Not quite as cold as last Monday but still a bit chilly. The previous few days had been quite a lot warmer with high winds so I had hoped that a brief interlude of calmer, if colder weather would prove rewarding. I took some maggots this time to see if they may provide more hittable bites but unfortunately the small perch were a nuisance. I also fished sweet corn. There was only one other person on the lake.

If anything, bites seemed less frequent than on the previous Monday when the lake was frozen. So much for my warm spell theory. I finally hit a small roach at 09.35 on sweet corn and continued to catch occasional roach throughout the day. Most were not particularly large, although at 14.00 I did get a nice fish of 14oz on a bunch of red maggots. Of the others some were perhaps around 4-6 oz.

At 10.45 a 1¾lb tench took sweet corn although at first I was hoping that it was a big roach. I lost what was probably another tench a bit later (hook hold failed). The low point, however, was losing what was almost certainly a carp at 15.30, which also took a bunch of maggots. I was trying out a cheap Avanti reel and the clutch tensioner wasn’t all that smooth. As I twiddled with it to ensure that the carp wouldn’t over-stress the 2½lb line I must have been a bit too heavy handed, and the line snapped. I think a return to my trusty centre pin is necessary as this gives fine control when using very light tackle. I may also consider moving up to 4lb line as it’s clear that the carp are moving around nearer the bank, and I would rather not lose any more.

So, while I caught a fair number of roach, my principal quarry, sport wasn’t any better than the previous week, and losing the carp was an unwelcome ending to the day.