I spent the first willing my rod tip to tremble while listening to fish after fish being pulled in at the next swim.

I walked around to see if he was using magic beans for bait and met a charming Welshman who clearly knew his stuff. He told me there was little point legering against the central lily pads, no matter how accurate my casting had been to get it there, as these grew on a submerged island not far below the surface where as the fish were feeding at the bottom of the slope leading up to it. This made sense, as I watched him pull in another tench and a 4lb-ish bream that he seemed to consider a nuisance. He told me the secret was to keep pinging in maggots every cast and build up the swim, then to 'keep chucking the bait in' as if the tench or bream were around they would hoover it up in no time. He said he'd tried corn before  (I was fishing with corn) worm and caster, but only maggots 'got them fizzing.' He pulled in a couple more perch striking at bites I did not register on his antennae float. He added that it was an early mornings and evenings venue and so was about to pack up. He kindly offered his swim to me, and suggested I kept catapulting the maggots while I brought my stuff over. A lovely guy.

In the 'new' swim, I endured one heavy rain downpour, but brought in 3 roach (one around 6ox), a skimmer, just 5 perch (I'd had over 50 there earlier in the month much closer to the bank), 8 rudd (to 3 oz) a 1lb common and 5 tench, the biggest being 3lb 12 and 4lb 8.

Thank you, my friend. I look forward to my next visit.