If you've never been to the fishery before it's well worth a look: it's around 3 acres in size, a long lake with depths starting at 6ft and moving to around 12ft at the far end from the car park. There are regular swims but they're out numbered by excellent cabins which have decking that extends out into the lake. Put that together with a tidy shower/toilet block and you've got real luxury!

Oh, and the most amazing fish! But more about that later...

The change over time for the huts is 12pm at the weekends so I decided to arrive around 1ish, mainly to let the swim calm down a bit from it's previous occupant. Over the weekends, most huts are occupied by two anglers and as the number of rods you can use is only restricted by the number of rod licences you've got, you can guarantee that there were six lines out and that the fish had seen a lot of bait and a whole heap of pressure! I figured the fish'd appreciate a couple hours break before I got fishing?!

The drive down was clear as a bell and the weather was amazing (and set to stay great for the rest of the week!). I'd tuned into the weather report on the news and they'd mentioned that there was going to be a 'blood moon' luna eclipse at 3am on Sunday night. I wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not! Fish do certainly seem to be effected by moon cycles, so it could potentially make or break the session!

Arriving at the lake, it became apparent that it was very, very busy: every hut was taken, most with 2 anglers with 3 rods each and nearly all of them were booked into Monday so no chance of moving. But not to worry, I'd chosen hut 19 which is down in the far right hand corner of the lake.

It's a perfect spot that I'd checked out on my last visit: there's a whole margin to the right with a tree that points out into the water meaning the anglers in hut 16 can't cast round or over your lines. You've then got a big expanse of open water out in front of the deck which due to the power lines, people cant cast into. And to finish it off, there's an tight little margin with a tree snag to the left which is tucked away and quiet(ish). Worth doing the research on the last trip!

To get things going, I lightly prebaited the margin spots left and right with a mix of pellets, sweetcorn and method mix with a dash of hemp oil. Bait wise, I'd opted to use luncheon meat as on the last couple of sessions it had really done the business. So rod one went out with a solid PVA pag filled with a mix of pellets, crumbed up luncheon meat with groundbait and a big cube of meat on the bait spike mounted on the hair...

The first run can to that left hand margin rod before I'd even managed to get the other rods set up! I'd say it'd been in the water 5 minutes max ;)

And so the action continued all afternoon and into the evening. The fish were coming so thick and fast, it was well last 10pm before I managed to get a gap and cook some dinner - amazing fishing!

The moon popped up behind the hut after dinner, a huge silver disk in the sky and as the temperature dropped the runs became more sporadic. So I decided to bait all 3 rods in sequence at around 11pm and get my head down for a couple of hours kip...

I must've dozed for a couple of hours, rushing out to land a couple of fish and then fallen fast asleep as it was a bit of a shocking alarm when my left hand rod screamed off at pretty much 3am on the nose! I managed to get my head torch and glasses on before rushing outside not to a moonlit scene but a virtually pitch black lake... Glancing up skywards as I grabbed the rod I noticed that the 'Blood Moon' eclipse was well under way and the silver disk of the moon was nearly completely covered!

That 3am fish was the biggest so far, a pristine 20lb common carp that went through all my lines and took me a good 20 minutes to get in. An absolute stunner!

In the end, I reeled in around 5am. The relentless action had knackered me out and I was desperate to get some sleep! I did wake up around 8am but felt so warm and comfy on my bedchair that I decided to go back to drift off... Having already filled my boots with fish, it seemed like a good idea to catch up on some well eared sleep?!

I finally woke up around 9am and got the rods out again on the spots. Instantly, the fish were on the munch with a double take followed by fish on the next cast literally seconds after the bait landed in the water. Such greedy fish!

As with dinner (I should've learnt my lesson by now...) it wasn't until a slow patch in the action around 11am that I managed to get breakfast on the go and sit in the sun for a bit. Despite the sunny weather, the fish weren't up on the surface and I decided to chill out in my bed chair, rest the water a bit and just enjoy being outside.

The fish came back on the feed around 3ish and I spent a really enjoyable afternoon picking carp out in the margins. It was with great reluctance that I started to pack down at 6pm but I managed a fish on the last cast (always a bonus) and finally got the gear back round to the car by 7.30pm

Whatta session?! Possibly one of the best I've ever had: loads of fish, a run of biguns, fantastic weather, a blood moon... Will I ever have the like again?!

Lost count of the number of fish that graced the net! The sun even put in an appearance.

Too good!

But that's no excuse not to get out on the bank right?! The run up to Christmas is always a bit mental but somehow I managed to spy a gap in the traffic and bagged a Saturday to go fishing up at my favourite local spot, Bitterwell Lake.

