

Over the Friday day and night it had rained biblically up until around midnight, then the cloud cover cleared, and it cooled right off. I sat there for an hour or so and saw around 10 carp throw themselves out in the early morning mist, clattering noisily just behind the rope. We were due very similar weather conditions for the Saturday night, so I gathered there would be a very good chance the fish may behave in the same way.

Obviously, this spectacle got me hastily unloading the car and getting my kit round to the swim ready. As the sun broke through I waited for the morning bite time to pass for the other boys around me before getting the rods out, just as a courtesy (as that’s how it should be done) and as the morning went on nothing occurred for them and the fish starting backing off again and heading to the far treeline for the day. I took this opportunity to get 3 rods out on a slightly silty firm area, quickly followed by a few kilos of bait.

Club rules limited members to 26 wraps maximum range, so I opted for 15lb GT-HD and paired it with Kinetic Sinking Shock leader. I used a buoy on the rope as my focal point and dropped the right and left hand rods 6ft either side of this permanent marker.

Finally, by 10 in the morning I had 3 rods out and around 4 kilos of particles and CC Moore ‘XXX’ boilies. Ahhhhhhhhh – time to sit back and relax, as I knew the lake was mainly early morning bites. This conjecture on bite time proved to be quite accurate, as at around 4AM, as the rain was just easing off, the middle rod was away and after a bit of a tussle I soon scooped the net around a fish I knew named ‘Crusty Chris’ that went 20lb 6oz.

After this bite I decided to put 4 more big Spombs of bait out and recast the middle rod, as it was still early. The rod went out sweet first chuck, I was soon fishing again, and the rain had now stopped completely.

I sat up for a while after that, listening to fish showing right on and just behind the spot. I had literally just said to my mates “I don’t know how I haven’t had another one” and no sooner had I finished speaking when the left hander was away! After another good fight I slipped the net under another nice scaley one. This turned out to be a fish that I had caught a few years ago. This time around it went 21lb 10oz. Soon after this it was light, so we got snaps and slipped them back.

Both the fish came on balanced snowmen hook baits fished on German Rigs comprising the size 4 CVR hooks, Stiff Ultra Skin, Covert components and Critical Mass Putty to keep it all neat and kick the rig out straight.

The fish moved off again as the day went on, so I hung it out until afternoon then headed off. In all some good times spent with some good mates and a couple of fish. Happy days!