JAA's Fishing Diary (2011)

Carp head on, I head for Luckfield, well it's mild and it's what I want to do, blank beckoning or not. I'm greeted by two roe, who pose and the camera obligingly focuses on them not the hedge, I feel I have my reward already. I trot around to peg 4 where fish are lying torpid in a few dropping lily leaves and quietly fling in hemp and bait a size four with mussels and a 6mm cork ball to assist what is a virtual freeline on the big Hex. It's grey, mild, some weak sun slotting through the clouds with a bit of a breeze blowing this way. I stretch back, open the flask and wait. Two hours glide by, with a couple of tweaks to mussel and breadpaste (mostly breadpaste), a jay and some fieldfares to keep me amused. So it is I decide to stretch the legs and walk about the place. Fish-wise nothing much stirs, there is a score of wild ducks scattered about the edges, but almost a full circuit brings me to the inlet, fishing barred, where the ramp into the brick pit once was and three good fish roll out of sight, unhurried.

Hm. I return to my rod, opt for 30 minutes as a proof of swim, miss a sitter 20 minutes later, a mirror emerges silently 30 yards out, hangs a moment, cream-and-olive and slops into the water. I hang in for another 20 minutes, sure for a time, then abruptly the feeling passes and I decamp for peg 1, next the inlet, siren-called.

I drop my bait as close to the branches as I can, pour my penultimate brew, but for two baits nothing happens. Then I miss a bite, momentarily diverted by baiting a patch to my right which experience tells me will give me 20 minutes more float fishing light at dusk. I re-bait and barely settled, the bob er, bobs, founders and I pull a yawing fish out of the hole and into the net, no ceremony, 12½lb and with winter colours on the mast. I re-bait, re-wait, encouraged, but nothing else comes but the moon, framed for my camera, despite me sitting until the blackbirds cease chipping and I'm fishing with the line over my little finger. Home calls, but the temptation to stay on a warm, waxing quarter-lit evening, is stronger that usual.

RedFin and JAA spent Saturday at the very pleasant Turfcroft. The most important thing was to establish whether enough supplies were available for the day. As Moley wasn't present we decided we would have enough....just.

Between the two of us five species of fish were caught including some very nice Perch, many small roach, a tench and even a true Crucian, all falling to Redfin’s bamboo. I caught a bronze bream that made a passable impersonation of a Marlin as it made a 20 yard run and breached out of the water in spectacular fashion.

The day ended far too soon - despite me only seeming to be able to catch bream, about eleventy-seven, although there was one suspicious-looking, a bit silver or hybrid...a cracking day of fish and congenial company. Ta, RedFin.

An hour in Peg 5 and yesterday's torpor has been blown away by a stout South-East breeze, piling up small waves at my end and blustering in my face and edging all the windward lilies and branches in autumn colours. After a few minutes with a small pole float and reflecting on missed chances, I slip the float on the link swivel and wedge on a cork ball and colour it red with a permanent marker and take off the tell-tale. I've baited patches to the left, in a lily-patch bay and to the right under the bank, might as well as not and in response a small carp leaps to my right, autumn coloured itself. The cork-bob, looking very like a hawthorn berry, skipped away a bit later, but I think only something cheeky nicking the worm sandwiched between the two mussels. There is fish about now, there are bubbles appearing in between pads, odd nudges and swirls, this is the right end and I'll suck the sweat from my hat band if a fish doesn't appear under the jetsam before the end of the day. The moorhens appear, and I edge the catty to hand - I re-assign the bait, garnished with a half-anchovy, to the lily inlet with the small drift of circling leaves and wait...presently it slides towards the pads and there's something of a muted battle in the small area, more lunges than surges and a 9lb mirror graces the net. I take a stroll above to warm my breeze-stiffened legs and let the maelstrom settle. I ponder making some small cork-ball-and-toothpick floats.

A fish crashes in a lee'd drift of leaves in the far corner and I ponder a change of sides, but I'm not sure that this corner's finished just yet. The red-blob in no to my right and I suspect a size 8 and worms only will catch a stripey or three, but I've got my carp head on today so I leave things 'as is', with twitches and wonder about the sloes in the blackthorn behind for a last bottle of gin...and time stretches out and suddenly this corner's finished with me as the rain starts and then two fish roll in quick succession on the bank to my left, half-way down, the scene of Tuesday's carp. This coupled with the now steadily increasing patter, propels me onto my second camp of the day which has sheltering trees. I throw hemp in, set up another coffee and only halfway down the cup I spot fading lily pads wavering in just the right way and then after another gulp, stap me if I don't see a tail going past not 18" from the bank. Aha.

I try dangling a few worms in front of the general direction of the fish. These are stolen by something smaller. Pah. I try again with a mussel and half an anchovy and after some swirling, the water rolls and a mussel tumbles into view then sinks, taking my hope with it. I re-bait and wait. I'm slightly surprised, in a good way, when after a few sharp bobs the little red dot stutters of to the left, diving as it goes. There's a short tussle on a 10 foot radius and the presumed owner of the tail poses for a picture, 12lb of autumn scales. It's raining, I re-bait, re-hemp and miss another take 20 minutes later and then after another coffee, a series of staccato dips and a final plunge, a fish leaps on the strike and then hares away from the bank and makes 15 yards before swinging left, kiting, branches looming, so I tighten it up and more pull than steer the fish back towards the net. I snap, happy and sit down to check the hook-knot and realise I'm soaked - rapt as I was in the whole business - chair soaked, trousers sopping, shoulder damp through my coat. I amuse myself for a minute by steering water off my hat brim into the dry moss of the worm box and re-bait for the last coffee. I realise I'm cold wet and perfectly sated with 3 good fish for a warm autumn day. The small technology and "Neon Nights", 1980...nearly perfect.

Another sunny day – the river is low, but there still deep pools in places and I amble to a wide sweep of the river, a big back eddy perfect for roach and dace and manage the smallest grayling you’ve ever seen – ah well. I head to the far side of the same and manage only minnows despite my best efforts and after 30 minutes of watching my float circling, head upstream to a faster run which proves equally devoid of fish, except perhaps for one fast pull from the point where the deeper glides fan out over a gravel bar – I’m using a fluted Avon and ‘pin with a 15ft rod and with little weight down the line, a micro swivel in fact, a gentle brake floats the whole lot up and over the gravel, a satisfying thing to do, and any bite whips the fluted float over sideways hard enough to bang the rod tip if you’re not paying attention. This happened twice and try as I might I couldn’t get a third time.

I rambled back down to a loop in the river, below my starting point and sat on a high bank on the outer sweep of the current and ran my float though the pool at my feet and onto the interesting stretches 20 yards downstream. A fish obligingly rose on those lower glides but this refused to entertain me further and I had stick with the coffee...then between sips, the float, dropped in literally 10 feet upstream of me, dipped 6 feet past my feet and my slightly optimistic -but firm- strike got an answering thump and a few moments later I had a glimpse of a wonderful fish, which had my heart in my mouth as I directed it outwards and upstream before drawing it over the net and letting the current sink it into the mesh. OK so ‘only’ 1lb 9oz but I’m really very chuffed. I wait for 5 minutes with the fish in the net until it’s the right way up and breathing steadily and it kicks on out of the net. This inspires me to another 20 minutes in this spot to no avail and I head down to the next bend...

...when I find I above a fast run broadening out over a V shaped gravel bed with a clear pool on the near bank. I flick bait in and run the float down the middle (missing at least 2 vicious snatches) and then a gentle run down the side past (into) the eddy and get that stabbing bite and manage my third (OK the first was tiny but it counts) grayling. Encouraged I try again and miss another bite, get a 4 inch dace on the next trot and then miss another slash of the float on the gravel riffle. I decide it’s going to be better to move down and I try for 20 minutes to locate a fish on the near bank, starting in the pool I was trotting down to...on arriving, a big bow wave announces something was lying up (pike was my first thought, but a chum’s since had a 16lb carp out of this stretch, these are vermin in a river like this). After a dozen long trots I amuse myself by running the float around the eddy in front of my feet, where the water is 6 feet deep at least and barely finish my second cup before the float pops straight down and gets me my forth grayling of the day. Heh.

