I'd taken a trip to Bitterwell Lake a week or so ago and had a great time catching loadsa carp. It looked perfect for an evening session.

From the car park, I could see around 7 anglers dotted around the lake. My target swim had gone, so it was a case of having a look round for where the fish were showing. As I walked down the road side of the lake, swirls and tails where showing the in the far corner by the outflow... perfect.

I'd travelled lightly (I reckon next time I can go even lighter) so setting up took seconds. Some chum mixers went out into the swim, some premixed pellets and liquidized bread went into the margins. Looking good for a bite!

It took all of 10 minutes fishing before I'd hooked into my 1st fish off the surface!

The margin swim I'd chosen (the far reeds) wasn't producing so I switched to the near margin and swapped out the Peparami hookbait for a soaked chum mixer on the method feeder. Fairly instant results - a run within minutes!

And the action stayed constant all evening ;)

The night wrapped up with a double hook up, the feeder rod flying off while I was fighting a carp on the floater rod. Brilliant evening and a perfect way to spend a couple of hours on a Wednesday night.

If you haven't visited Bitterwell Lake lake yet, it's well worth a visit, you won't be disappointed. It's a really well maintained fishery which has had loads of work done on it recently (with more to come by the looks of it), one of the best in the area I'd say.

Love a new venue, always presents a challenge: you have think about how to approach it, find out how it's fishing, ring the changes with baits, read the water... loadsa fun!

For some reason, I woke up at 3am! Not the best start... just couldn't get back to sleep (excited?!) and ended up dozing till around 6ish. Loaded up the car, got on the road and managed to get the fishery at 6.40am - beating the manager by 15 minutes!

The early start really paid off though as I managed to have a good chat with Terry (the manager) about the lake and get a bit of advice on swims. My original plan was to head to a swim near a tree on the far side of the lake as it looked good for a bite: rushes to the right, bit of sun/shade from the tree, good bit of open water but not a overstretch cast for a feeder out to one of the aerators. But the advice was to try one of the double swims near an inflow (very good advice as it turned out...)

I decided to start the day with my fave set up: a sleeper ledger rod with fake corn, pva stick and a light feed of liquidized bread, pellets and corn and a 2nd rod fished with a feeder filled with groundbait and a maggot ball on the hair. The ledger went out into open water, only 6 or so meters from the right margin and the feeder went infront of the inflow.

It soon became apparent I was fishing all wrong!

The 1st run came to the ledger - it screamed off, grabbed the rod and... nothing...

The 2nd run came to the feeder - again, it screamed off, grabbed the rod and... nothing...

This happened a further 5 times! Bloody annoying! I'd been fishing for all of and hour or so and had managed to successfully miss 7 runs - wtf?!

So a bit of a rethink. Got the rods out of the water, got the breakfast porridge on and spent 20 mins or so munching, watching the water and generally calming down a bit. Something was up: the conditions were great, the swim was great, the fish were there, the bait was working... but something was failing. Which left tackle - perhaps I was fishing too heavy? One of the other fishermen (the chap who was actually fishing in my original swim choice) wandered by and mentioned he was using a smaller hook as the fish were pretty shy...

So I spent 10 minutes tying up some new rigs: a hair rigged bait band on a 10cm braided hook length with a size 12 hook, the idea being to mount either pellets, luncheon meat or sweet corn on the band. I also stepped the rod down, switching out the heavy 2-1/2 test curve carp rod for a much lighter 11ft feeder rod and put a korum method feeder on rather than the original cage feeder. The other rod went out with a similar size rig but this time using coated braid and a trimmed down Cell boilie.

The results were instant... and pretty explosive! The feeder rod had been out for around 5 minutes with two bits of real sweetcorn on the band when it literally jumped from the rod rests and proceeded to be dragged down the platform! Even with the clutch slackened off, the take was so violent that the fish attempted to take the rod with it! It took 5 minutes to get a 6lb common in on the light rod, loadsa fun!

