Firstly, I must thank my wife and kids for letting me out during the last few days of their Easter holidays. It’s week fifteen of the year and I’ve just only starting trip 10. I try to average 1 trip a week but this year hasn’t gotten off to a great start. We still have 37 weeks to go, so I better not write this year off just yet!

After my last trip, which really proved the carp really aren’t feeding heavily in open water yet. It was time to find an area where I felt the carp wouldn’t be too far away from me. I’m not into snag fishing these days, I’m too old for that.

After going backward and forwards from a number of swims, I settled for the Gate Swim.

I was able to get down the lake again for a couple of nights, thanks to Mrs. H for understanding my obsession.

Ian arrived on Friday afternoon and it was a Bank Holiday weekend: time was limited, the weather was finally getting warmer plus pre-spawning captures which meant the lake was pretty packed with 15 to 18 anglers on 64 acres. You may laugh, but that’s packed for here.

Ian had managed a low 28lber on his first night.

With another teacher’s strike buggering up my plans to do a couple of nights, I decided that an overnighter would be a solution to my situation – as long as I’m home before the wife heads off to work, so I can look after the kids.

With a dentist appointment at 4 pm, I couldn’t get down the lake until about 6 pm but this gave me plenty of time to find a swim and get things sorted before dark.

I headed off, at about 07.30 hours this morning, to the Airfield Lake and spent an hour looking about. I even set up my bivvy in one of the swims, but it just didn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t looking carpy at all.

With the bivvy down and back in the car, I was soon at Meadow Lake. It’s no more than a couple of miles away by road. I was shocked to find myself only the second person there. This did cheer me up. I’d originally planned on arriving Wednesdays over the winter period, as there isn’t a great deal of gardening to be done. I think this is only the second time I’ve managed it.

I received some information from a fellow member on Monday morning about his success in one particular swim. It was the perfect spot to avoid all the strong winds forecast, plus be in with a shot of a carp.

I quickly got a load of bait out there. It was a mixture of flaked maize, 11mm Catalyst/Classic Corn Pellets, and 12mm Catalyst boilies with a good load of Hemp oil and Betafin.

It was absolutely stuffed full, including 4 old TV sets! It’s amazing really how much rubbish you accumulated over the years. I also feel a few bits of fishing tackle going on ebay soon.

I was hoping to enlist one of my free Wednesdays to go fishing, but the teacher’s strike put pay to that again. The local crazy golf course and tea rooms were happy, though!

On to this week’s trip, I arrived at the lake just before 9 am. I wasn’t really sure if I was going to carry on to the Airfield Lake, which had opened the other day, or stay here. After finding out that a few carp had been out and the conditions for the Airfield Lake aren’t that favorable. Despite the 7 other anglers on, I felt it was worth a go, plus one of my favorite swims was free.