Pitmans Pond 17th February 2007.

A snap decision to get out for three hours has led me back to Pitmans, sheer laziness, but I have hemp and mussel in the freezer and worms in the box. As my Pin spool is off being fixed and the new one is empty I grab 2 spools of green Stren 6lb & 8lb and will decide when I get there. Peg 3 looks very inviting and I debate setting up there and then, with the shelter in the lee of the wind, but despite the pull on my instincts, I instead overrule, telling myself facing the wind is better and head off to the windward end.

I strolled around to Peg 13 as the wind is blowing directly towards it, which is usually good and set up a 1BB porcupine quill, fresh off the production line (which is too say I just finished painting it). As I arrived and trundled through the already open gate the sun came out and I decided that Izaac was smiling on me, so I go for 8lb line. I set up and ignore the bleeper around the corner. There is then a flurry of swearing as one of them "is in" and then even more when the angler snags up. I'm afraid I smiled, schaddenfreude. Uncharitable I know, but I don't feel that way.

The wind is pushing hard left to right, as I face the water, which is not typical. There is a crack of snapping line from behind the trees. More schaddenfreude. I wait in the sun; the water is around 8°C and the air 11°C in the shade, more in the sun. I enjoy the birds misled into thinking spring might be here already and I take Earl Grey tea while I watch. The float just stabbed into the waves like a hoe jabbing under weeds, but there's no follow up. It's a start and the wind eases off in response, the float rising little in the calm, seemingly set fair.

A few flicks and trips have come and gone so some truffling is taking place. A fieldfare has arrived in the oak opposite, on it's own and is urging me to check-check-check-check-check. So I do, my mussel is mostly there, so some more loose feed and a gentle cast off the reel over my baited area and a draw back to sink the line. 40 minutes have passed, another bait check and half a lobworm on the hook as well. This results in a flurry of false bites as small rudd pile after the worm. I take it off again. I then miss the first definite bite, with the float sinking fast, but I'm not convinced I missed a real fish. I recast and a lot continues to happen, which is pesty, but I'm curiously indifferent, believing it to be small fry. 3:30 and the float continues to twitch. The temperature has started its slide and is down to 9°C but water is unchanged at 8.4°C. If I get to 4:15 with nothing positive, I'll try peg 3 - I cannot get a feeling whether this is the right spot or not, which is in some ways worse than knowing you're in the wrong spot. I recheck and recast smoothly off the reel, pleasing but after another 20 minutes I back my instinct, which now says this is the wrong spot and head for peg 3.

The water is a shade colder here at 7.5°C but carp are moving across the water and plenty of small stuff are moving as well. The cursing anglers of earlier are departing with their transport arriving, so I have the place to myself again. I chuck in plenty of hemp along with one of my last size 10 'Jack Hiltons' tied on a trace placed in the hemp box for a change of tactics that I hadn't followed through on. 15 minutes later I pull out the bait for a check and recover my cast and hook, what are the odds?

It's very quiet now, the sun is low and another carp has rolled on the orange water and I respond by laying a thin trial of hemp from my swim in front of me, to about 2/3 of the way across and halving 4 mussels and scattering them about the hook bait. The float after some trembling then just slid under with no fuss and I found myself with a dogged 4-5lb common with a full set of scales if not a full fund of fight, barely taking any line, but bending the rod hard under it's tip. Glorious looking fish and tally one for instinct.

I celebrate with the last of the tea and there is an odd pleasure in having a surfeit of tea in 3 hours, instead of eking it out over a day. Thanks to Izaac for the fish. The float continues to wander with the attentions of small rudd and the air and water temperatures have converged at 7.4°C. The trembling of the float is stilled suddenly, which can mean one of two things…

I've settled with the water now, the carp having earthed last of the week's tension. All else is now a bonus. Long tailed tits are having a last flit in the gathering greyness, chipping and whirring in staccato flights. Roosting beckons and the sun is behind the castle now. No second bite as yet but fish are moving, but all the birds are in roosting song now, with blackbirds chipping good night all around - the wind has died, all the lake is flat calm and then a stabbing bite and a rocket run, I give line and then it's clear I have a 1-2lb fish. At the net a minute or two later, a 1.5lb tench overpowered, but putting the earlier pile of scales to shame with it's effort. All tench are good tench.

5:40 and we're down to 5°C but the water uncooled as yet, still 7.5°C (a degree cooler than peg 13 though, the windward end warmer by a degree).

Then on recasting, there's a breath of cold air and the smell of tidal mud, which makes me turn, half expecting the sucking noises of an incoming flood tide - I'd not have been surprised to see an advancing wave. Mist only, rising faintly from the water-meadows is all there is to see. Then is just the chip of the black birds and a distant tawny owl. And then there's just me.

A quick look at the tide tables at home tells me the tide turned at 5:50 in Wareham (earlier in Poole harbour) - a wave of sea air rippled across the fields like an air pocket in a sheet being laid on a bed and passed over me where I sat. Odd.