I managed a couple more runs on the feeder (the ledger was silent) when the sun finally poked over the top of the trees behind me and shone on the water just out in front of me. This must've been around 11ish and all of a sudden, the fish started appearing on the surface... Luckily, I'd brought a tub of Pedigree Chum Mixers with me and fired out a couple of pouch fulls to see what would happen. Sure enough, they started to disappear ;)

It got so warm, I was able to shed the bib and braces and expose my lilly white legs to the world...

As the ledger really wasn't producing, I reeled in, got the float rod out and set it up with a really small surface controller running to 6lb mono and a fake chum mixer mounted on the hook. After a few missed takes and a chat to one of the chaps helping out the bailiff on the bank work, I switched to a real chum mixer on a bait banded size 14 hook - a crazy small hook for the fish that were showing, but they kept spitting the bigger ones out!

It took all of about 2 minutes and I was into my 1st fish. And they kept on coming. From 11am through to around 4.30pm it was all I could do NOT to catch fish ;) They we're literally boiling on the surface. I managed to get through nearly a whole bag of mixers, the greedy buggers! The only down point was loosing what I imagine was the biggest fish of the session to a hook pull after a great 10 minute fight... Could've used a bigger hook and a heavier rod for that one...

And after having ignored the feeder rod for a couple of hours (only recasting it every 20 mins or so) it suddenly came to life. I had 3 screaming runs in the last couple of hours of the session that resulted in some really decent fish.

It was difficult to pack up at 5ish, I can only imagine the surface and margin fishing would've really taken off (even more?!) in the early evening but what a brilliant session?! A perfect days weather, a whole loada fish ranging from 3 through to 10lb (there's bigger ones in there, spesh the-one-that-got away!) and I can't wait for a return trip.

If you haven't visited Bitterwell Lake lake yet, it's well worth a visit, you won't be disappointed. It's a really well maintained fishery which has had loads of work done on it recently (with more to come by the looks of it), one of the best in the area I'd say.

The weather was predicted to be brilliant for Saturday and thinking it'd be busy on the bank we decided to leave at 6.30 to arrive at 7. Believe it or not, the car was frosted up! Bit of a surprise but I guess the night had been cold and clear... Couldn't find the ice scraper (may have been packed up for er... the summer?!) so I had to use a CD case to scrape the windscreen ;)

Lucky we left early: got there at 7 on the nose and the lake was rammed! In 3 trips we've only seen a couple of anglers but the long weekend and promise of sun had brought everyone out! Unfortunately for us, the swim we really wanted (where dad usually fishes) was taken by a fella and his grandson so we opted for my usual swim, a treacherously steep shelf that fortunately has its own bay and access to open water. Its ideal for one person, a bit more of a challenge for a dad and his enthusiastic 5 year old daughter!

Ah well, we got the gear from the car and had a quick look round the lake while setting up the rods and getting Lilly started on her first breakfast of the day (a huge apple). The angling pressure didn't seem to be effecting the fish and it was encouraging to see people hauling as mist rose from the water surface.

As with out previous trips, it really is a case of get the feed in and you'll catch fish. As the swim was far too small to get 2 rods out for me and 1 for Lil, we opted to put a sleeper rod out with fake sweet corn into open water and then share a feeder rod in the bay. We used liquidized bread mixed with groundbait, maggots, sweet corn and pellets packed into a small feeder with a maggot ball on a short hair. Plop it in and off it goes! Lilly managed around 20 or so fish in a couple of hours! The ledger was strangely silent but between helping Lil and getting breakfast number 2 sorted (a huge saucepan of porridge and sultanas) I was kept plenty busy.

Unfortunately for us, the weather stayed cold, grey and chilly for most of the morning. Poor Lil got quite cold and in the end I made a tent out of my big fishing jacket... She soon warmed up, think I need take warm drinks next time!

By 11 pretty much every swim on the 1 acre lake was taken but we were still catching fish! I'd been feeding up the margins and having seen one feller across the way haul out a really nice looking 15lb mirror on a white pop up boilie I decided to swap out the fake corn for one of the pineapple pop ups I'd done so well on on my last trip to Harescombe. Nothing massive came out, but I did manage so hook 10 or so fish in the space of an hour with some real rod wrenching runs - lozdsa fun!

