A change in the weather was due overnight on Sunday and I was back down the lake in anticipation of strong winds and heavy rain in the early hours of Monday. This should get them stirred up and on the munch!

I just had to be in this swim with the way the wind would be pushing. As luck would have it, the BBQ planned for Sunday afternoon was cancelled and I was free to get down the lake a lot earlier than originally planned.

With no action, it was time to get some bait on the swim just after 2 pm. I sorted out the kit for the night and in the afternoon it was time to have a play with rigs – a social was coming up and I didn’t have a long shank cured hook, I need to adjust my ronnie rig accordingly.

My first take was at 6 am and on the right hand rod in the middle of a down poor. I’m glad to have my waders on sometimes and this was definitely one of those times!

I flicked my head torch on, to work out where the line was pointing as the last thing I needed was a fish kiting right towards the snags. It looked like buckets of water were being tipped from the sky and I felt like I was in the heart of the storm. I could hardly see anything. I worked out the fish was coming straight in and off to my right, this was good news. I grabbed the Nsr50, waded out to my left and prepared to net the carp, it wasn’t that big but with the storm raging around me, I was glad it didn’t muck about too much. It was pretty much straight in the net, amongst the waves crashing into the shore. I headed back with the carp to the unhooking mat, quickly unhooked it and got it back in the water. It was around the 10lb mark, no photos needed and definitely not in these conditions.

With a fresh hook bait on the rods was back out the best I could. I added 2 wraps to counter the force of the wind and it hit the clip. I checked the direction of the line going out into the sea I was fishing, it looked spot on, it was now just after 6 am and definitely time for a brew.

The rain and wind faded away around 7 am and the prospects of another bite before home time was looking good.  I also had the ability to dry my kit out, which is always a bonus.  Unfortunately, about 9 30 ish, the school rang up as my eldest had a migraine and needed collecting asap.  That was me packing up quickly and heading home.

Until next time.

Richard