But we arrived around 9.30ish just as the weather turned for the worse: I'd managed to get my gear round to the swim just as a big rain cloud dumped it's contents on the valley! I'm not the biggest fan of umbrellas, but getting them set up when it's chucking it down with rain and blowing a gail is a real challenge.

Anyway, I got set up, got the rods out and settled in under the umbrella. After the last session, we had a feeling that the action would be fast so I opted for a cage feeder with the faithful liquidized bread with mixed in maggots, sweetcorn, a handful of groundbait and a couple of handfuls of hemp with a maggot ball on the hair. The other rod went out on a lead clip ledger with popped up plastic sweetcorn on the hair and a PVA mesh bag filled with the bread mix. I got this into a little corner, the idea being to hopefully pull in any bigger fish with the small hookbait.

One small mishap: 1/2 my bank disappeared into the lake!

The water has a lot of very hungry fish between the 1lb to 6lb mark so once you get them feeding, they can actually be picked up on the drop. Many of the bites came as the rod was placed in the rest after the cast, especially on the feeder. Even the ledger rod went off a couple of times as I was placing the bobbin on the line!

The weather really picked up in the afternoon: the rain stopped, the wind died down and the sun came out. I've been desperately trying to persevere with my float fishing so out came the light tackle with an aim to pick out some of the great roach the lake has to offer. After an hour or so of picking off smaller fish, the sun had warmed things up and the fish were starting to take the small bits of bread I'd been throwing in at the edge... and then a goldfish popped up. And another. It was too much to resist, so I stripped the shot off the line leaving a couple round the float, got some bread on the hook and started surface fishing (had great fun doing this on our last trip).

I had several small carp and as more bread went in, the surface really started to boil. There were a group of around 10 or so fish that seemed to be rolling over each other in an effort to get at the bait! The interesting thing was that as the group bashed the bread, it became smaller and less buoyant meaning it sunk... and got picked off by the roach! I had 3 fish, all of a decent size that took the bait as it drifted down through the water after the carp had bashed it to bits. Great fun.

But the real prize was the goldfish: 2 kept on appearing at the edge of the 'carp boil' so it was a case of being patient, waiting till then appeared and then gently lowering the hook bait near them (I was only fishing a rod length from the bank!). After a few frustrating misses, I finally hooked one:

A plump goldfish - not bad!

The fishing kept it's pace till last nockings around 5ish. It's a really pretty spot, packed full of fish and a definate 'guarentee-a-bite' venue even in the worst weather conditions.

I even managed to get my surface controller that I'd lost in a tree on the last visit back - a result all round!

So to keep busy we thought we'd try a new water called Lower Kilcott Farm. I've read a lot about it online and done a virtual drive by on Google Street View and although it looks quite small, it seemed interesting enough. The general consensus in the forums was that it a bit of a muddy puddle full of fish (which for some people appears to be a bit of a problem...) and that if you couldn't catch, it was time to take up knitting...

We arrived pretty early at around 7.30ish and found that we had the place to ourselves - a good or bad sign?!. The weather looked good - sunny, bit of cloud cover and surprisingly warm for the time of year. As it's a small lake (an acre maybe?) we decided to take a side each: Dad took a corner swim on the road side of the lake which gave him access to a nice (maybe unfishable?) corner and some open water and I took up a nice edge on the far side with a bay and open water.

My plan was to have a sleeper rod out with a ledger baited with plastic corn and a float rod baited with maggots that I'd 'fish for a bite' with, a tactic I'd been reading up on in the fishing mags. The idea is to bait 3 areas, cast to the 1st and wait till you get a bite. Once you've got a bite (even if it doesn't result in a fish), trickle a bit more bait on that spot, move to the next and repeat the process. It should mean that any fish spooked on the 1st spot will be back in the swim by the time you return to it and with a bit of luck, you can rotate between the swims picking off fish as you go.

That plan kinda went to pot... The ledger rod had been in for about 10 minutes (less time that it took to get the float rod sorted) before the bobbin raised and the rod was off. A small 3lb common, very nice. The rod went back out, a little bit of bait went in, I tried to get back to plumbing the depth for the float rod and off the ledger went again!

And that pretty much set the scene for the day! I did manage to get the float rod out in the end and picked up some fantastic roach and carp, great fun on light tackle. The fishing was going so well, I swapped the float for a feeder filled with liquidized bread and went for a hair rigged maggot ball in an effort to bring in some bigger fish. It got to the point where the water was boiling and we were pretty much getting a fish a chuck - loadsa fun.

The weather throughout the day went from sun to rain on and off but the arvo was actually really warm. I'd seen some fish showing on the surface who'd been scooping up the hemp seed I'd been putting in as ground bait (guess some of it hadn't split or had dried out) so, silly as it seems, I gave floating crust a go...

... in January?! Really? It worked though! To be able to freeline crust in the sunshine, picking off 3-8lb carp was a bit of a treat after the previous one fish or complete blank sessions.

The action was so hectic, I only managed to take one snap for the day!

We've a return session booked in for this coming Saturday which I'm really looking forward to. The weather isn't going to be anywhere near as good (it's rain, rain and a bit more rain at the moment...) but I'm gonna take the opportunity to try out some new rigs and hone my float fishing skills (I missed a lot of bites last time). Then we're off to Harescombe Fisheries on Sunday which is another new venue for myself and Dad. From the sounds of it though, it should be nearly as prolific as Lower Kilcott Farm ;)