The lake is very shallow, at most 5ft and maybe 3ft in the margins meaning that once the sun did make an appearance, the fish headed straight for the surface. Which was lucky as my fav method is still floating baits. We'd brought a big tub of floating chum mixers so I got Lilly busy with the catapult while I rigged up my float rod with a surface controller and a fake doggy biscuit. We spent a good couple of hours catching and missing loads carp around the 4lb mark. They really are crazy in this lake and you can get the water boiling with fish!

We packed up around 3ish having had another great day despite the cold start. I think Lilly-Grace maybe (ahem) hooked...

So we arrived with high hopes! Nice and early, managed to get into the car park at 7am on the nose, it was still dark but light was coming into the sky. There were a couple of other cars, good to know we weren't the only fishermen to brave the cold ;)

We headed for the same swims again as they produced results on the previous trip and they look so good: marginal cover either side, a good open water stretch and two islands with a channel. I went with a couple of hair rigged pieces of plastic corn on a bolt rig fished over groundbait with chill hemp and corn mixed in front of the island and a feeder with maggots and liquidized bread on the right of the swim in the margins. Dad, in the swim to my left, went with float fishing bread and maggots and a light ledger in the margins.

Five hours of fishing and nothing... Not a bobbin raised, a float dipped or a rod tip twitched. The whole lake was dead! No one was getting anything. To make matters worse, at around 12pm three blokes moved in the swims to my right. What commenced could only be classed as a casting competition! They all had two rods each, one on float and the other on bolt rigs. Each rod was cast on average every 5 minutes?! If there were ANY fish in the vicinity, they we're swiftly making their way to the other side of the lake...

I put up with it for around an hour and something had to give - either they got a shouting or I was moving. Working on the basis that there were no fish in my swim and if there were, they would've swam off after the constant rain of weights splashing down on their heads, a move was the go so I relocated to a nice calm bay on the far side of the lake.

It looked perfect: a bay on my left and right, good margins and open water in front of me. However...

There were two pole anglers on the far right of the swim who JUST WOULDN'T SHUT UP! Unsurprisingly, the main topic of conversation was the lack of fish they were catching...  Noise travels very well over water, I can only imagine the fish got as bored of the sound of their voices as I did.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you want a chat, go to the pub. I don't come fishing to listen to what was on TV last night, or what the misses is bitching about, or how 'there are no bloody fish in here' - I come to catch fish and have a peaceful time on the bank side. And your constant shouting between swims is really bloody annoying!

We started to pack up around 4ish as the light was fading fast with out so much as a bite. And then one the three casting champs hooked a fish! There just ain't no justice in the world...

One reason for the dry day could've been that the match that was sposed to take place on the horse shoe lake the previous day was held on the coarse lake. Apparently it fished very well, which would explain the lack of fish gracing our nets!

A beautiful day out though and we'll be heading back. I've a feeling that the lake will really come into it's own in the summer and'll provide a good days sport.

We've a spot of river piking planned for just after Christmas, fingers crossed we'll hook into some fish then.

My heart sank when I checked my phone in the morning. A mate on Facebook who was heading up for a day session had messaged me saying that he'd ditched the whole thing and gone to Henleaze lake instead as Bagwood was rammed! Apparently, there were 5 people with 2 rods each fishing in the swim I'd had on my 1st session... Mental. A whole load of angling pressure, I could only imagine the fish were huddled up in a scared shoal desperately trying to avoid lines, bait and hooks!

But luckily for me, when I arrived at 2.30pm the lake virtually deserted! The swim from my 1st session was taken, as was the point swim by the bridge but luckily for me, the bailiffs swim on the other side nearest the club house was empty! Winner, I got round there with a bag and a bucket to secure the swim and got the rest of the gear round from the car.