I walk to a gravel bar bare from the low water, the inside of a sweeping narrow channel under a cut-earth bank and fish it for its beauty as much as anything else. I nab a perfect 8oz wild-brown from the head of the rapids, lose another in the wild water 20 yards down, watching it leap off my hook. I then spend a good 30 minutes trotting a float down the rapids, veering the float of left to the slower reaches or right into the main current depending on my whim, enjoying the process, rather than the expectation of a fish, although a sudden dip in the shallow reaches get’s me my fifth and final grayling, about 4oz or so. Suddenly, the water rushing in my ears is enough, I’ve had a fine day so wander off. Perfect river fishing.

It’s funny – river fishing calls 'time' on you, it’s clear when enough is enough. Lakes keep you anchored past the point of no return. Funny business.

The "Hardy Brothers" advertising plate was nabbed at a boot sale for a tenner. It's not an antique or anything, but I liked it, so now it's on the Den wall.

It’s a bit autumny so I stuck “Heavy Horses” on the small technology and bowled happily down the road to the Test. This album is autumnal for me, probably because of the dewy autumn I nipped up and down the Basingstoke road to another temp. job propping up my student grant. I had maggots, corn, some amazing chocolate biccies and a Stollen. And coffee. I paid the Lady and after the shortest of recce’s opted for the fast feeder, it looked more fun that the slow feeder, which for all its promises of roach and chub look shallow and sluggish.

I tried the pool at the bottom end, unconvinced, self fulfilling prophesy. The next pool occupied by a man with a fly rod and an orange line, had lost a trout he said and I watched him cast for a while, interested and went 50 yards on to a pool and riffle and keeping 10 yards from the water knelt upstream and ran the float through twice and third time is plucked and whipped sideways and I struck quickly but the heavy weight squirmed of. Bu88er. I tried again and stupidly lost three more before banking a brownie pest and then a small Lady of 4-5 ounces. I recall the little wrigglers have ebony mouths and need a firm strike and hold rather that a flick. The pool spooked out, I try the next one up and knock off another and then another trout, then I bank a half pounder, sliding myself downstream to avoid another loss from playing the recalcitrant against the flow. Hah. Two. I get another brownie pest which goes polaris on me, so petulantly released, the swim is flat.

I mooch up to the bend where the water is enticing, but proves not to be and after a chat with a lady from Devon who admired my floats, I put on my favourite little fluted Avon and slipped into the hatch pool at the end of the feeder settle down to fish, sip coffee and eat “chunky chocolate shortcakes” in which the ‘shortcake’ portion appears only to provide structural integrity to the twice-as-thick chocolate. The sun comes out and warms my back. I run down the twisted rope of the main flow and knock off another lady and then bank a 6 ouncer. Several more runs get nothing and I let one fall short, loop back up the pool to the triangle of gentle water between the main flow and the dead water on the near side and get a firm bite at the apex and get another Lady. This, biscuit, coffee, lady becomes a pattern and for at least 2 hours I pick out grayling (and one brown pest) steadily, exploring each crease and fold in the standing waves.

Time stood still...and then the clouds came over, the fish were gone and a scatter of icy rain drove me down the feeder and under a small chestnut. Despite my autumn umbrella, my hands are chilled and I wander down to the hut to use the veranda for shelter and coffee. When the rain eases and the sun peeks out (and then vanishes for the day) I try the small feeder for a while and catch minnows then wonder down to the second hut and serve myself tea and as a postscript catch several more minnows at the car-park end of the slow feeder and one 5oz perch a bonus fish to go with my 13 grayling and trio of spotted pests...I nick the two floats hanging off the tree and scuttle home to Tartit. Cracking day Gromit.

Met with Nobby on the way back from Gatwick (don't ask) and we tried hard on Milton Lake for the entire morning with one tench to show and practically no bites, I guess we picked the wrong side of the pond. After dinner we planted on the end of Old Bury Hill Lake, it seemed carpy to me. So in Nobby's words:

"So when Bob struck into a submarine in the margins yesterday ( He said it was a carp, but carp don't have periscopes) and his rod came arcing back towards me in an alarming fashion...years of training told me what to do next.

Bob probably thought my maniacal laughter was aimed at his loss, but in truth, it was because I was so pleased to still have a mouth to do it with."

In my defence, I did say about 4pm, "Nobby, this is the right place for a carp..." and then, on reflection, added "....or we're in the right place to see me hook a carp and get completely smashed up".

Three mistakes then:

(1) Did not use my proper Big Hex rod
(2) Put on 12lb line not 14lb.
(3) Should not have tried to stop it...it was only a light snag, I think the sub would have smashed right through it.

P.S. bu88er, bu88er, bu88er....

P.P.S. you'll recall I had my 12lb snapped...so today I change the line, and thinking it a bit thin for 12lb, mic'd it at 0.31mm...at both ends of the spool. It's supposed to be 0.33mm, just like the other spools on the rack actually are. Then I remembered that line off that bulk spool snapped twice at Barton's Court last year in circumstances which surprised me somewhat, but I wrote off as poor handling...I'm not saying 0.33mm line would have stopped the sub, but the line did break above the trace knot - so the motto is check everything...bu88eration.

Yes they still exist. I'm very very fortunate to have a place here, no gravel swims, nothing but the trees and the low number of carp and a few tench (and a few roach and rudd). Amazing.

I probably should have chosen a spot with more thought but having found one I like and settle down to blip out rudd and roach with corn, a 15ft GTI and 6lb line, well you never know. I catch 4 rudd in the first 40 minutes, gill covers stained gold and then never see another but get a string of roach to 4oz or so and after a while, a small olive loaf and some farmhouse pate, a small dark carp about 2lb or so. That's my only carp today, but it bent the rod hard. The others roll here and there, keeping a good distance. Angler-shy still...I sip Lap-Sang and watch the fish roll on the lily patches' far sides, but not the one nearest me...

As the light leaves (is it me or is it a shade darker earlier this year?) I amble to the head of the lake, pocketing a handful of haxel nuts en route and spend an hour standing under a small horse-chestnut, leaves already orange-rimmed, sweeping the ground, an autumn round-house. I watch a crust between pads until it's clear no-one is coming to play, except an owl and blackbirds chipping bed-time, bed-time. I'll be back for the autumn leaves.

So the easy lake but I wanted to try out my Harrison's 15ft GTI - 70% built and a reputation for working for the small as well as the much larger. So it is I spend an hour trying to decoy a dark sub-surface lurker some 30 yard distant with a 5lb hook-link and it eventually falls for, of all things, a strip of Warburton's finest. I'm new to the rod and the link is fine and I ease the fish about for a good 10 minutes until it's near enough to see the knot and eventually the tail of a fish still trying for the lake bed, 3 feet further down. This common, 12lb, the rod working well enough, finally a float rod with a progressive change from the tip to the backbone. Not so hard to make, but defeating most makes it seems. I fish under a pole float, switching to 6lb braid and a size 12 and catch skimmers for fun and then try for another top grazer, but succeed only in catching a ¾lb roach and a big bronze bream both on floating mixers with a hook hidden inside.

The carp, wiser at the end of the summer swirl around the baits with disdain. I go back to bed under the pole float and get a sail away on a 12'ed cockle which hares off and I'm back to the start of the session with a big fish running out to the middle and back, copycat, a long ten minutes, although with 6lb through and a sound join I'm using more stick and less guidance and this one is 13lb. I get one more bite, the tip whipped under and expecting something larger I get the clutch tweaked and this 1½lb rudd, on which I failed to do justice with the camera. So, the rod passes the test.

