Pitmans Pond 3rd February 2007.

Fired up by an 'APFA DVD' I resolve to do some river fishing and because the Holme Bridge Frome stretch is often well patronised, I head for the tidal Piddle. The first thing to note is that you need to make your way to the river through a mixture of low alders and lookalike Louisiana swamp plus a gruesome looking (and smelling) dyke, to which a fertile imagination could add the heaped bodies of the Viking invaders from 843AD. When I get to the river I find it’s not technically unfishable. It’s just very, very hard. I find a couple of swims that I can access and spend 15 fishless minutes in each with a Grayling bobber and some maggots. I find that in most other places the water has covered the banks so well I cannot get close to fishable water. After wandering up the dyke towards the town, I get to the bit where the levee turns at right angles; the marsh on the other side of it makes progress, well, awkward, OK impassable then (where the levee breaks left there's nowhere left to go). I head back for the car.

OK then, the 'oil works' stretch of the Frome. The gate is locked which is a pest as well – I leave a message with the secretary about that, but I’ve not heard anything since…

Not a stress busting trip so far, but to make the best of things I head for Pitman's pond. In hindsight I should have gone (piking?) to Holme Bridge or home. But the sun is out and despite the gaggle of youths at the pond (noisy but otherwise social and enjoying their fishing), it’s pleasant in the sun, and I opt to drown my maggots with my float rod – I’m not optimistic, it’s been almost freezing at night for a week and the cold water augers a blank.

The gaggle is converging on one of their band who “is in”. I silently and unkindly root for the fish. A carp has topped to my right, but I opt to stick with the float rod and 4lb line, which will suffice for Rudd and stuff. An hour passes and I have not so much as a twitch on the maggots and there is still some small carp movement. I switch to the Avon, cockles and worms – I remember some crushed hemp and make some hemp-and-corn balls to ground bait and lean back and watch my laissez-faire float from under the hat brim. The crowd have fallen silent and my world is reduced to the orange tip in the corner of my vision. There is a hint of spring, a false promise and it’s 10°C in the sun, which is chilly, but by real winter standards, balmy.

A buzzard cry, distant with altitude, pierces the calm like a water drop on a millpond. High up hunting for supper, the first is joined by its mate and it occurs to me they can see my float better than I. Two crows go into attack mode at the lower buzzard, the cawing shattering the quiet, crazed glass, against the drop-in-a-millpond cry of the buzzards. The victim veers away radiating indifference and languidly retreats 50 feet higher up.

My quill is over indolent, even for me, so I move it an inch down the line and turn the windsock into a candle flame. Better. One of the gaggle has gone around to the other side of the lake to free his last hair-rig from a carelessly placed bush. Well, that's one interpretation anyway. At least he been up to his waist in mud and water for his trouble – it appears there is a fine line between dry land and flooded marsh.

I switch to a half semi cocking quill (one of the copper foil bottomed pheasant quills made a few weeks ago) no reason, back to sunning myself and waiting.

An hour later I have one 'twitch' to show. I've added some more crushed hemp and water to corn to make lumps of ground bait. Worth a try but I suspect the antics of the gaggle have put the carp down even here where little seems to bother them. Still, a great day to be out in the sun – the sky is clear and the glare is in the corner of my right eye. As long as the sun is on the water I feel there is a good chance of a careless carp. But for now, the orange tip is lifeless without even the feel of a fish. Now there is a magpie chattering at the gaggle, or more likely warning other wildlife to keep away.

Classic. I was watching the black band on the float move with respect to the waterline and after a few minutes of this I had a darting bite. No result. Still it's a start. Something is moving; at least it feels like it. I'm sure there's a fish down there.

3:45, going by the float the small fish I wanted when I turned up have finally arrived lured by the ground hemp. Now, I'll wait for a take until dusk, but then decide to shrink the hook and I spend 10 minutes catching a dozen Rudd to 'unblank'. I switch the hook back and wait for the last half an hour of daylight for a carp. Not this time. Oh well, many worse ways to spend a day in the sun – last to leave as usual, the lights go out on their own.