Absolutely terrible weather... It rained pretty much solidly on Thursday and Friday... The journey down from Bristol was a shocker seeing me arrive at 9pm rather than 7pm...

But I banked a fish! Which was a real result as the whole lake fished really hard that weekend. Thank you to Innate Baits, you saved me from a blank ;)

It's a bit of a special fishery and although the weather was more than challenging and the fish not forthcoming, I'll definitely be heading back for a return session soon.

So Lower Kilcott Farm was an obvious choice. It's a small farm lake (more of a pond really) in the Cotswolds midway between Dad and myself and a perfect place for winter fishing as it's rammed with fish. As my daughter Lilly-Grace would be joining us for this session, it had to be a venue that'd keep an enthusiastic 6 year old busy too.

As it's a small venue with limited swims, we decided it was important we arrived early so I organised to meet Dad between 6.30 and 7.00 to make sure we had a bit of choice. I woke Lilly-Grace at 6.10am after having loaded the car meaning we were on the road and rocking out to Royal Blood on the M4 by twenty past ;)

A very easy drive saw us arrive at the lake around 6.50am to see one angler in my favourite far corner swim.... But the good news was Dad had already bagged the other corner swim at the back of the lake meaning we could all fish in a row like gnomes and pretty much have the road bank corner furthest from the farm house to ourselves! Well worth getting up at stoopid o'clock...

As predicted by the weather man, it was grey and cold but fingers crossed the wind and rain would keep at bay - I think even L-G's enthusiasm would be dampened if the weather turned?! After we'd said hello to Coco (Dad's gorgeous spaniel, another requirement of venue choice was dog friendlessness!) we set about getting the rods in the water.

Your gonna catch no at Kilcott no matter what so it's a great place to try out some new or little used techniques. For me, I really wanted to try out float fishing to target the excellent silvers in the lake but I also really wanted to try and find some of the bigger carp. On my last trip, I managed to get fish to around 10lb - nothing massive but I knew from a trip in the summer that a 15 pounder had come out. So rather than going for everything and anything I decided to go big on the bottom bait rod, getting the boilies piled in and a really light float rod for the silvers. Lilly-Grace opted for the feeder with liquidized bread and sweetcorn on the hook and I had a feeling she'd be pasty bashing in no time...

True to form, the initial action was hectic! Lilly-Grace had a good run of 4 or so little carp on the feeder rod using liquidized bread in the cage and real sweetcorn on the hair before Dad and I even managed to get a line in the water! My bottom bait rod rattled off within 10 minutes (no surprise there, that's why we came to Kilcott!) with a little common of around 4lb, about the stamp size of the fish in the lake and a great start.

As mentioned, I was determined to practise my float fishing as I'm really not as good at it as I'd like to be. Using sweet corn on the waggler was only catching me carp so I switched over to some maggots and casters (thank you Dad!) after 10 minutes in an effort to single out a silver. It worked! I missed more bites than I hit but did have a great selection of rudd and roach which was great fun on light gear.

The bottom bait rod had been strangely quiet after that 1st run. I worked through a couple of different popup options and even put a zig out as the sun tried to make an appearance (I'd had great success with Zig's on the last session when it was much sunnier). But the hours ticked by without a bite... Not that it was a problem as a combination of Lilly-Grace catching more fish than Dad and I put together was keeping me more than busy... As was keeping her fed! She can eat that girl... which is amazing as she's skin and bones, don't know where she puts it.

So I Switched the bottom bait rod to Celtic Baits Nut Mix boiles and baited the 'bowl' of water to my left heavily with boiles and a mixture of pellets.

Around 12ish, the bobbin dropped to the floor and the line went slack... Drop back? Just moved the lead? Then the line slowly tightened up! What the hell, struck into what I was expecting to be a liner and realised there was something attached!

To be honest, I didn't think there was much on the end - the fish came in slow and steady and didn't really put up much resistance. But when it came to netting it, we realised it was something of a beast cos it wouldn't fit in the landing net! I'd only brought my small spoon net thinking the fish in Kilcott where quite small but this one was hanging out of either side of the net...

Amazing - a really solid (if slightly sleepy!) mirror carp of 18lb. From a tiny farm lake. too good ;)

Over the next couple of hours I had another 15lb mirror and smaller darker common of around 8lb all on the Celtic Baits nut mix boilies. An amazing result on an great bait.

The last hours were spent with Lilly-Grace and I trying a bit of surface fishing, more practice with the float and just whiling the hours away on the bank. We packed down around 4ish having had a great day. Kilcott never fails to deliver!