My new favourite rod.

4 mud-pigs off the bottom on a wonderful day, then joy, two fish flake-plucked off the top on a 5lb leader at 50 yards. Very hard to get them of the surface here, those two worth the previous four and then some. And the sunset was a doozy as well.

The four fish shown here came to mussels on a float, margin fished at the windward end. There was a good chop when I started but it died away as the day went on - I missed 4 bites at least and also foul-hooked a good fish which isn't shown here, but was of course bigger than all of them. Then the weather just stopped to watch the sun set and the water went mirror silvered. That's when I started a few bits of flake going over...

I swapped the 8lb on the Avon for 6lb and put on a thin mono leader of just under 6lb and backed off the clutch and tied on a size 10 - this was completely buried in a golf ball piece of flake and cast the 50 odd yards to the wondering fish. I missed a couple of takes, the fish swirled around it and I had to watch the line on the surface to see if the bait was taken or merely encircled.

I had two fish on the distant bread then the light left leaving me unable to see the line and finally even the bait. But the sunset was a 1 in 100. Amazing. Just Another good day on the path.

"All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake up in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T. E. Lawrence

I just liked that.

Today I regress, the morning walk, still dew fresh, soaking my feet and I reach the entrance to the old road to Great Coll Wood, there's woodsmoke from the farmer's fire and I cut two forked rod-rest hazel sticks with fresh green-smell bark, sopping from the rains which turned the path into a stream bed. These carry me to the bench-on-the-bole of the great oak in the long garden at FiveIvy, alongside last night's oozing bonfire. Home, then raspberries on the wheaty-flakes, echoes of the long garden's canes and then re-touch the 'Opinel', even the shard of whetstone came from the hedge at the bottom of the long garden, a find for a 14 year old. A different country.

One of the nicer places this, picked at random form a roadside sign see on another day. I find three pools and a jolly lady doing something unspeakable to some reluctant sheep, probably for their own good. We trade tropical disease stories and I fail to win the "bugs top trumps" with a jellyfish sting...I also find out that it's £5 a rod a day and there is a match on the lower pool - there are three pools and I opt, after farewells, to walk about a bit. There are a over a dozen cars and 6 other anglers on the main lake and I chat with two chaps trying to catch carp off the top in one corner, but their 'persil' blue-and-white shirts may be affecting their chances...but being a tactful chap I suggest cinnamon bagels as a change bait.

I move on and chatting with a family on the top pool, the wonderfully named "Hackenchop Pool", I opt for the top end of the middle pool as it's clearly windward now and the shallow end, seems obvious although if warm "anywhere and bait" would probably catch. However, I tromp off for bait and rod and sit amid tussocks and soft rushes. There's no bare earth here which is nice.

I float fish for a bit, catch a bream and several rudd. I pay a lady the money and a rising carp changes my tactics and I nab this guy on flake in the end, cast to just float or just sink, pick one. I go back on the float after an attempt to catch a clooper in the end corner, but it won't play. Then it's seven o'clock and I have the place to myself. Amazing. I get a 12lb mirror, long lean and dark which fought like a dervish (4 Piece Avon and 8lb line) and then three smaller one and a tench...but that's out of about 15 bites, fish spooking at the line, the bait and so on. The water is only 18 inches deep and in the end I realise the right way here is either to fish lift with the bait under a vertical (and possible visible) line or fish at least a foot overdepth and wait for a real bite.

Either way, with dusk approaching, I switch to one hook and the bread...I nab one to my right barely 2 feet from my feet (I admit to feeding along the edge with dry mixers for the last two hours) and then get another bigger fish from the other side of the clump on my left which takes a crust hanging vertically from my rod end, yanking the spare foot of line out of my fingers.

With the light almost gone, I underhand a big bit over a clump 3 feet further left where a nettle and bramble have collapsed flat on the water. I can barely see the white smudge of bait and after the age, OK 15 minutes, a nosing fish launches at the bread and I strike at the sudden whirlpool, blind-hopeful.

The fish streaks off to my right, nice heavy tail-beats, across the lake and I recall Walker's advice to keep the rod high in the dark to gauge the fish's direction and then, right there I get my own moment in time, with the rod arc'd against the orange-and-indigo sky and the fish finally brought to a wallowing halt some 45 yards distant, only surface scintillations giving the position away. For an instant, fleeting, the world spins around this locus, past, present, future and the setting sun all converge on this point...then I remind myself that I've 8lb line and a long battle starts, with repeated runs shortening 5 yards a time and several hard bores left, which I counter by walking along the bank and a long time later (it seems) the fish is wallowing over the net and I have to guess a bit in the gloom to net my 18lb common.

I'd go back. Darnell Pools.

If any hotel lives down to the acronym JAFH it's Travelodge, but you get, as they say, what you pay for. Tesco's in Newbury now has Italian for Coffee instead of bacon-and-eggs but it's not the burger chain at Tot Hill and that improves its pull. Munching, I watch an effusively happy toddler helped by a marginally bigger sister. Today's spinning coin is a grey blur and I edge off for a loaf and biscuits and get a glare from a lady shopper who runs into me with her trolley. The grey darkens. An experiment for you: stand still in a busy shopping arcade and wait. It will not be long before someone walks into you and tells you to mind where you're going. The human race in cameo. I avoid the imperfect self-service till and queue behind a 1 year old in a trolley kicking her legs and smiling at the world. I've slipped into "traveller's limbo", old habits, but the grin with kicking legs flips the coin bright side up. The Small Technology, somehow in tune, spits out "Turn the Page" and then "The Cowboy Song"... It's as well that the light side was up, or my first look at Court Farm could have turned me around.

Lakes 1 and 2 inspired me not, but Lake 3, once the specimen lake, looked green and although it had dugouts, they were weathered and the grass grew through the cracks. It wasn't heavily fished, that was clear, so I about turned and collected the gear. It is the furthest from the car park, another point in favour.

Halfway up the lake there are two solid shapes idling in the potamageton. Sneak behind a tree, tie on a hook and mortar a few pieces over the bush with the spoon. See why a spoon is so handy? My first try is ignored/unseen for a long time so I flick the hook out and try much nearer the bank where a fish is browsing. I wait only a few ticks, the fish take the bread quite causally, confident, I bend the rod and a few clumps of the weed come away and I steer the fish to the next swim down, netting an 11lb fish. A good start sets up your whole day. I slide down the lake a bush-and-a-bag at a time and find my next fish at the most windward end of the lake, nosing in the bigger clumps...

While conning this fish, J. and G. arrived, disconcertingly, without a sound. They do that, I suspect them, Jeeves-like, of streaming soundlessly from spot A to spot C. The carp in question took its daily bread and the strike made it leap in the air and then swirl the gap in the potamageton into chaos. J. netted the 10lb fish and I settled down to rig a float while J. & G. departed for tackle.

I put on a small quill top-and-bottom, top covered to stop it anchoring in the potamageton and discovered 7 feet of water. Better and better. A size 5 barbel hook, 6 inches of 14lb braid and a swivel which sunk the float (I don't usually bother to note these details). I missed two bites from sheer surprise and then extracted a smaller fish and after J. & G. Arrived, a 15lb mirror with hardly a scale and an hour later a slender common which might have been almost 10lb. Still missing bites, so swapped for a lift float and shortened the hook-link to 2 inches.

This made no difference and I had a couple of smaller ones, then changed the float to a quill with a thin long cane antennae to fish half-and-half lift-and-sink. This buried in short order for another nice common, then half an hour on another struck-bite announced itself with a thud as a fish buried itself in the bottom. A tug of war pulled it clear, then a solid fight with short ponderous runs and much wallowing and hugging of the lake bed, eventually produced this common, 24½lbs more or less.

