3-6pm

My hope was to catch some of the quality roach which tend to reside in commercial fisheries, though it was a bit of a 'punt' as I have never been to this fishery before and had no reports on the roach fishing. The advice I was given by the guy in the shop there was to try Ben's Match Lake where they grow to 2.5lbs. Hmm, for some reason 'Ben's Match Lake' didn't ring the right bells, and the trouble with being told they grow to 2.5lbs - well, you could say that about a lot of lakes, and it's different from saying there is good roach fishing. It said on the web site that the specimen lake had good roach and perch but they were never fished for, so I suggested this. Unfortunately the minimum line strength allowed on this lake is 12lb. No wonder they are never fished for!

But I took his advice, and went to Ben's Match Lake, a small lake where there were a couple of anglers fishing, neither of them for roach. The guy on my right was catching 2-3lb carp constantly, so to avoid the carp I decided not to use ground bait, but loose-fed maggot and caster, of course using those baits on the hook. I was soon catching roach and skimmers, the best roach being about 9oz. Not bad, though I had hoped for a little more. Then after a quiet spell I switched to caster & maggot cocktail, and surprisingly the bites increased, and I caught 4 beautiful crucians, 3 of them about 10oz and one 1lb 5oz. As well as these I had about 15 roach, 6 skimmers to 3lb, a perch and a rudd.

Not quite what I hoped with the roach, but I was delighted with the crucians as I have caught very few of these to date.

Oh, in case anyone thinks of trying these lakes, the gates close at 7pm, so you have to leave by then if you are not staying overnight. I hadn't picked this up from the website.