To maximize time on the bank, I decided on an early start, leaving the house at 6.15am to arrive at the lake at 6.30am. Pitch black! But not raining or cold... Maybe the weather boys had got it wrong (for once?!) and I was in for a dry day on the bank?

The plan for the day was to try out the full range of Innate bolies. I'd had almost instant success on my last trip to the lake, catching a carp on my last cast using two single yellow and orange dumbbell boilies mounted on a hair. As it was my 1st cast with these baits, I was pretty impressed ;)

Not surprisingly, I had the choice of swims (can't think were everyone else was?!) and opted for a spot on the far end of the car park bank almost directly opposite the island. I'd fished the swim back in October where I'd been trying out some 'big fish' tactics so I already knew how many rod lengths out I needed to cast to be virtually on the island - 9.5 to be precise, so 12ft x 9.5 is 114ft, or 38 yards, or 34.7472 metres in new money (either way, not a massive chuck!). It's mental isn't it: rods are measured in feet, we cast out x number of yards, breaking strains are measured in pounds, hook lengths are in inches.... when did we go metric?!?!

So the first casts were in complete darkness, out towards the same spot around 2 metres apart. I'd opted to fish both rods on bottom based rigs, 2oz leads, longish hooklinks, small hooks on blowback rigs and double mounted boiles. The baits are aimed at matchmen so they're quite small, 10mm wide and only 5mm thick so two stacked together are perfect. One rod had Pineapple+ and the 2nd went out with Tangy Tangerine. Both had a small PVC stick on with liquidized bread and some cell boilie crumb. I'd tried these out in a bait tub at home and they worked perfectly: a small white patch of crumb with a bright hookbait over the top, perfect for nicking a bite in winter.

Almost instantly, I started getting liners. This carried on for a good hour or more when I decided to recast as it was now pretty much light. As 2nd option, I'd rigged up a light rod with a micro cage feeder and a nice long hook length, my thinking being to use this rod to cast every 10 to 20 minutes or so to try and locate the fish if the island wasn't 'the area' to be. This rod had gone out with a double stack of the Choconut dumbbells, around 2 metres back from the island as the liners may be indicating that I was fishing past the fish rather than in front of them?

So far, the rain had stayed away but as I finished getting my gear kinda organised the sky darkened and I could see a couple of the other anglers reaching for brollies... I managed to grab mine just in time and get it over my gear before the heavens opened. A pretty short downpour but I would've been drenched if I hadn't got the brolly up!

Quite often in winter, the fish will only feed for a small window and it's sometimes triggered the smallest change: a change in temperature, the wind dropping, the 'shoal' being spooked and moving into your swim, switching to the one bait they'll take for the day... On this session, it was the rain stopping that triggered a feeding response as almost instantly the alarm sounded and I was into my 1st fish!

Amazingly, the feeder rod also ripped off as I was slipping the 1st fish into the net - a double hookup in winter, who said winter bites would be hard to come by?!

Over the next couple of hours, I had another 3 fish - all carp to around 6lb.

After the first run on the ledger rod, the remaining fish all came to the feeder with the Choconut dumbbells being the bait of choice.

I persevered with the ledger, switching baits but nothing was showing... In fact, true to winter form, the action completely died at around 2pm ish and I didn't have or see another fish come out right until last knockings at around 4.30pm. I'd packed down by this time as the light was fading fast and the due was coming down but Jake Alden on the other side of the lake had been feeding swims out to open water and managed to pick up two carp in the space of 15 minutes! Nice work sir.

So another great day at Bitterwell Lake. I really enjoy this water, it's got some great fish and has really come on in the last year. Full credit to Terry Smith and the team, they've done a cracking job.

Winter has been pretty good to me so far, haven't blanked yet and the weather has been surprisingly good! Dad is itching to get out on the rivers for a spot of piking and fingers crossed, if the rain holds at bay, we maybe heading out after xmas. Already looking forward to it ;)

Follyfoot fishery had been suggested by an angler I got chatting to up at Bradley's Lake on the Cotswold Water Park a couple of weeks ago. I'd had it on my list of places to check out but always though it was too far away from Bristol...

Not so! It only takes 40 minutes to get there and as I was coming from my 1st stop on this years tour at Festival Fishery in Glastonbury, it was even nearer.

After a rain soaked 48 hours at the previous venue, I was really looking forward to kipping in a hut ;) And the fishing was amazing!

Absolutely terrible weather... It rained pretty much solidly on Thursday and Friday... The journey down from Bristol was a shocker seeing me arrive at 9pm rather than 7pm...

But I banked a fish! Which was a real result as the whole lake fished really hard that weekend. Thank you to Innate Baits, you saved me from a blank ;)

It's a bit of a special fishery and although the weather was more than challenging and the fish not forthcoming, I'll definitely be heading back for a return session soon.