This set the pattern for the rest of the day and hunched into the breeze and munching ginger cookies to keep proper coffee company, I extract 16 fish in the end, several giving the BigH the most severe road test I could have wished for, especially a 16¼lb common which put its larger sister to shame. As yesterday, I never even thought of time until 4pm, then fatigued with the windburn and concentration and even after a break and a couple more fish, gave in at 7pm, tired beyond reason for such a sedentary pastime.

I lost 3, imperfect hook-holds, one after playing to the edge of the net, one which took two mussels on the drop while I reached for some hemp, it almost took my arm as well, smacking into a clump of potamageton, before I'd got a grip, literally and figuratively, and out the hook came, said clump drifting off to the right. I'd seen a big fish nose shreads of bread a few minutes previously, double the size of the common nibbling under my feet - this one quite fly enough to only take scraps too small for even a size 14...

I almost forgot, the last carp, what a colour, none of the red tail and pale scales, a real old dark strain, burnished leather and moss, wonderful. Best fish of the day. Good day, red-letter even, but you know, a few too many fish. I leave J. & G. to their bankside idyll where they are catching steadily and wander back to the car where I find half a bag of liquorice allsorts I'd forgotten. Always good. Postmortem in McDonalds of course...

It's just dawned on me that I've fished here on and off for 20 years now, since it's inception, the trees are grown, the rushes have settled and it looks really very pleasant even if the fish are ravaged by part time camping-anglers, a fact borne out by the two broken 7 weight fly rods in the bin, both shattered at the top joint. I scavenge the rings and the two top notch reel seats...

I'm ahead of J. & G., pick a spot between two trees out of the wind. I put up a "fishing for bites" rig, 6lb, 14, Avon, and nab a dozen small carp and roach to 10oz before a careless carp starts slurping the reeds at my feet. I give it a few mixers, bite off the float, tie on a 10 from my hat, cover it with a mixer and find myself attached to the fish in short order. J. & G. beam down beside me, good timing. Not massive but fun on bendy tackle. The noiseless twosome glide off for hemp and other supplies and I catch on until itchy feet intervene and slide down the bank to the east end, where it transpires fishes are playing atop, wind-herded into the 18 inch water. I sit down and flick bread and try, to no avail, to gull one. They move into the bank though so I put a size 10 back on and cover it with a mixer which gets me a fish, not 12 inches from the grass-on-the-edge. This scatters the others never to be seen again and I try the far end for a bit, nabbing one about 1½lb. Hm. The bait seekers return and set up on the open bank up from my floater pitch and I move my gear down as well. I resume my 'fishing for bites' and my first is a medium sized carp which throws the hook when almost beaten. My second, a bigger than average fish which covers 25 yards a couple of times and just when I think 'one of the better ones', again the little 14 comes out. Argh. I switch to a 12 and thereafter only manage 1lb carp and 10oz roach - while the wind increases and scuff the water and tangles line around rod, cow-parsley and anything else in range. After a bit, I snatch a gudgeon, they always used to be in here...oho. I put on an 18, pull the float down, dot it down and spend a happy hour catching the gonks at the edge. Why one goes...

I've been feeding a patch 10 feet in front of me and also a patch on the bank 8 feet right. I started this for the movements that weren't waves and barely visible spreading ripples superimposed on the scudding.

An hour of gonking later, I feel refreshed - it's 'hard work' fishing today. The float is bouncing in the waves, the water's not deep enough to fish a long antennae and small carp and roach are on the bait for a minute out of every two. Nevertheless I switch to my inside track and despite missing bites and still catching the smaller ones, start to catch the bigger ones after an hour and thereafter get a half dozen of the "good" ones.

An odd day, the wind made it hard work and the constant attention of the smaller fish intermingled with better fish made it impossible stop at any point. I didn't even look at the time until gone 5 and then not again until I needed the flash for the picture. Tiring, good fun, not as easy as all that. Not for the first time I wonder if I would have been better employed fishing a very large bait under the bank at the west end for the last hour. There were 4-5lb fish in here in 1990...and stupidly I forgot to take pictures of the lake.

Well no sign of the rain on arrival, and after greeting I bagged the willow and J. and G. pitched to my left. There are fish moving and after a bit I wander and try for one in spotted in the farthest corner by J., one of three, and it deigns to ignore and I'm thinking 'nothing doing' and am more interested in the rat-cub plucking up courage to paddle past the monsters to snack my bread, when the most ignored swings about and down it goes. I'm late and despite the 12lb class tackle, the line is dragged hard over a crusted branch and parts. I huff back to my swim, perch bread over a thin willow branch, force of habit, and blow me if after 15 minutes of head butting rudd if it's not nabbed 'hook line and...'. Of course, I'm early on this one a double figure leather and the hook comes back after scuffle. Strike 2. I float fish fitfully, changing the fine-tip-bob for a more buoyant one, the undertow causing all sorts of fun. Tiring of 'the dibbles', I knock the hook down to a 12 and then get a 1lb bream. J. comes by with a 16lb carp, doesn't count says he, foul hooked. Honest man. The allegedly 'light rain' starts so I edge under the willow bole, bung in a free-line on 'Capax Infiniti' and make a bite indicator. Coffee time.

I watch my feather and fortified, later, I'm pulled back to the bank's reality by a clooping behind the rushes. Ripples radiate. I listen. I flick a few bits over the top (spoon) and stealthily retrieve my hook. I stand up, ghost-like as 17st allows and drop a crust over the fringe, short of the basket-weave branches. Clear passage, but the take, sudden, so bold, leaves a foot of free line which gives the fish a crash dive opportunity, gratefully taken, which parts the hook knot like spider silk. Strike 3, rookie mistake. I stalk up the bank and sit with J. & G. and fume awhile and trash the 12lb, no longer trusted, rightly or no.

Once cooled to temperate, I try again for the corner and while no-fish is visible, I dangle a crust and wait. 20 minutes was about right, a fish materialising under the bread, formed presumably from the ripples under the bush. Attached to carpio, a lunge has me attached to some long left bit of line which complicates things and I call J. to help, but he's out of ear-shot and I do net the fish in the end, a struggle. I notice long-liners across, watching, and having returned my shown-off mirror, I try a swim adjacent, on another handy twig. LL1 jogs a pod into place opposite my last pitch and 'whops' a fixed lead into the swim. That'll get them running. Away. His second lead rushes into the over hanging trees and his extreme rod bending release tactic has said lead thudded into his own tackle box. This is amusing, presumably they play chicken with the fast electric train to London as well. I go back under my willow after a long wait with nothing to nudge for it.

After a bit a fish bumps the woodwork and I position a crust for a fast withdrawal and get a smaller one. 2-3. Feeling mollified I wait and flick and sip coffee, starting when J. shimmers into being behind me without a sound. He's had another which means all are not blank, although the weather is dreary in the extreme. Eventually another turns up to cloop and a repeat tactic but hard battle gets me this fat double. 3-3, a score draw. Honours are, as they say, even.

The highlight of the day? Chatting with J. &. G., between fish, Hector junior appears. He loops over, scares himself off, but girding whatever hares have instead of loins, he lopes back and I get a dozen shots, the three best here. Quite wonderful and worth 3 carp on any water.

I spend the last 45 mintues staring at a crust-in-a-corner, willing it to sink. It doesn't. A damp post mortem in McDonalds...which has free WiFi, handy. It didn't rain all day, it just felt like it.

I could wax lyrical about the day, but in short it was pretty, warm, a natter, rant, grumpy bu88ers chewing the fat, with breaks for casting and cursing a marauding jack that bisected our pitch. I shrunk the hook to pluck the silver thorns that tweaked my over sized baits. Nemp pushed off, while I tried on, offered a spinner-man a run through my pitch, had the satisfaction of seeing the jack jacked. Heh.