The first job was to clean up the litter - what a bloody awful mess! Empty cans, bottles, plastic bags, all kinds of crap were littered up and down the bank and in the water... Seriously, if you cant clean up behind yourself you don't deserve to fish!

Second job was to get the spod mix done - really simple but very carpy: hemp, different size pellets, sweet corn, chickpeas, tinned tuna and chopped boiles - nothing unusual, but all food they love.

After that I went for a wander with the spod bucket to have a bait up and see if I could spot any fish. One thing that's taking a bit of getting used to on the longer sessions is not rushing - I'm so used to having really limited time that the priority is to get a rod in the water as quickly as possible. On the longer sessions, I'm trying to slow down, think about what I'm doing, watching the water and coming up with a plan of attack. Wandering around with a bucket dropping a bit of bait here and there means you get to 'know' the lake better, set potential traps and have a chat with anyone else who's fishing - very civilised!

The water level is really, really low at the moment meaning that the margins are incredibly shallow, maybe a ft or two at most. Walking down the bank to my right towards the pipes that go under the bridge to where I fished on my 1st session, I could see some fish mootching along the edge. Once I got down to the pipes, a couple of fish had turned into 15 or so just hanging around as close to the edge as they could. There's a couple of overhanging shrubs and small trees around the pipes and the fish were definitely using these as a bit of cover. Interesting. I decided to bait up in front of the pipes so not to spook them and leave them to the freebies for a bit.

The water on the other side of the bridge still had 4 anglers on it with rods out. I could see a couple of fish in the margins and some just under the surface in the middle. I had a quick chat with the lads in the far bank swim and they'd not had anything out as yet but were in the process of setting up a floater rod. The point swim had a couple of anglers in it, one of which hooked into a fish as I walked past - a good sign?!

By the time I'd got back to my swim, I was really hot - the weather was warm and sunny meaning I could stay in shorts and a t-shirt! And I started to see fish showing out in front of me, both in the margins near the tree to the left and in open water. Thankfully, I'd bought a bag of doggy mixers - a real after thought, they'd been thrown in the car at the last minute!

A couple of catapult pouches went out and the fish really responded. Soon I had a group of 10 or so fish all competing for the mixers and I let them slurp up the freebees for 20 or so minutes before I introduced a bait: a Enterprise Tackle mini mixer on a long length of Korda Kruiser Control line to a size 8 hook. It took a good hour or so to get my 1st bite: a really slow take, I don't think the fish realised it was hooked! It felt quite small until it got into the edge when it went off like a train and put up a good account of itself before it slipped into the net.

A nice mirror of around 15lb, a cracking start to the session! I never thought I'd be able to pick a fish off the surface at Bagwood as I'd assumed the fish would be far too cautious to take a floating bait so this was a real bonus!

I spent another hour or so trying to snag another fish but as the sun started to dip the fish moved off. Time to get the marker out and suss out the swim: based on what I'd seen so far, the tree to the left was a definite spot (clouds of slit had been coming up all afternoon from the spod mix I'd put in earlier) and the pipes to the right still held fish but I was interested to see what the point in front of me had to offer. It seemed a bit deeper out there, 7 to 11ft from a shallow margin out to the fountain. After a bit of leading around, it appeared that bank dipped off to a shelf about 6ft from the bank so I clipped up to that spot and got some spod mix out. The tree spot was shallow and an easy cast at a clipped up 8 rods lengths. The pipes were a easy walk down the bank and a drop-in would see the lead close to the margins. Handfuls of spod mix on both spots and it was job done!

Even though I'd been keeping an eye on the sun, I'd forgotten how quickly it disappears this time of year... it got dark really quick! Trying to set a bivy up in the near darkness is a pain, especially when another bloody pole broke on me (the 4th since owning this tent!). I got there in the end and finally had everything set for the night by around 8pm. A bit of dinner and a couple of casts and I was thinking about turning in for the night...

I'd opted to put the rods left under the tree and right to the pipes to begin with and it wasn't until 11ish that I got my 1st run which really surprised me! I thought with the amount of fish I'd seen the action would be thick and fast but in hindsight, I think the fish move out into open water and start patrolling the margins once they know most of the anglers have left for the day...