The only downer to the day was a couple of fellers on the far bank who had no landing net or unhooking net. They were surface fishing and hauling carp out in the edge using their hands which is just not on. There's no excuse, if you don't have these basic items you shouldn't be allowed to fish, it's that simple. A majority of the fish we caught today were in pretty good condition but that won't last if people don't look after the stop. Shame on them!

The session started just as I'd hoped with some cracking fish falling to the ever reliable Spam. But as the weather turned from beautiful sunshine to a cold blustery night and then heavy rain on the Monday the fishing got tougher and tougher...

In the end, I had 26 fish out with the highlight being a 12lb goldfish Koi carp - just stunning!

http://www.follyfootfishery.co.uk/

The lake was pretty quiet when I arrived at around 8.30am with only two anglers along the road bank. It was sunny and surprisingly warm, with the wind pushing into the far corner so I decided to set up on the left end of the car park bank in one of my favourite swims. On my last trip to the lake, I'd tried a 'big carp fishing' approach spodding loads of bait in and fishing over the top of an area around 3 metres square. As it resulted in me catching some of the smallest fish I've ever pulled out of the lake, a different plan was needed!

Most of my sessions on the lake have been in the evenings over the summer when I'd found that the fish move into the margins or are up on the surface. But during the day when there's pressure on the water, they seemed to favour the open water spots with the weather dictating the layer they want to feed in. The day was going to be warm and sunny (I found out later the hottest Halloween on record?!) so this time I'd brought chum mixers, maggots and boilies. The plan was to fish single boilies with a scattering of around 20 or so baits out towards and around the island in the middle of the lake and then float fish with maggots and pellets in front of me to see if I could find where the fish were swimming - and also to try and pick up some silvers! There's been some great perch coming out of late...

So rod one went out with a hair rigged Mainline Cell boilie and a scattering of baits and I got settled into some float fishing. The action was very slow... There were fishing showing out in open water but no takers and the float rod was producing exactly nothing!

As there wasn't a whole lot of anything going on, I had a play with the camera managing to snap a huge dragon fly and a really colourful duck who was being chased round the lake by the horny mallards!

The first bite came around an hour or so later when the bobbin on the boilie rod slammed up against the blank and the line went solid! A fish at last - but it wasn't to be... I managed to get the fish in as far as the bank and the hook pulled! Bugger. That wasn't the plan.

By this time, the wind had got a real chop on the water and 5 or so anglers had arrived all setting up on the carp park bank. I'd been eyeing up my 2nd favourite swim on the lake on the furthest corner near an oak tree and right next to a nice margin with lots of cover. The increased angling pressure, lack of fish and the fact that it seemed to be the only area of water that was calm (the float fishing was becoming challenging!) prompted a move.

I got settled into my new swim and this time decided to chuck a method feeder in front of the reeds to my right while I sorted out the the boilie rod. It was really warm by now but as I'd not seen any fish cruising on the surface, the open water out towards the island still felt like a good spot to try. While I was in the process of getting a PVA bag tied, bang, off the feeder rod went - the move had paid off! But again, a bloody hook pull...

This was not going at all well! So I took a deep breath and got the rods out again... While I was lamenting my failure on Facebook, the boile rod screamed off - that was quick! This fish was going to come in even if I had to wade out into the lake to get it...

The result was a short but fat common, quite unusual for this lake as most of the fish I've had are longer and leaner. Banking a fish and getting 2 runs in the space of 20 minutes from the new swim was just the confidence boost I needed and I got the rods out onto the spots asap.

Over the next 4 hours I had fish after fish from out towards the island - all on the cell boilies with the only change being alternating topping with a bit of fake corn, mainly to see if it resulted in a quicker take!

Thanks to Jake Alden for being on hand to take this snap of probably the biggest fish of the session ;)

Things started to slow down towards last knockings. The light starts to fade so quickly at this time of year... I really miss summer! But I was in luck: Terry Smith (the manager) wandered over with a handful of some of the new 'special' baits he's been rolling, handily just as I was rebating one of the rods (I'd swapped both over the bottom baits out by the island as this was where all the runs had come from).

So this time I chucked out a double stack consisting of a single 'Tangy Tangerine' and a 'Pineapple +' mini dumbbell. This was to be my last cast of the day as the misses was picking me up at 5pm by which time it'd be well and truly dark! Marcus was also fishing the new baits, over in the corner of the car park bank and hooked into a stunner on the pole:

And then at 4.45pm on the nose (I know 'cos I was clock watching and packing down!) the rod with the new 'special' bait ripped off!

So a brilliant end to another great day on the bank. If you've not been to Bitterwell Lake, give it a go. I've a feeling it'll be a great winter venue this year ;)

I'm back up for a morning session next week and can't wait!