Swim was flat then, I wonder off, chat with one, once-met at Edmondsham and move to the end of the spit, extracting more breswan and roach, waiting for more but nothing tweaks, truffles, bumps lilies. Dusk beckons, I'm restless and walk off with a rod and a loaf and find only a great willow and a bailiff and we 'waste' time with fish talk until it's quite dark red and rabbits squeal and feed fox. Not a carp moved, next time perhaps.

The Marmiteangler wanted to go to youth club, a lift required, requested, ok then.

"I know", thought I, "I'll pack a rod and kill two hours on the Crown Meadows".

"I know". Said Mrs Anotherangler, out loud, "You can do the supermarket run". Ah.

Well, as the idea is to reduce the shuttle journeys and hence throttle the ever more direct link between my cash and the fuel tank, all's fair. Dropped and shopped, I munch olive-bread-and-corned-beef and then walk the meadow. In between the duckweed and reeds, I find I have the thing upside down.

I didn't need 2 hours and a bag of tackle, all I needed was a 4 piece and the '55 with its sitting tenant 6lb and the hooks on my hat. And a net. That and a few slices out of the shopping and the long hour could have been a sunset-lit too short 90 minutes. A 4lb Satchmo ambled past in agreement, with that peculiar 'half crab' gait indicating the chosen holding spot is near and the fin-brake turn will bring it up behind some handy stem.

Drat. Next week.

The 16th, a ceremony day and one should, if at all possible, celebrate between lily pads with tench. This is of course something of a dream. This high-day's pond is untrammelled, uncivilised even, with no boards, scalpings or gravelcrunch, even the path around the lake is little more than shorter buttercups than those on either side, the whole enclosed in a small green valley. The main concession to mankind is the double sleeper that provides the bridge (and I dignify it) across the source of the ponds' life blood at the valley's tip.

N.'s nicked the first of the best fishable lily swims, quite right too, but made room for me to sashay by his spot. Making a space among the buttercups, I did no more than plonk a fine cane tipped porc. quill by the lilies and wait for something to happen. N. recommended bread so I started with that and a few thin hemp scatters. Very little happened for 20 minutes, except N. showing me a 1¾lb crucian, a wondrous gleaming treasure that didn't deserve so light a weight. I missed a twitch-bob and when P. turned up, doing the rounds, I got a firm, obliging bite and something bolted hard into the pads and pulled out the hook. I was reminded they go hard here.

After this I caught first 1, then 2, then 3 carassius all about 1lb, small tench plugging the gaps. This continued during the sun's patches, scudding clouds moving too fast for rain until late lunch, then we had the first of the showers that stropped down the valley like a haughty mezzo-soprano making the noise of tearing newspaper. Calm intervals are scented with wood-smoke and damp earth and have the expectancy of fish edging out from the pads' shelter. Crucian arrived in clumps of like size, some hand sized and two stunning fish that went 1½lb and 1lb 10oz. On top of these riches were tench that pulled very hard despite their lack of size, perhaps 1¾lb the largest. After several mini Sturm-und-Drang's, I missed a sitter, bumped another and then lose a fish in a massive swirl, near carp-like. No mudpigs here though.

The crucian fight is hard and fast, rattling up the line from the fast tail beat, the carp has a slower beat and a draught-horse pull, the tinca's softer muffled beat from the big flexible screws nature provides it. A big tinca then, or big for the pond, a reminder that seldom caught tench fight really hard, harder than 'king' carp pound for pound, as hard as a 'wildie'. Crucians are not be sneezed at, they have a sudden standing-start power and even a 1lb fish races across the swim and pushes hard into the pad-stalks. Roach, rudd and perch all slower off the mark and quicker to give in.

The swim fades and my last bite 40 minutes later gives me another 1lb gold-service plate, I realise that my concentration is shredded after 5 hours of rapt attention to a needle-slim piece of bamboo. I take a stroll about, noting a flower I've not seen yet, tall, lightweight cow parsley like, mauve flower heads. This, I later find out is valerian, once and still used as a sedative, possibly the last thing you'd need at this well in reality's surface. There are buttercup petals floating on the maggot-surface, gently wavering from the under-squirm, so sated, I pack away, stroll about the lower pond and head for some buttered-toast scrambled eggs.

The best 16th I can recall, eclipsing a misty dawn on a Stour weir with grayling - I potter home along the lanes with a smile and Led Zeppelin II.

Late afternoon and the lake's all mine, a circuit tells me the same story as the last time. Today though the clouds are slate grey, a darker day, lower light, doldrums before a storm, with no storm in the offing. I try the same swim and fish in the colour and peripatetic bubbles, watching the odd fish mooch by but can't raise a bite, maybe the 12lb on the 'pin and 11lb hooklength, one of those thinner lines. I stand up after 90 minutes and realise the water's cleared, not a fish to be seen. Oh.

I can hear the fish moving at the other end, so scoot down with the gear and set up a second camp where the tench and carp are top-lallygagging deliberately, purposefully out of meaningful float-fishing range. They're not dining yet, so baiting a bit, I swap the 'pin for a '66, 12lb for 10lb with 8lb bottom, tie on a 14 and play with the rudd and several teeny tiny bream for a couple of hours and wait in the not quite-thundery torpor.

The surface patter-of-antics, interlaced with distant bubbles, are edging nearer in step with the angle of the sun, so I extend my hemp-line to join their patch with mine, 10 yards distant. I put a size 8 on and set over-depth. I wait. The Kingfisher zips past, heading left. I miss a bite about 7:45 (two tiddler-wasted hours) and the recast sails, I get a bream, joy for some, reverse ducks-and-drakes for me. Again, at once my cockle and prawn is towed and I have a monumental struggle with a fish which has my rod past its t/c and me, reel-clutch screwed down, leaning over in my chair (and tearing my coat) and after a few brutal minutes with an assumed big carp, this tench came to heel. 5lb+, but really should have weighed it. Golly did it go, look at the thickness of it. All I could do to keep it out the pads on 8lb line and bendy 2lb carp rod. Wow.

I miss two bites in an hour, the first a bow-wave-special with clouds of silt and bubbles - the float tricky to spot, the sun making a late appearance opposite me and flaring through a tree. Ah well. Then I get this much easier tench, maybe 4lb, thinner, but as long as. Then two more misses, pure sloth on my part.

As the sun finally nips behind the bush, saving my desiccated retinas, two wolves howl behind me...

Hang on. Hackles. Neck.

Check, Dorset. Check. No, huskies, just like the ones in "The Thing". Oh wait, that doesn't help. Maybe I'll pack up...the float dips and the solid lump is fairly easily kept on the free side of the lily-fringe and netted is 9lb. Hello again. What are the odds? (...about 1 in 50). The howling forgotten, almost, I kneel and flick out a new cockle, without even returning to my seat, as the swim has erupted into effervescence and 30 seconds later I get my second brama-surfer. I miss one more sharp bite, I waited unblinking for 20 minutes and looked away for an instant...how do they do that? By now it's damp-aired, sharp in the nose, cooling fast, spectres are processing across the lake toward me, dusk arrives like a walk along an old road through a thick wood. It'll be very dark here, not now anxious for those last 15 minutes. Hot steak pie beckons, I need little beckoning. Hackles.

According to this week's Angling Times comic there's an indoor fishery in Holland which leaves Keith Arthur, quite rightly, spluttering his cuppa. "Catching not fishing" is how he describes this, along with bivvie-sleeping 'carpers' and bait-boat-casters. Thank the Lord for a modicum of common sense, one of the very few diamonds in the nutty slack of the rag itself.

