I managed to sneak a few hours surface fishing on Blackwood last night. I actually went down to a day ticket water in Cheddleton first but there were a few folk on and quite a rip on the surface, so I went up to Blackwood where Mart and I had the place to ourselves.

It took a while to get them going and they were quite spooky, I had the feeling somebody else may have been up there surface fishing earlier in the day but there was no sign of any floaters anywhere.

We got them feeding off the dam and I left Mart to it and went stalking around the margins. I happened upon a couple of feeding fish in the shallows and managed to bag a cracking fully scaled mirror just under double figures – which was nice.

Mart left at around 8.00pm leaving me alone to try and tempt another before dark. I kept moving around and stalked another stunning fully scaled mirror from the dam, having dropped a hookbait right in its path inches from the bank – result!

I took a quick photo on self timer then slipped her back and went home a happy man!