Not a huge fish by this lakes standards but very welcome! The take had come from the pipes and the fish had run straight towards me so the bite was a drop back rather than the usual screaming run. Only a short fight but loadsa fun ;)

I got the rod back out as quickly as possible and spent the next 1/2 hour being plagued by beeps... which could only mean one thing: bream! And sure enough one snotty.

Ah well, that's carp fishing?! Not bad I spose, I've read some reports of people fishing Bagwood and only pulling out bream. In the end, I got my head down and actually slept! Not a beep during the night and I woke up around 6.30am to a very quiet lake, not a movement and really grey over cast weather. It was much cooler and although rain was forecast, it did look a bit grim...

I got some breaky on and then went for a wander with the bucket on the hunt for the fish. Not a lot was going on down by the pipes but there were a group off fish along the margins on the point next to the golf course.

And then I found them... there must've been 20 or so sizeable fish all shoaled up in the far, far corner nearest the club house. There are a couple of bays there and unless you're a demon caster or have a bait boat, it's virtually impossible to reach the bays. Hiding behind a bush, I started to throw some spot mix and boiles in, only a bit at a time and in a few different spots. The fish dipped down and started to mop up the bait...

Excellent! I rushed back to my swim, got one rod out to the point and then started to think about how the hell I was going to get a bait into the far corner. In the end, I opted for casting to the bank past the tree to my left, putting the rod in the rests with the bait runner on and then walking the lead up the far bank. No easy feat! The lake is really soft clay and a lead gets 'plugged' a good 6 inches deep even on a light cast. I got there in the end though and once a rig was on the line, I chucked it between two shoals of fish. A handful of boiles went in and then I ran like the wind back to my swim.

Cheating? I'm not sure... Worth it? Oh yes!

I'd been back in the swim for around 3 minutes when the bobbin climbed to the rod, the freespool started churning (I was locked up pretty tight due to the distance) and the alarm started to scream! I struck into the run and instantly connected with the fish but realised that somehow, the line was caught in a bush on the left margin! Disaster... After a bit of yanking and pleading with the line, it pinged off the bush and I could start playing the fish. By this time, it'd taken quite a bit of line and had started to head for the other end of the lake - at which point the line appeared to plink, plink on some underwater obstacle and lock up solid! A bit of walking back with the clutch wound tight (don't want to snap a rod!) and the line came free... but no carp was on the end any more... Bugger, Bugger, Bugger!

But it was a run and that gave me hope! I went back through the casting malarkey again (a bit easier this time, think the adrenalin had kicked in) and got the bait back on the spot...

Took a while longer this time, 20 minutes or so but off it went like a train! This time when I struck the result was exactly what I wanted: the line went taught and I could already feel an angry lump on the end. It took a bit of steering as I was aware of the last runs foul up but slowly I managed to pump the fish towards me... A bit of a heart in the mouth moment when it made a dive for the pipe to my left but eventually it was in the net!

A cracking common at 19lb! Under the target weight but so, so good. I was pretty darn happy, to have not had a fish for a good 8 or so hours then to loose one was gutting - but this beasty made up for it!

Once he/she been slipped back, I took a wander round to see if the fish were still there and to have a bait up. Amazingly they were! Unfortunately for me, I spent the next hour plagued by a frap off on the cast, then line twist mangling my main line (need to get new line of the reels!). I somehow managed to get out to the spot again and was stunned when the rod ripped off yet again ;)

But no dice... A snapped hook link. Whatta bugger! One think I need to get in the habit off is getting fresh hook links on the line every 3 hours or so. On the next trip, I'm gonna have a good 15 or so rigs ready to go and swap them out more frequently I reckon.

The clock had been ticking and it was now rapidly approaching packing down time. I'd had a cracking 24hrs and it was a good feeling to have 'cracked' the water to some extent. I feel like I know it a bit better now, have target swims and areas to fish too and maybe, just maybe a 20lb+ maybe on the cards for my next trip?!