I note the silly match-baggin' squabble has reached the point where it is said that 50lb of fish crammed in a keep net three times a week in warm weather in not good for the fish - and that fishery managers and match anglers don't understand that. Bless! Of course they understand it, they just don't give a rat's ar$e, as long as the money rolls in and the catchers get to "bag up". Big nets lads, nothing else matters. Right?

I gather Freud is largely discredited these days, but I can't help but wonder 'big bulging nets', 'long poles', are you sure you're not, ahem, 'compensating' at all?

Splashy wagglers anyone?

I dropped an end-nicked mussel into the fizz, waited out the dithering amid the bubbles. After the float started to edge crabwise, in what I judged was a definite manner, I struck and something twanged left and then right and the hook came back with a twig. How do they do that? A curling spout of silt remained, taunting.

I fished outward a bit and when bubbles re-started, reeled my bait back, stealthy, no anti-reverse. I waited only a minute and the float dipped under. I whipped the rod up and a fish piled into the lilies and at the 3-feet-in mark it was hold-or-lose, the rod, locked, or as near as, couldn't get me out of the trouble the loose fold of line had got me into...the hook knot broke and I heard my float hit the leaves behind me somewhere. I sat for a while, contemplated self inflicted disaster. I wondered about my float and then realised I didn't care, it got stuck in a tree in France, was still hanging 12 months later, even re-varnished didn't hit the spot, a wreck-bob. I left it. The sun went behind the clouds. Well it would.

**********

When I got here, two were already in, so I walked the sunny west bank, bottom weed, carp and tench equally visible. Onward to the narrow end, past the island two groups of good fish scoot by, neither so large as the big shovel-tail, put up under a swim-board. There's a shade more colour in the dire strait, so I picked a swim on the shady side opposite the spot I fancied (direct sun an anathema) which has a big patch of lilies on my right and the tail of the island, 25 feet ahead, trailing line snagging brambles. Putting a bait out, predictably, miss a bite as I scribble, then bubbles bisect the float and the bank. I'm dapple-shaded, cool and the birdlife's chasing each other up and down the trees behind me. A blackbird doesn't see me until it almost crash-lands my hat, distant pheasants give themselves away. All too pleasant and I'm amused by two goose-periscopes in the meadow behind the far bank. Then a big-paddled shadow ponders past my feet...

**********

I put 10lb on, a small cane and balsa thing and carried on. The water was clear enough to see spectres gliding past along with several sharp changes of direction after a tweak of the float. Very clear water. Clear the water was. See-through you might say. Transparent, in the main.

The problem with the subconscious mind is at best, it can only drop hints, explanations reduced to 'ahem' and then, clarity. Aha. I dug out the dry markers, lengthened the tail to 8 inches, moved the float up 12 inches and coloured the last 2 feet green and not quite random spots of black. I recast. I then caught a 3lb bream, a 5¼lb tench and a 9lb scarred common, technically, successive casts.

Aha. I then missed a bite for the biggest tench I've seen for some time. Rats. I retrieve the hook out of a hazel leaf and waited for some time before a half-chevron of five carp went through, the last two peel off, shedding vortices, the float zings under and I plant the hook into a stout branch where it remains, the recoiled float tip sticking through the arm on my padded shirt like a dart. Ow.

Thereafter, for 2 hours of sun's furnace, despite tormenter fish I got neither hittable bite nor a real take of any kind, while my hat brim stuck on and sweat squeezed from the back of my hands. With commons of very scary size swerving past, giving me a longing for the big hex. rod, I packed up and head for the pick-up and a chip supper.

With a little hindsight and TMS in the car, this is going to be tricky water - the stock density isn't over high but the fish are chary and there is a ban on braid and hooks over size 8 and floating baits, which does limit ones options. Nearly every swim has patches of thick lilies which necessitates strong tackle. I may yet plait some 3 or 4lb Maxima into traces to soften the hooklength and change it's colour - that's not as tricky as you think with a firm cushion and three small cotton reels. A few short links and a pop-up float might be a good way as well. Hmm.

**********

I headed to Arfleet for the second time this year and found the back pit still in a grump, with the water still not really coloured and the fish mooching about the bottom end. I know this game, when they're about like that you're usually doomed. A few fish did tease under the far bank in the sun and even perhaps sucked at some hot cross bun floaters, but in truth, after 3 hours, interrupted by a man with towed family and several poles, I couldn't raise a bite, off the top or off the margin-bottom, or the lake bed ¾ of the way across. Given it was warm and fairly still, that seemed apt and after a bit I tried for an hour at the other end, missing the casts I need for a take, although one piece was tugged experimentally. Couldn't buy a bite on corn even, from the rudd. Odd.

At 6ish I gave it up for a bad job (if at first you don't succeed try again by all means, but don't be an obsessive twit) and headed for the other lake planning to fish the margin with 6lb line and the 550 and a pole float and take whatever came along. The sole resident, I slotted onto a spot on the bank, like a jigsaw piece in the right place. I settled back and caught several small roach 1-2oz maybe, although I had to cut corn grains in half to hit them - there's 4 inches of 6lb braid on the end of 6lb mono and a size 14 barbel, the back pit is that kind of water...and was to lazy to change it. After a scatter of the smaller ones I got one in the 8oz range which was nice, a 4 oz fish and then switching to a single cockle which, obligingly bobbled off after about 30 minutes, giving me proper bend in my rod and was thankful of the 6lb line. A 5lb common, unable to overcome the bendy stick. I resumed corn, nabbed a few more bits then swapped back to cockle when peace returned. A tench whipped the float under almost on the drop, a bit over 2lb, but there are no bad ones. The lake then displayed one of it's quirks which was the emergence of shreds of mist of the surface, drifted across in the coaxing breeze which funnels through the castle's gap in the ridge, a sea breeze at birth. These spectres haunted the water while I waited for a last fish, which after a trip-and-duck turned into a roach well over a pound which, split finned, perhaps had spawned of late. I watched the tip until it jigged in front of me in the Castle lee's odd grey light and took my rods back to the car, the crust rod assembled but untouched. I doubt I saw 4 carp move all evening, 24 months ago, it would have been 10 times that.

The near full moon-shadows track me back to the car and the black rabbit of the Wareham bypass was cropping grass, it, or descendants of it, have been marking the dusk here for at least 5 years and I like to see it, I like to see them all. The early warm days have sprung the lanes' verges to a snow-capped man's height and in the headlamps, tracks known from a hundred passages look subtly alien. The three-ways' yew looms sudden, unfamiliar and the thundercloud on the north skyline is so black I find myself driving to a different house at the base of a mountain. But then it's just the 'Red Post' and the A31.

I'd anticipated a warm and grey day with a strong SW wind making the lake ideal for fishing crust at long range...at the last minute I put the Avon and bait bucket in the car a good call as it turned out. I went to the lee end but there were no fish moving and the wind was fishtailing around the island making it hard to fish how I'd planned. I put a small bamboo insert quill on and baited a small area only 10 feet from the bank, the idea being the fish's approach to this area would have reeds between us. I loaded a 14 with a worm-and-grain-of-corn and kicked back...when I got a few bobs put it down to rudd but when, after missing several dips I hit a fish which slowly got heavy on me and then produced, after a ping, a single 10p sized scale, I though better of it and paid more attention. 30 odd minutes later I hit the slide and after a lively battle landed this. A start. Somehow the 4lb hook-length was snapped by the swivel so I re-tied it and tried again.

In the interim I'd seen a fish leap ahead of me and there was a fish cruising the surface, on and off, in the bay to my left so after a bit I put a heavier float rig on and snuck into the corner and spent an hour fishing a cockle and worms in two weedy spots, baiting quietly and continuously with chopped worms and half cockles. Nada. Without even a swirl for indication, I went for a stroll the other way in case I was missing something and then settled back on the Avon. I lost the '14 in a rush stem, when the braid broke so I switched to 6lb and a size 10. Three more came out in the next two warm sunny hours, despite pulling the hook out of the largest, all the while firing bread into the bay, where it was occasionally taken.

