Friday’s overnight session could really have begun on a better note - lashing rain, blustery winds and that kind of creeping darkness that sets in at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Driving home from work through traffic, the peace and the tranquility of the lake seemed idyllic, but the reality of pitching my bivvy whilst trying to keep myself and my kit dry was far from relaxing.

On the bright side, I had high hopes that the change from cold, clear weather might persuade the odd fish to get their head down and get some feeding done. With this in mind, I had visited the lake the previous evening and put a few boillies in over my well-fished spots - not much, but hopefully enough to get them in the area and interested.

After 2 blank sessions, I was getting a little anxious. You see, historically, whilst I have spent a lot of my free time fishing, thinking about fishing and more recently writing about fishing, I haven’t actually spent much time catching fish. Blanking had always been the norm for me until recently, partly due to the type of waters I used to fish, but it was a habit I’d been happy to break when I started catching from St. James’, and one I was keen to avoid slipping back into.

With that in mind, I had pre-prepared some new hook lengths and was ready to make whatever effort it took to catch. Each rod was baited with the usually RSG boillies and cast to the pre-baited spots, one margin rod in roughly 2ft of water, and one ‘out in the middle’ where I had found about 5ft with the marker rod. Each landed perfectly on their respective marks, and I sheltered from the savage rain lashing my bivvy.

With the wind swirling and blowing rain into my bivvy, I was forced to zip up, leaving me far too detached from my fishing for my liking. Unfortunately, there was no other way, and it was a case of writing in my journal and listening to the radio. It was barely even 9pm before I fell asleep (such is the hard life of an office monkey), and I was to remain that way for the disappointing majority of the night. Despite my confidence being high, my buzzers remained silent all night as the rain continued to fall.

Waking up to a much soggier swim than I had fallen asleep to, I felt grossly disappointed I hadn’t caught – again. However, given that the rain had stopped I felt there was still a chance of a run in daylight, especially as the sun rises and warms the shallow margins where my left hand rod lay.

Ringing the changes, I opted for a 10mm tiger nut boillie tipped with fake sweetcorn on the margin rod, and broken, unglugged RSG on the right hand rod. Both were swung out with a ball of method mix moulded round the lead, in an attempt to get something feeding at least. To be honest I wouldn’t have minded at all if a bream or tench had picked up the bait – I just fancied some action.

At around 12 o’clock I noticed the bobbin on the margin rod twitch violently, as I sat up to investigate the bobbin shot to the top of the rod, and I was on the rod in a flash! See below for the outcome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJyjdUQr_yA

That would be my last action for the day, despite staying until darkness crept in again. As I packed up and walked back to the car, I couldn’t help but shake my head and wonder what I have to do next to break this worrying blank, and put another Carp on the mat.

Any ideas?

Stumble it!