Willow lake 28th March

Well here I was with the last session on Willow lake in Oxfordshire home of some large roach. Previously I had caught a pb roach of 3lbs 10oz  which is a pretty large roach.

Setting off at 5.30am towards the lake it was a cloudless sky but still dark. Arriving at the lake at 6.45am and the sky lightening I could see that it was by far the busiest I had seen it, the car park had 15 or so cars parked up.
I made my way to the lake and disappointed to see someone (Dougie) in the swim I wanted to fish. I said hello and asked the obvious question when are you leaving!! ha ha! The majority of the large roach from the lake had been caught in this swim.
I don’t like this when you line up for swims but he did exactly the same on Sunday night.
Right from the off he asked me to photo a 2lbs 12oz rudd which I did. Just when we finished this his rod screamed off again but this time it was a something alittle different. The slow plodding meant it was a carp. For the next 20mins or so we talked and coached each other into landing a beautiful common carp of just over 35lbs. We joked about having a bigger boat or bigger landing net etc etc. It’s funny as we were weighing it the scales went to 31lbs. So we were settled on this weight when Dougie suddenly said that’s the scales had probably bottomed out. So I hot footed it back to the car to get my 40lb Avons. We did the business again and settled on 35lbs 1oz I think, but it was over 35lbs. Well done and great angling skill to Dougie on 4lb line.
At 8am I left to get my tackle after more then an hour.
I settled into a swim close to Dougie where I had some success earlier in the year. Dougie said he was leaving at noon the next day so I was more than ready to slip into the swim.
To be fair Dougie was having some fun 3 tench and then a 2lb 8oz roach gave him plenty of sport in the morning. Then as the afternoon pasted he caught a 3lbs 12oz roach.

Dougie and his 3lbs 12oz roach

What a fish. It was a wonderful fish. He was just a bit happy. So was I.
Then as time went by he caught another roach of 3lbs and a 2lbs 8oz rudd.

3 lbs exactly

He had one more small rudd of about 1lb late as it was dark.
During the day Hugh Miles had arrived and wanted to fish “the swim”. He was fishing with Gary Newman. We had a good chin wag about fishing the Bristol Avon. He used to fish at Great Somerford on the Bristol Avon and must have been fishing there in the early 80’s when I fished there and still do. Finally Gary arrived and they fished on House point.
Well done Dougie you have had a brilliant day and I enjoyed the time with you. Dougie didn’t think he could sleep as we said goodnight. My bobbins had been super glued as nothing moved.
Dougie is a top bloke even cooked and shared sausage rolls with me. Mind you he is 6ft 14inches and almost as wide and an ex rugby player how could I refuse.
He will send me a photo of his carp and rudd which I’ll put on here later.