So at 6-ish I snuck back with a hook and the loaf and tried to get a take on crust from the back of the bay but after 40 minutes of having my bait ignored, even when it had drifted into the reeds, I snuck another 15 yards to some ripples behind a screen of old rushes, flicked a crust out, hooked the line over a dead rush and tweaked the bait until it was at the bottom of said rush. I expected to have to wait for 15 minutes, but 15 seconds was all I needed and I ignored the suck and waited for the bow in the rush-to-rod line to lift 6 inches and that was more or less that.

I went back to the Avon and with the light starting to grey-up nabbed another one on the float. My first thought on reaching the car was that it was nice to just fish in a regular way and catch. My second thought, a mile down the road was that it would have been so much nicer to have had a mixed bag rather than carpcarpcarp. My third thought on the matter over supper was that this is what so wrong with contemporary fishing. You've a job not to catch a carp - and they are easy to catch and so, worth very little, so even on a nice day, you get the feeling you're missing something...

A different day, not so bright and I'm now 'trouted out' so JH and I split and I wander down the Park Stream, picking out a trout in the pool below the house garden, big enough but another. Pah. No wonder they invented fly fishing to make it a bit tricky to catch them. I follow the Midge Cut to Gunters, a pool I saw on my guided tour on Monday but one also seen many times in my dreams. I park and feed the fish and drink coffee. I've put an oldish fluted Avon on (I pulled out the rusty eye and whipped on another) and trotted it round in circles and missed several sharp taps.

After an hour and a chat with JH, who materialised like a wraith (or perhaps I was rapt in my pool) I wondered down Gunters and after some experimentation I ended up tripping tiny pieces of bread and single maggots under both the near and far banks and hitting every bump and flick for a time period that's lost to me even now, I pick out a score of roach to 2oz and half a dozen chublets, entrancing.

Eventually, tapped out, I was lured back to the pool and after a couple of runs down into the main water the float whipped of and I caught a small and very brown trout which somehow seemed more worthy that the bigger silver ones. A second trot and retrieve past a jut of rushes had a small pike slash at my bait and then also my float. Mulled it over and put on 6 inches of silcone over 6lb line and a bunch of worms, but to that lure he failed to respond.

I went back to my 16 and fine hook-length and plucked a chublet out of the swirl in front of me and then a grayling of 4 ounces. And so it went with chublets and after a period flicking corn into the main flow, I flicked the float out from the other side of the bricks and second cast had a silvery grayling of ¾lb maybe, then lost one twisting off the hook...and another and then it was dead so I went back to my swirl. And then it was 4pm, I've no idea where the time went.

I trudged back to JH on the perch, they rise up as the sun sets, where he's had a couple and watch him land another and then a pike and then a crayfish to much hilarity, at least on my part...and then it was dead until my float sloped off and the thump made me dream of monster stripes until this bream emerged. Drat.

As I'd forgotten my clear classes and then trod on my polaroids, I called it quits - and if you saw two old anglers tying knots in a roadside services cafe at 11pm then that was us...

I think I enjoyed today more than the others you know.

We were robbed of a proper breakfast by a Newbury supermarket cafe's sneaky conversion into "Italian for Coffee" it's just not the same. Never mind, we provisioned up and headed for the fish. The day was again bright and idyllically calm and we opted for the west bank in the sunshine on the basis of 'first water warmed and longest'. A nice place to sit, as it turns out and also for a nap. We put up floats and waited, watched the kite, who's mewing accentuates the flat clam. I did get a reasonable snap over my shoulder, by a fluke of the shutter, then several pictures of a trio of pike (look hard) that doing the Prespawn Tango. But other fish we saw not, although the Nomes had been by... It was though, fabulous weather but JH was well under it so after a fishless and biteless few hours, I opted for a wander with bread and he for 'sleeping off the lurgy'. I tried a few likely spots and ended up sitting between the reeds in a swim on the east end and although nothing went for my bread, a spot of casual freelining gave a chance to spot a few rises among the waves at this end. Although dolrumic at the other end, by then a light breeze had pushed a chop to this end and when a tail flicked past the grass at my feet I'd made up my mind this end was a better bet.

My other plan for floating bread amongst the tree was also stymied by the brutal pruning of the brush which seems at odds with the worry about cormorants here, removing the fishes' refuges if nothing else. Ah well. Float fishing it is.

I went back for gear and JH had decided on a spot amongst the trees, which made sense a well so we diverged. I lobbed in the inevitable hemp and after about an hour JH gave it up for his sickbed and leaving me with best wishes and some prawns. I'd meanwhile put on 10lb mono and a crow quill and laid on a size 7 with a cockle and now a prawn. This is my favourite game and I watched the float in the chop for 30 minutes and it might have moved once and so I gave myself another 15 before changing to paste. All at once the float is subtly disobeying the waves and then flicking once, like the end a match extinguished in the fingers, it drops out of site and my strike was resisted by a lump which wondered off in a bemused way. I'd bent the rod over for a bit and after a minute or so I steered it inboard and nearing the net everything changed and my new attachment headed hard for the other bank getting 25 yards nearer it than me. I pulled back, pulled it out of a left hand kite twice with the line singing in the wind and then we did it all again. And again. And once more for luck, kite to the right this time and then we had 5 minutes of circular attrition in front of me and another run-off when sighting the net. Then a bit more circling, this time getting the fish up in the water and as it flips into the net, I think to myself, that'll be a 20lb then. So it proves, in fact 21lb, but what colours! Better than average.

I get one more bite 25 minutes later and a much short battle yields this tench, which I'm inclined to weigh, 5½lb. That's also good, a blazing end to a long quiet day and I'm thinking "what's third?" and "Pity JH wasn't here" when the wind, chilling me for sure, but warming the water also, drops like a cut sail and it's suddenly flat calm and I wonder whether the warm water wedge will oscillate back to me before dusk, but it doesn't. Not bad, ironically the swim nearest the car-park. I can barely move my chilled-to-the-marrow hands.

JH met me at the gate and I got a guided tour of the river complex here. It's a magnificent landscape of drowners and drainers and water meadows, idyllic. The bright sun didn't augur well for actual fish but JH certainly knows the place like the back of his hand, which augured well for later.

I tackle up by the car while JH wanders off back to his stashed rods and a well known angler pulls up beside me. I apologise profusely for my mostly carbon float rod and he instantly replies that he averted his head on arriving. I pop on my float, a clear stubby thing, the water is shallow and clear and the sun is bright, I feel no remorse for this, it's going to be tricky fishing.

I set up in the pool at the top of Parson's Ditch and head up the Upper Park Stream, try a few casts just for the feel of it. I follow Heron's Delight to it's confluence with the Willow Stream and Sharmans' Water and spend a while trying for fish in the sluice into the Heron's Delight, then a few casts on the wider expanse of Sharmans's above the sluice there, again for the feel of casting off-the-reel, rusty but like the proverbial bike riding.

I park at the top of the narrow sluice into the Willow Stream and drop my float against the far bank and steer it under brambles and into a niches in the bank. Second trot I miss a bite, third I hit a fish, not expecting the orange-tip dip to be a bite, which pulls and is gone. Several trots later I get this brownie, then lose a good grayling and then land another trout, perhaps a couple of pounds. Tapped out I spend an hour mucking about below the sluice on top of the canal arm....

...with nothing resembling a bite and then make my way to where the Old River is fed from the Willow Stream and spent another 45 minutes trying to get one of the small perch out of the Willow Stream under the foot bridge. I hook one but it wriggles off.

