Sunday May 19th

I'll start by apologising for the lack of last weeks report, but simply there was nothing to report!

I was looking forward to going back on to the new lake, as the majority of the last few months seem to have been spent on the old lake. A few people had been up and pleasure fished during the week and it had been fishing quite well.

At the queue for the draw I took my customary late place in the line and saw many of the pegs I wanted come out before I reached the bag. When my hand went in, peg 34 came out in it - that'll do. I struggled off if in one of the winter league rounds, but once it's warmed up it's usually a pretty good peg with a long margin to the right. It had also fished well on Wednesday! It's not too far to the island (14.5m), but due to the stock pond behind being quite close you do have to un-ship twice.

I kept the day nice and simple - two rigs for the margins, one long to the right where I'd feed with a pot, and a short one to the left where I'd flick a little bait by hand. I'd have used the same rigs but the depth was different by about six inches, being slightly deeper on the longer right margin. The only other rig I had up was for across in just over a foot of water. All the rigs were using NG Floats XTM's, with .2gr floats in the edge in 2-2.5ft of water, and .1gr across. All the rigs were on Preston 15 hollo lakky with .15 hook-links.

I didn't feed the margins on the whistle, simply going across with a few 6mm pellets in a toss-pot, topped off with a little groundbait to make things a little less likely to fall out when double-shipping! There were a few fish present so I was surprised that it took me fifteen minutes (and two drops across) to get a bite. A crucian of about 1lb was the culprit. Next drop I hooked a carp which I lost when it charged through a sunken branch along the peg, but at least I got the branch out! When the next carp I hooked about ten minutes later came off as it ran along the island it looked as if it was going to be one of those days...

It was near the hour mark when I put my first carp in the net - a decent ghostie common of about 5lb, which next drop was followed by a baby of around 1lb. Bites started to come steady after - a small common of about 2lb was followed by a mirror of around 4lb and then a wild ghostie of about the same size before the swim again faded. I tried a change of hook bait and put on a fair-sized worm which got me a bream of about 2.5lb - not the target species, but welcome all the same! After that though the swim seemed to die.

Near two hours in and it looked like I'd need the margins sooner rather than later, so a decent pinch of hemp with a few grains of corn and cubes of meat went long to the right, while I started to flick odd cubes of meat to the left. I went back across but no indications came, so after thirty minutes I decided to have a quick drop in the edge.

I had a liner at first so I decided to stick with it a little longer, fishing a single cube of meat on the hook. I was just about to leave it when the float burried and a small common of about 3lb was soon in the net. Given the time it had taken I decided to top it up with a small amount and leave it. I initially went back across, but I'd been in no longer than five minutes when I saw a large tail waving at me from the short margin. Thinking to myself "I'll have him" I bought the long rig in, put the margin rig on, and anticipating a big lump put two cubes of meat on the hook. I lowered the rig in, and it sat for barely ten seconds before the float was away. The anticipated yards of dark blue lakky never appeared though, and a crucian of about 1lb plodded it's way to the net!

The margin lump faded away, and I went a fair period of the match unable to raise a bite from anywhere. I kept flicking a few bits of meat in short to the left, and the right side had odd small helping of bait via the cup. Odd fish would show across, but they'd got very spooky and apart from one pricked fish they vanished before they got near the pole.

With a little over an hour to go the persisting with feeding the edge paid off and bites started to come in the long margin. I was missing most so cut right back on the bait fed via the toss-pot and the missed bites became a thing of the past. The first four I had down the edge weren't "big" fish, being decent 4lb stamp I wasn't complaining. The next carp after that was much better, and after quite a hefty fight a plump ghostie common that was probably near to 10lb was panned. The indications to the right faded after - perhaps due to the longer fight. A tail in the short swim caught my attention so I topped the longer swim up with the cup and dropped in short with double meat. As per the first time the float had barely settled before it was away but this time a fair amount of lakky did follow it - a plump 6lb common being the result. I had just enough time to nab one more fish from the long margin, a smaller fish at around 3lb, but it did mean I finished with a nice round dozen "proper carp" - the baby 1lb'er going in with the crucians and the bream.

I was the second to last to weigh in, and when the scales got to me 47lb was top weight - I was sure I had that. My bits net went a helpful 7lb odd, and my carp 53lb odd for a total of just over 61lb, and what is only my second win of what has been a hard year so far. Hopefully things are on the up, and the sun even shone for most of the day! Hopefully we can now have some more of the same.