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!

What wasn't good was the sheer amount or discarded fishing tackle and rubbish on the banks...

I filled a plastic bag with cans, drinks bottles, snack wrappers, plastic bags, luncheon meat cans, sweetcorn cans, about 20 metres of line, weights, hooks, jig heads... It was pretty disgusting.

And then i came across a bloody great knife! just chucked in the undergrowth. WTF?!

I know the river is used by people other than anglers but most of what I picked up today could only have been left by so called fishermen.

Please, please, please tidy up behind yourselves! Otherwise, you don't deserve to fish, simple as that. It's spoiling what is otherwise a fantastic stretch of river!

Despite the cold it was incredibly busy so it was a good call arriving early. I wasn't counting but at least 10 pike anglers walked past me while I was fishing...

Despite the cold, it was a great few hours on the bank ;)

According to this map on the Bristol City Council fishing page the corner of Baldwin Street and the High Street below the Bristol Bridge is OK for fishing.

As I could cast from the office window into the river (or is it a floating harbour?), I figured it'd be worth a look?

From looking at it, there's some steps down to the water level that'd be a good spot to start. Thinking a bit of pre-baiting campaign, gotta be worth a loaf of bread and a can of corn a week for a month?

So we arrived with high hopes! Nice and early, managed to get into the car park at 7am on the nose, it was still dark but light was coming into the sky. There were a couple of other cars, good to know we weren't the only fishermen to brave the cold ;)

We headed for the same swims again as they produced results on the previous trip and they look so good: marginal cover either side, a good open water stretch and two islands with a channel. I went with a couple of hair rigged pieces of plastic corn on a bolt rig fished over groundbait with chill hemp and corn mixed in front of the island and a feeder with maggots and liquidized bread on the right of the swim in the margins. Dad, in the swim to my left, went with float fishing bread and maggots and a light ledger in the margins.

Five hours of fishing and nothing... Not a bobbin raised, a float dipped or a rod tip twitched. The whole lake was dead! No one was getting anything. To make matters worse, at around 12pm three blokes moved in the swims to my right. What commenced could only be classed as a casting competition! They all had two rods each, one on float and the other on bolt rigs. Each rod was cast on average every 5 minutes?! If there were ANY fish in the vicinity, they we're swiftly making their way to the other side of the lake...

I put up with it for around an hour and something had to give - either they got a shouting or I was moving. Working on the basis that there were no fish in my swim and if there were, they would've swam off after the constant rain of weights splashing down on their heads, a move was the go so I relocated to a nice calm bay on the far side of the lake.

It looked perfect: a bay on my left and right, good margins and open water in front of me. However...

There were two pole anglers on the far right of the swim who JUST WOULDN'T SHUT UP! Unsurprisingly, the main topic of conversation was the lack of fish they were catching...  Noise travels very well over water, I can only imagine the fish got as bored of the sound of their voices as I did.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you want a chat, go to the pub. I don't come fishing to listen to what was on TV last night, or what the misses is bitching about, or how 'there are no bloody fish in here' - I come to catch fish and have a peaceful time on the bank side. And your constant shouting between swims is really bloody annoying!

We started to pack up around 4ish as the light was fading fast with out so much as a bite. And then one the three casting champs hooked a fish! There just ain't no justice in the world...

One reason for the dry day could've been that the match that was sposed to take place on the horse shoe lake the previous day was held on the coarse lake. Apparently it fished very well, which would explain the lack of fish gracing our nets!

A beautiful day out though and we'll be heading back. I've a feeling that the lake will really come into it's own in the summer and'll provide a good days sport.

We've a spot of river piking planned for just after Christmas, fingers crossed we'll hook into some fish then.