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The heatwave is in full swing, I was seriously considering not coming this week. I needed to gain a lot of information before winter and with the prospect of a trip to Suffolk, I needed to make a return to the Airfield Lake for at least 3 trips, before the end of the season. In reality, there’s not a great deal of time available.

I came to the conclusion that it was worth taking a good look and only setting up if I could get into the shade. I needed to get there as early as possible to be able to get set up and avoid the heat of the day if I could find the perfect swim and be all set up by 9 am that would be perfect. I could bait up later on.

I had a good look and a chat with a few of the syndicate members, to see what they’d seen over the past 24 hours. A few fish had been caught or lost in the ever-growing weed beds.

The heat was going to be fun. The pressure was a lot lower than I expected, and the wind was all over the place. The shade was my top priority, however, this lake is pretty much my best option with only a couple of really open areas – unlike the Airfield Lake, which is very limited with shade.

After longer than I hoped, I finally made my mind up and settled on a swim called Bird Hide. This has a good amount of features, along with the weed. It looked extremely fishy. A guy had just done the night but blanked, but there were clearly fish moving about.

My area I’m in, is the little patch of gravel along the tree line opposite an swim island, that now has a lot of weed growth around it.

I have a similar amount along the margins to my left.

This hopefully will not cause me too many issues. I’ve first got to get a pickup after seeing a carp show. I’ve simply flicked two singles out for a few hours and then I will sort it out properly later, as I feel there’s a chance of a pickup before the heat of the day arrives.

The beauty of this swim is that the car is just behind the swim, plus there’s plenty of shade about.

I love my syndicate water, it’s full of wildlife and strange goings on.

I sorted out the spots and spombed out my bait, and then rested the swim for a couple of hours.

I had a couple of disasters with the spombing, but it’s all good fun and happiness to everyone from time to time.

I then headed off around a fellow syndicate member’s swimming for a few hours, headed back at about 1630, flicked the rods out on the spots, and then set about getting dinner on the Weber. It would be Macaroni and cheese from Aldi tonight. Which is absolutely fabulous.

Once that’s all sorted, it will be hopefully a lot cooler and time to finish off sorting my lights out, etc., in the bivvy for the coming night.

There wasn’t much of a sunset last night, but it did look lovely, and by then, the temperature was really cooling down. Happy days! Let’s hope tonight brings me good fortune.

I started getting liners on both rods around 3 a.m. This continued until about 5 a.m. when finally the left-hand rod was away with a hard-fighting carp. It came through the channel in the weed and then started to really give me the run around for a good 10 minutes before it finally made it into the net.

I’m happy with that start on the first night – 20lb on the noise according to my digital scales. The rod was soon back out, and I grabbed some very needed sleep, until about 7 am.

It’s going to be yet another hot one, and I’d spotted a big problem heading my way! A giant weed burg was drifting in front of my swim, this will be a huge issue to deal with. I hope the northeast wind will help, but it’s looking like the undertone of the water is moving it right into my swim and that amount of weed is pretty impossible to deal with.

It wasn’t there yesterday and is still on the move.

The wind has done its job, the weed is on the move back to where it came from. I’m hoping it finds something to attach itself to otherwise when the wind swings around later today, I could be in trouble.

I’m glad I’m tucked away under the trees for a high percentage of the day, with the cool, northerly breeze, it’s very pleasant.

The weed raft finally caught up with me, and it was time to find a solution. Clear it up, or move swim in the middle of the day, both options I didn’t fancy.

I had a look in the swim I fished last week, and the sun was beating down in there, and I didn’t fancy that option. I led around in a swim called Night Rope, which is the opposite end to Day Rope, being a night or a day swim, that is either end of the out-of-bounds sanctuary area. I did find a couple of interesting spots. I by chance popped into a fellow syndicate member’s swim and he had a home weed rake. He lent me it and actually gave me it in the end, it was the perfect bit of kit and did a perfect job. Thank you.

The swim was clearer than when I got here – a brilliant result.

I then spombed out a bit more of my sloppy particle mix, catapulted a load of 12mm Boilies over the margin rod, and then sticked out some 20mm over the far rod.

This whole process had taken four hours in the hottest part of the day, and it was time for a beer. Cool down and relax after the fuss of the last 4 hours.

Tea was on the go about an hour later, and my confidence was booming. It just looked absolutely perfect this evening. My view of the lake is pretty good, and I was sure I spotted a couple of carp about, they were certainly along the margins to my right and on the top amongst the weeds.

Later on, there were lovely skies, probably the Sahara sands everyone is talking about.

I didn’t stay up late, as I hadn’t slept well the first night and probably wasn’t going to tonight. The liners started at some point but didn’t result in any takes last night. This was a bit of a downer, as I really felt it was going to happen.

I gave it until around 1130 and popped over for a chat with the last remaining angler. I headed back to get the rods and bait back out. I adjusted the right-hand rod slightly to a closer spot. I felt the carp could have been spooking on the line and moving off the spot before they even found my hookbait. The other rod was still in the same spot.

Despite there being no sunshine this afternoon, the heat of the day is certainly still here. I’m sitting on my chair typing this with sticky hands, praying for a breeze to arrive and cool me down! There are some Long-tail Tits hopping around the big willow next to me. It’s lovely to watch but hard to get a photo, they never sit still for more than a couple of seconds.

I’m sure it will happen tonight. Everything is perfectly positioned. The traps are spot on, it’s now down to Mr. Carp who has to play ball.

It was probably the best night’s sleep, which isn’t what I was really there for. With only a couple of bleeps in the early hours – that was it.

I was up early enough to see the sun coming over the trees and I was gone before my swim got too hot. I was out the gate just after 8 a.m., all set for a hot day on the beach, with the family.

Until next time

Richard