The couple of days after my last entry on Feb 14 the back wasn't too good, so I decided to leave fishing till the weather improved. Didn't fish despite the warm April (well - April!), and then we've had cold evenings through much of May which I didn't think would inspire the fish or my back. I finally got back to the bank through a promise to try and help a novice angler catch a first carp - not a difficult task, you would think. We went to WW, a local easy carp water, and despite getting drenched by a heavy shower prospects looked good.

But helping relative beginners is a different task from fishing. My friend has only ever fished float, so I advised him to cast a couple of lengths from the bank and fish right on the bottom. We were fishing sweetcorn, and I had some (officially roach) groundbait and 4mm pellets to throw in as well as the sweetcorn. Hmmm. Unfortunately in his eagerness to get started he hadn't bothered to shot the float properly or plumb the depth. He didn't seem to be throwing in much groundbait either. Now on this water, on some days, that wouldn't matter. They will leap onto the hook almost whatever you do. But things seemed very quiet for him, with not even small ones showing an interest.

Meanwhile I rigged up a ledger rod fishing straight lead also 2 rod lengths out. Part of the aim was to demonstrate this type of fishing. Nothing for 20 mins and then a nice 7lb 'wildy' common, which took surprisingly long to bank. My friend then took over the ledger rod, and I went to sort out his float tackle (plumb the depth etc).

Thankfully, fairly soon he had a 2lb 4oz common. Phew! Mission accomplished, I guess, though it was a shame my earlier one was substantially bigger as perhaps it made it seem less of a 'moment'. I then had a couple of smallish commons on the float tackle and just one small roach. By then I noticed my friend had cast somewhere quite different, and hadn't thrown in enough groundbait I am sure to build up a swim. We had had just over 2 hours fishing, dark was setting in, and it was time to go home.

Well, I hope my friend learned some stuff, but I certainly did. I don't normally do 'easy carp' fishing, but this like other areas of the sport need to be approached properly. I hadn't brought anywhere near enough groundbait, for example. My swim as well as his had gone dead at the end. I am sure an angler who did more of this type of fishing would have caught 3 times what we did. Nevertheless, it was mission accomplished, and at least my friend's carp pb shouldn't be too difficult to beat next time. And thankfully my back doesn't feel too bad this morning, so I hope to be doing some more fishing. Maybe I will even try for some carp!