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What with it having been a glorious early spring day. I managed to sneak one-and-a-half hours in at Willows before sunset this evening. As soon as I arrived, the wind got up with the expected change of weather approached. 7 Canada geese, 1 grebe, 8 trains (7 passenger, 1 goods), 3 crows, 1 pheasant, 3 Chinnock helicopters (probably the same one, three times, to be fair), 7 pigeons, 1 moorhen, 2 coots, 1 red kite, 1 other angler. 0 fish. Did get a bite soon after starting, but unusually with the method feeder that normally leads to self-hooking, no fish. At 5, the extremely noisy geese left the island to fight in my swim and that was that.

I know, I know. With the river season drawing to a close, I should have had a bash on running water, but the chance of those Willows carp was too much. If only they sold hindsight at the tackle shop as well as boilies because Willows was hard going today. The north easterly wind though not strong, brought a real chill that kept the fish low and sent me back to the car for my winter layers. Of the ten or so anglers, I think more than half blanked. surprisingly, I was not one of them, catching one of the fifty or so 3lb carp stocked a few weeks ago. It could have been better: I'd mucked up an earlier run when a large fish tore away and off the hook as I fumbled to release the anti-reverse on the one cast I'd forgotten to slack off the drag. Dag! It's always the one that got away...

Well, after three fish in the final hour on Wednesday, it was no surprise I chose to go to Willows again today. Eben better, I was the only angler there all day but I soon began to cotton on why. It might have been four degrees in the car, and the efforts of morning gardening had been exhilarating, but there was a cold northeasterly breeze, enough to create a chop on the surface and have me pulling a second coat on. I tossed out the method feeder with a pink pop-up that scored the other day and dug on my pockets for gloves. I speculated that the fish may follow the wind, so set in it's face in the south west corner, but after an hour without a bite, and by now unable to stop shivering, I moved to the sheltered side of the lake. No bites here either, but it felt tropically warm by comparison. After an afternoon of no bites or sign of fish life, and having regularly swapped between pop-ups and pellets, I wondered if it would come alive at 5 again. Then at 4:45, the bobbin started to creep upwards - a truly beautiful sight. With the bites on Wednesday all thumping takes, I picked up the rod and struck. Mistake. Too early. I wound in, pop-up still intact, presumably having yanked it out of a cautious carp's mouth. Grr. Needing to be home, I gave it until 5:15 before packing up. With two minutes to go, there'd been nothing more and I was still cursing my impatience with that bite. Then at 5:14. the bobbin shot up and line was being taken and we were off. I didn't see the fish for ten minutes. It didn't feel as big as Wednesday's carp, but it was far stronger and much more unwilling to leave the water. When it finally come to the surface to eyeball me, I saw it was another mirror, before it turned and went diving deep again. On a feeder rod and 8lb line it gave quite a battle but when it next resurfaced, it came up tangled in a significant branch of alder tree that must have circled at the bottom. This added a lot of water resistance as I drew fish and wood towards the landing net, the branch being long. awkward and apparently keen to be netted first. I wasn't sure if I could get both branch and fish into the net when the worst sound in angling...no, not a flock of Canada goose crashing into my swim, but the crack of line, and the method feeder pinged over my head. I couldn't believe it. So close...and now another blank. I checked the feeder, the 5lb hook link had been the one to snap. I cursed and cut the feeder off and flung it in my tacklebox before winding in the line and throwing the reel into my bag. I was about to pack up the rod when I remembered the landing net was still in the water, that bloody branch lying across the top. I lifted it out of the water and...no...I couldn't believe it...the carp was in the bottom folds of the net, the branch presumably preventing it's escape! It came in at 7lb 5ox - OK, not the biggest carp in the lake, over even the last two days, but the most welcome. The Newbury blanker? Not with luck like that.

I bumped into the Newbury Fisheries Manager walking back to the car after yesterday's blank. 'Why don't you try Willows?' he said. 'They'll take a pellet.' So this afternoon I took some pellets and myself to give it another go after blanking there last Saturday. Tackle: method feeder, banded 8mm pellet - First Red Robin and then halibut Tactics: I scattergunned my casts, one every 20 mins, looking to search out fish rather than focus on one area. 3 hours in, not a touch. The forecast 'possible shower' turned out as 2 hours wet and non-stop rain. I prepared wording for this blog and another blank. Deciding that pellets weren't on the fishy menu today, I swapped for a faded pinkish 15mm pop-up. I opened the jar for the first time. They smelled so sweet and delicious I could have eaten them myself. I'm glad I didn't, and not just because the jar was marked both 'unfit for human consumption' and 'warning: may contain nuts' because about half an hour later, the bobbin suddenly leapt and cracked against my rod hard enough to make me jump, the bait runner immediately spinning wildly. With the method feeder being fab for self-hooking, I was in without need for a strike. It wasn't so much a fight as a slow tug of war, but it took line several times as it came to the bank quite quickly before taking another 10 mins to land as it rose to the surface and saw muddy, soggy me for the first time. It swum up and down and flopped about not fancying coming out, clearly embarrassed about being suckered by the Newbury Blanker. But in she came, a beautiful common, 11lb 10 and some way to beat a blank. A photo, a kiss and an ease back into the lake, I cast out again, but hardly had time to relish my angling skill when the rod went again and after a shorter battle, in came a mirror, right in front of some chaps who were kind enough to take photos of the first carp I've had at Willows that wasn't a common. Again in superb condition, it looked smaller than the Common in the pics, but came in at 13lb 11. Phew - 25lb of fish in 20 mins - what sort of fraud blanker am I? I had a quarter of an hour left to fish, which had ticked down to three minutes left before sunset, when the reel screeched again - this time 'just' one of the new 3lb mirrors stocked last month. What a day - what a 45 minutes! Who's the blanker now?