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!

Jim (of Jim's Lure Challenge fame) and I have been hitting the Bristol River Avon at Keynsham and Saltford pretty hard over the last couple of months trying to get pike on lures. While Jim has been doing very well, netting a pike on pretty much every session, I've really struggled with only one follow and a lost hook up to show for my efforts (although I had snagged a couple on deadbaits along the way!).

The weather has been really bad recently with a couple of days of snow followed by some heavy rain and although there'd been a run of clear days we knew that the river near Bristol was either going to be flooded or a chocolatey soup. I dropped in at Keynsham for a while but the lock was such a mess so I headed up river. The flow was super fast and with bright, bright sunlight burning off the mist over the fields I knew I was wasting my time...

The next spot was over at Saltford but I could see from the car park that there were two chaps under the bridge and with the water still hacking through it wasn't really worth casting out in the shallows. Jim arrived at around 11ish though and mentioned that he'd spied a stretch of canal over in Bath whilst he'd been working on a job. It was really a 'cut' with a lock gate at the end but he had a feeling it would be worth a shot as the water would at least be calmer.

So we headed to the 'Western Cut' and spent 30 minutes or so casting around the canal and lock but there wasn't a sniff of interest. However our luck really changed when we headed down the steep steps onto the mooring walkway below the lock gates...

And within 5 minutes Jim had a fish on the bank!

I quickly joined him on the walkway and over the next hour or so we managed 6 bites - amazing! Somehow we'd managed to locate some fish and they were very, very hungry. Unluckily for me, only 1 of the 4 bites I had resulted in a fish on the bank but Jim got 3 hungry jacks in the net before we decided to call it a day.

On paper, the day should've been terrible: high coloured water, bright sunlight, really warm for the time of year... It should've been a blank. But luckily for us we managed to find a slack area just off the main flow of the river where a group of pike had decided to hold up until the river level dropped.

So that's it, challenge complete! I've well and truly got the lure bug now and I've a feeling we'll be heading back to Weston Lock for another go in the not to distant future...

The weather looked spot on so I decided to try the lock at Keynsham, mainly as I wanted to try the float out as I was convinced there was a resident pike...

Turns out there was!

I'd seen some swirls while casting the lure around on previous sessions but just couldn't get the lure to area of water due to a moored barge and an overhanging tree...

My plan was to try a single treble on a trace, with a sprat hooked through the dorsal fin suspended 3 or so foot deep which I could then cast and drift into the spot.

It didn't take long! I'd been casting the lure rod around with a micro fry when the float jumped in the air and then shot under... The pike must've hit the sprat from below which was exactly what I wanted it to do - happy days!

Not surprisingly the perch nibbles dried up after landing the fish and although I did try saltford for a while, the water was pretty coloured and pushing through and as the drizzle set in I decided to call it a day.

So I feel like I've slightly cheated deadbaiting...

...but I was lure fishing at the same time and all my instincts have been telling me to try the floated sprat rig for the last couple of sessions so I'll cut myself some slack this time ;)

And it turned out to be a complete perch fest! These are some of the bigger ones, in total I think I must've had around 6 decent fish and numerous missed hits in the space of about 10 minutes.

It was so much fun, and with the light rod and small lures even these small fish gave a great fight.

So there you go, you can catch fish on lures - now all I need to do is catch one of those illusive pike on one...

Although I've fished at Saltford before, it wasn't for pike and I'd stuck to the long section running down to the lock and the Jolly Sailor pub so I was eager to try the shallows. Jim very kindly let me have the 'prime' swim at the end of the car park which has a stream running into it which looked great for some perch and some good margins next to moored barges. I'd decided to dead bait and lure on this session as it was a new location and I wasn't sure what method would win out...

After twenty minutes or so with nothing to show for my efforts I checked my phone, only to find out that Jim had managed to bag a pike a couple of swims to my left on his second cast! He was convinced there was something bigger swimming out there as the jack pike had a nick out of it's flank and although he very kindly allowed me to have a quick cast around, I couldn't hook into anything other than the bottom of the river!

From where we were standing, we could see downstream to the disused railway bridge and decided to up sticks and take a look. To be honest, it was pretty foul under that bridge: the amount of rubbish was shocking, beer cans, discarded tackle, lure packets, dead bait packets, plastic bags... A pretty sorry state. Luckily I'd taken a 50 litre bin bag which we filled with rubbish however we could've filled it two or three times more. The lack of respect people have for the environment just does my head in!

There was also a massive mound of rusting bit of metal consisting of bikes, railings, fences, bars... it looked like someone had been dredging the river and had pulled out every bit of snaggy rubbish they could find! Very kind of them, but it's a shame that it was just left there in a heap to rust away. However what it did mean was that the water was pretty much free of snags which made the fishing a lot easier.

Again Jim very kindly let me fish the prime spot on the left of the swim and I decided to drop a ledgered smelt tightish to the margin and then set about casting the lure in an arc starting left to right...

...which is when I got my first taste of lure action as a pike struck just as I was pulling the lure into the margin! Unfortunately for me, a quick shake of the head and the pike was off - I guess that's the difference between a single hook in a soft plastic and a two sets of treble hooks?!

Over the next 20 minutes both Jim and I had a couple of follows and then suddenly the dead bait rod sounded. Again, luck wasn't on my side as it turned out the rod was snagged on something. The fish was definitely on as if the braid ran when I lowered the rod tip but after applying gentle pressure I managed to get the rig back but minus the bait and fish. Damn.

But there were fish in the swim! So the dead bait rod went back out to a new spot slightly further out from the margin to the left and we got back to casting the lures.

And then finally a bit of luck! The alarm on the dead bait rod sounded again and this time a solid strike resulted in a hook up - pike on at last (albeit with the wrong method but hey, at this stage a fish is a fish right?!). No monster but a welcome pike all the same.

The predicted drizzle really started coming down now and although we did head upstream along Mead Lane towards the lock and weir at the Jolly Sailor pub we didn't have any more action.

So another interesting day on the bank. It was great to have a hook up on the lure, it was a shame it came off but it was really good that we both had a fish - even if mine was on the wrong method!

Better luck next time eh?