After mulling over whether to go to Fields End I finally decided to revisit Earith. My catches at Fields End over the past couple of years have been mainly rudd with the occasionally large carp, whereas Earith offers more mixed fishing with tench, bream, crucians and carp. The lake was quite busy but my preferred spot around the back was free, being too far to walk for most people.

There was less evidence of fish activity this time, the bubbling and reed movement observed the previous week noticeably missing. There was also signs that the lily pads had been disturbed with broken off stems and leaves floating on the surface. This debris proved to be a nuisance as it prevented me from sinking the line and caused line drift as it moved with the wind.

I groundbaited with a proprietary mix laced with hemp and sweetcorn and started fishing with sweetcorn on the hook. The first surprise was that I didn't get any early bites, just the occasional knocks on the float that could have been 'liners'. Changing to spam and then cheese paste didn't improve matters. This situation continued until just before 10 o'clock when the first positive bite resulted in a tench. It wasn't big but fought well and was very welcome. Tench were my target species and I had hoped that this would be the beginning of a more active period. But it wasn't!

In fact the next fish didn't come until just after one o'clock, another tench of about the same size. It again fought well and the longish wait was worth it. In between times I had not had any really positive bites, just dips and knocks, with both spam and cheese paste disappearing from the hook without any positive indication. It had been a very slow day and although occasional bubbling was seen it wasn't as prolific as the previous week.

By two o'clock I was starting to consider packing up. I had in effect only had two positive bites. In the end I set my packing up time at three o'clock and was in last cast territory when I finally hooked one of the finicky bites. This turned out to be a decent bream. I had caught quite a few bream the previous week but on this occasion it was to be the only one. It was, however. a nice way to end the session.

So it turned out to be three positive bites in just under six hours fishing. Hardly exhilarating sport but I caught my target species and enjoyed passing the time by what is a very attractive little lake. The ducks and ducklings kept me amused, although unfortunately I think a few ducklings had vanished since the previous visit. A moorhen family had however produced a brood of little fluff balls and it was fascinating to watch the parents feed minuscule bits of floating groundbait to the little chicks.

Nature always has a habit of perking up a slow fishing day.