I have been fishing the new lake regularly now and continued to put large quantities of bait in on regular intervals, but have seen nothing apart from bream showing on the area.

Ideally I have wanted a new westerly to blow but as life would have it, the only times conditions have been spot on, I had to be working! Such is life.

The rigs were working, in that they were allowing me to catch the bream as I wanted and they also seemed to avoid the attentions of the crays as well, so hopefully the baiting theory was working and the rigs were left UN molested, well mostly.

The bream are in fantastic condition and will definitely be getting some serious attention at the start of the year when they will be feeding hard in preparation for their early spawning, but for now the carp just aren’t playing ball, or if they are, then I’m elsewhere at the time.

I have recently lost some enthusiasm for my fishing as although I was desperate to get out, I felt like I was getting stale and really longed for a change of scenery as I had been fishing one area for around 10 years on and off. Luckily I was offered a place on a rather special syndicate, but after careful consideration of the numerous rules I simply couldn’t justify the expense for the amount of fishing time you were allowed in any one week.

So by now I was probably on plan L or M but on remembering speaking to friend, and on their suggestion I headed off to Kent for a look see, with the price of the yearly ticket tucked into my pocket, just in case.

I was mesmerised by the sheer quality of the fish in this area, from the original stockings in Johnson’s to the stunning fish in Chilham and then there is the legendary Conningbrook as well. Needles to say I was quickly handing the ticket money and it was as though a fire had been lit under my skin and at the same time the weight of the world had been removed from my shoulders. Sound daft? Maybe, but I was buzzing again and couldn’t wait to get stuck into one particular water that had captured my imagination; little did I know what a hold it would take after the first visit