I break out the coffee and steer my float through the maelstrom here, aiming to float my tackle over the gravel bar at the pool-end for a grayling. I lose a hook on a post and after 20 odd minutes of broadly speaking, circular trotting, the float buries in the whirlpool heart and I get a lively trout of a fair size which keeps me busy on my 3lb and light float rod. A fish is a fish. I debate feeding and trotting the calmer stretch which has a fine glide under the bank and JH appears and we vote for lunch, which in my case is several chunks of "Rocky Road" supplied by the 'Marmiteangler'.

I re-start on the Heron's Delight run in the full sun and bag a trout, a tiny grayling and then a big trout which takes me more than a few minutes to get in as it's 15 yards downstream when I hit the stumbling float. I work my way down the river picking up more trout (and a disgorger) and even at the confluence of this stretch and the main river I can only get trout although I spot a lone perch of 1lb several times but my worms are not to the required standard I guess. I finish up with two trout caught at 40 yard on bread trotted along the bottom - a satisfying piece of trotting if nothing else. I give in and head for the perch swim with JH where we fishing out the last 90 minutes, he having (I think - correct me if I'm wrong please!) 4 perch to 2lb 2oz and I get one bite only but at 2lb 10oz - but I'm pretty pleased with my day. 2 'coarse' and 12 mugfish.

Bangers and mash in the Carpenters Arms with fishing books and real beer. Proper finish.

I'd planned to be a lot more creative today, but in the end I 'settled' at the grey windward end and 'fished for bites' with the Avon and 6lb through the rings and a 4lb braid bottom and a size 14. This worked not, so I cast about for smaller fish with a fine hook-link and in the end nicked a few rudd on a single maggot midwater or so and gradually as the afternoon stretched out I picked up more roach including a decent one and then as the stretch turned into a yawn, I switched back to the 4lb braid length and on a big bit of breadpaste^‡ nicked this carp and then after some false bites this bream pretending to be a carp. A barn-owl glides across the lake and puts on the air brakes as it spots me at the last second then drop-stalls into the gorse behind me. Good enough.

There are two long-liners on the west bank when I arrive and I determine that nothing is doing carp wise. I amble around to the SE corner and in about 30 minutes nab this ghostie on a bit of slowly sinking bread. That proves to be my only easy ride on the top and although the fish will take, they batter all bait on the water until it sinks before touching it. I nab a smaller one a bit later of a piece of flake crushed to just sink, a cork ball on the line whizzing under to give me my cue.

I try for some time to get a fish from under the trees but I can't get the range right and on the one occasion I get a bait dangled in the right place it's sucked half a dozen times without taking. This dovetails with the silly number of controllers I find here, I add 2 today and a quick tally in my head tells my 6 bubble floats, 5 drennan and a couple of ESP's among sundry wagglers and pole floats. I try 6lb line and mixers on a size 10 and another smaller carp, 2lb or so and then a fierce take get a 3lb bream. I add a smaller bream and a roach and call it quits before the light fades. Not so bad, but I was in the area anyhow, not really local for me - but if you can catch regularly off the top here you can do it anywhere. They're educated on that.

I walked about Packhorse and behind Tranquil and although my first thought was to fish at the end of the long lake with the wind in my face, in the end opted for the lee end of Tranquil, purely and for no other reason that I fancied a quite spell watching a float and I thought that on the smaller lake it was as likely as anywhere to be harbouring a carp. I'd got my carp head on, silly for March. I put on a pheasant quill-and-bamboo-tip antennae and fished a lump of bread paste about 4" over depth on 8lb line on the 4-piece Avon ('Avon', hah. Carp rod more like) plus some yellow enperil'ed hemp. For an empty hour, I scanned the reeds on my left and the shreds of rotting lilies for anything which might indicate a fish. I flicked mixers into corners. After, fishless, I decided I'd give it 30 more minutes with cockles and try elsewhere.

I'd no sooner opted for Carbost'd coffee when the float, with no hint of early warning, vanished clean away. I picked the rod up and held a biggish thing wallowing under the rod for 5 minutes or so, conscious of the reeds and old pads and eventually brought a fishtailing mirror to the net, 16½lb or so, which is a good way to break the duck for the year. I, of course, opted for a bit longer and 25 minutes later missed a bite that had early warnings all over it and for another half hour the float twitched and dithered, then at about 4pm it froze into immobility and at 4:30pm I decided to give in gracefully. Midday here then? Winter feeding pattern.

I pack and wander around Packhorse for the exercise as much as anything and flick bread into the corner, after 15 minutes a piece mid-water is porpoised by a carp that looms out of the builder's tea water. I have to put a rod back up and I feed a little and float one crust until it docks with the bank to no avail, while others are slurped away, I try again as the light falls, dusk is the floating bread fisher's friend and even as I watch the spot where the bread might be I feel the line firm up across the left fingers and after a better fight than earlier slip a common onto the bank, 8-9lb maybe. Now I'm going home.

The gate was open for a shooting party start and I like that as I hate locked gates in the car, necessary evil though they are. I spent too long wondering around Packhorse, enjoying the grey-day stout breeze and head for the windward to scavenge, first thoughts being interested in a look, while second thoughts observed I was in no hurry to tackle up. Still, I headed for the boot, two controllers, a waggler and a roach pole top three to the good but getting there, three long term long-liners are covering ¾ of the lake and I avoid confrontation when I'm in a bad mood so I pass around to head back to Tranquil but was seduced by a quiet corner which took me 45 minute to realise it was a foot deep in every direction. Tranquil then, with maggots and 6lb in the face of the soft wind, steep banked-bed Albert Buckley style. I cast a Hex with 8lb to raise the stakes and then try a few casts with maggots and 6lb into the reedy bit which is coloured, I miss a bite, lose a hook in the breeze-and-tree, loose a hand made float when the line snaps on a reed, the line catching on every damn thing. I give up, bu88er it. I'll watch my quill until the flask is empty and call it quits.

But the quill, semi-cocked bouncing in the scudding waves diverts, entrances even and suddenly after 30 minutes of sipping the java-and-Morangie the world aligns with a snap and I watch and wait until the tip dances in the gloom, until small fish batter my float, ironic, if I'd not dismantled the float rod in pique, I could have bagged a dozen. I stare until I can see nothing but black and grey waves, convinced that the fish will come at any time. But it doesn't, hey ho.

The paradox of enrichment is a term from population ecology coined by Michael Rosenzweig in 1971. This described an effect in various predator-prey models wherein increasing the food available to the prey caused the predator's population to become unstable. For example if the food supply of a prey such as a rabbit is overabundant, its population will grow unbounded and cause the predator population (such as a lynx or fox) to grow unsustainably large. This may result in a crash in the predators' populations possibly leading to local eradication or even species extinction.

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

There are more carp about than there ever were and they are in the main depressingly easy to catch, in some waters it's harder to avoid carp than to catch them. This is an artificially maintained surfeit of prey (carp). This has resulted in an increase in predator numbers (carp anglers) due in part to the ease of capturing prey. With positive experiences common and requiring little skill, there are many who fish for carp, who, 30 years ago would have given up quite quickly.

And so to the paradox - I suggest that this situation is inherently unstable, metastable even, which is a cool way of saying "almost stable". Metastability is characterised by a stable state which spirals rapidly out of control due to small changes. Consider the economy, the continuing situation with otter and cormorant predation and possibility of disease. If we were to get a 20% reduction in prey in a short time there'd be a big drop-off in catches, waters least affected would see an increase in pressure, driving down catches and increasing fish mortality further. Next the carp fishers that need easy fish would hang up their gear. Incomes drop, no money for fishery investment...

Speculation? Clearly. Impossible? It's never been more likely.

'Small Stuff' includes, but is not limited to: PB's, blanking, squeezing the toothpaste from the middle, anyone who says "If you think about it..." (I have. You're wrong.), what the neighbours think, carbon footprints, 'cane or carbon?', hoovering, 'reality' TV, soap operas and tea that's not made with actual tea.