Only getting silver

Quite honestly I don't know who is more confused right now, me or the fish. In moments between casts into the sea, I thought as a snooker player does about what moves I may make when I returned home to coloured rivers, the scent of damp leaves and mobs of crow cawing from roosts in the woods. Only problem was it was still bloody summer when I got back and all my plans do not fit well with this late heat wave. 

I really want to fish for autumn quarry as does Andy, but no matter how hard we tried to think of something that may be fruitful we found nothing that we thought would be truly productive. So in doubt we crashed Lee's trip and went crucian fishing on October the 2nd...

I do love a nice estate lake and once long ago the lake we were visiting was one, although now it is shadow of what it probably once was. We arrived in pitch black and after checking the notice board for booked pegs (honestly) we set off towards the dam wall.

It certainly looked the part and according to both Lee and Andy this lake held a good population of Crucians right up to big, so I set out my stall accordingly; light floats capable of detecting shy bites, centrepin reels and a veritable smorgasbord of baits.

Mine was a corker of a swim and looked perfect for a Crucian or two, but it seemed it was also perfect for skimmers, which plagued all three of us all day. At 10 oz - 1lb each they were a match anglers dream, but for three midlanders seeking gold they soon became a pain up the arse to say the least.

Confidence on all our parts of catching Crucians was high so the quid for the biggest trophy was put on the line for the biggest of the day, though sadly  unlike Andy and Lee, I never managed to root gold from all the silver. Until he had to head off Lee was on route to take the trophy north for a stint, but Andy fluked a mucking great fish just before we left to steal Lee's thunder.

Seeing it in his net I thought he'd nobbled a two but on the scales it fell a little short at 1.12lb - still enough to keep the trophy south of the M42 nonetheless.

I feel bad saying this as the owners of this lake are obviously working very hard to try and make a nice fishery(which is a credit to them),  but it is rather heavily populated with carp anglers who seem to think they are fishing on a much larger lake than they are, and show little to no concern for each other, never mind the few visiting anglers trying to scratch a few fish from amongst their web of lines.