My first trip out since consecutive blanks a week ago. After a few nights of freezing temperatures, storm Isha piled through yesterday, strewing my recycling all round the garden, but melting the ice on the lake top. 

It was still pretty windy, so I sat in the west corner and let it blow over my head. Knowing the water temperature to be pretty chilly, I kept it light and small, float fishing a single piece of corn on a size 18 1.5 rod lengths out. I slobbed in a walnut-sized lump of groundbait every so often and had bites from the start which allowed me to step up to a size 16. 

Ended up with 17 bream, 13 of which were between 1lb and 3lb 12, a couple of nice roach and a bonus 6lb 2 common. A fun day.

I kept a pike rod out to the right, twitching and recasting the deadbait regularly. It remained untouched apart from one curious incident. Bringing in another bream, it found the gumption to fight, changed direction totally (probably pursued by a pike) and made for the direction of my bung. The lines inevitably crossed and which point my pike rod started to bounce. I chucked the float rod down to grab it. A large pike showed its flank and roared away, and I played it for a good 30 seconds before it dropped off/let go. Not sure quite what happened there, but as well as not catching a pike, the bream hooklink had snapped. Bah.