Lovely to sit in the southerly breeze after last weeks heatwave, and even better to completely miss all of the threatened showers that scudded by.

I tackled up where I thought the wind would be blowing the fish towards me under the surface chop, but nobody sent them the memo. Nothing for over two hours, then in a millisecond, the world went from silence to chaos as the rod reared into the air and the tip bent round like an Allen key as the alarm screamed out in, erm, alarm. Whatever had taken the wafter sheared across the lake pulling yard after yard of line. I judged that it was headed towards the far off lily pads where I have lost fish before, so tried to put additional pressure on the spool with my hand. It made little difference. Still roaring, and judging it not far from the snags, I made to tighten the clutch. Mistake. I lost one of the silly little washers on the reel spindle switching a spool some time ago and it hasn't worked effectively since. My gentle half turn managed to lock it completely and the 8lb hook link twanged in a second. I've lost so many fish lately.

No more bites, apart from one jingly-jangler that brought me the greediest roach in the world - a 4-ouncer that had a go at three pieces of artificial corn. With the breeze easing as evening progressed, I switched to float-fished maggots one rod length out. As well as another roach and a nice perch, I hit into a shoal of small bream, catching 10 of them between 2 and 6 ounces. I've never caught so many in one go. The maggots also accounted for a beautiful 8lb Mirror who fought long and hard and made the evening worthwhile, if still over 20lbs short of my Willows evening trips of May and June.