My wife asked my this morning how fast carp swim. Seriously. I love that woman. I'd been talking about the wild carp (or near as dammit wild carp - lean, little torpedoes that look more like barbel than carp) in a local lake that I hadn't fished for years. I'd forgotten what they were like. Three casts in and I was mugged - float gone, line snapped, water in front of me all a-commotion, trousers round ankles (well, almost...). I can't believe anyone can actually catch these buggers they take a bait so fast and I've certainly never come across a fish with such pace.

I went to show Ray the remains of my line snarled around the end of the rod and we both laughed. I went back, tackled up with a cheaper float and had another go, this time holding the rod and waited.

There's an amazing thing that happens sometime when you're fishing. Something changes, the air almost crackles, the water comes alive, you can see shadows, sense movement beneath the surface, almost hear the fish as they move over the bait. Everything becomes hot and - let's face it - a little sexy.

So this time my early warning system went off and I managed to get the rod up and hold the fish when it tore off towards the reeds. Did I mention I was fishing with a size 14 hook, six pound line and a centrepin? Thought not.

What a fight, harum scarum, back and forth, left and right, zooming up and down the swim like a cat with its tail on fire. Ray came round about half way through to see what the fuss was about and stood quietly behind me as I huffed and puffed the fish into the net. I weighed it in at exactly 5lbs, my biggest fish of the season and a magnificent specimen - lean and solid, it looked as though it was cast in metal.

Afterwards, over a cup of tea, shaking my head I said again that I didn't understand how the carp could be so much faster than any other fish I'd ever caught.

"It's because it's so shallow," said Ray. "They can't dive, so they shoot off because they've got nowhere else to go."I looked at him, wheels turning oh-so slowly.

Of course it makes perfect sense but it had never occurred to me before.  I still don't know how fast carp swim, but at last I know why these ones seem to have rockets strapped to their backs.

As always, cheers Ray.

I'm delighted to report that I've been commissioned by a publisher to write another fishing book. Can't say any more than that at the moment except that the outline will be finished in a few days and the whole thing wrapped up before the end of October.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

But not in a good, US TV show, sexy way, but in a it's-got-no-business-being-this-hot-at-eight-o'clock-in-the-morning way. If I'd got here an hour earlier then I would have stood more chance. But as the fellow club member I met as we both parked by the gate (Hi John) observed, it's just nice being out at that time of the morning. Just the two of us on a half mile stretch of river in early July, dendrabenas in the bait box, courtesy of Sean, and a new rod and centre pin combo courtesy of Dragon Carp Direct. Crumbs - as if an angling story would ever be an appropriate medium for product placement.

The 12ft twin top barbel rod was £20, looks a bit horrid but feels OK. The centrepin was £30 and looks lovely - not quite a Bob James, but not bad either. Despite an over-lively ratchet, it performs well, at least when catching two small perch and the world's smallest pike. Seriously, I didn't think pike started life that small - it looked like a garfish. Next time I'm going to try bread flake and see if that will sit on top of the weed because too often the end tackle came back festooned - those worms do like to burrow.

Still, I stayed true to my plan and fished and moved, dropping a worm into half a dozen likely spots over the course of four hours, starting off about 7.30am. Within half an hour my ears were burning. And not in a good, US TV show, sexy way.

It's nights like these that I feel extremely fortunate to be living here and now. There's enough wrong with England in the 21st century - this spiteful government for starters - that it's easy to forget places like this still exist, pretty much on your doorstep. It's also easy to forget that one of nature's properties is the extraordinary ability to ease a troubled spirit or make still a restless soul. There's a rejuvenating side to fishing that non-anglers - who see only the caricature of sitting by a canal in the rain, chin in hand - don't get, but if you've been lucky enough to experience it, you'll know.

A quick raid then, with Sean as a guest, to see if we can't sort out his recent tendency to blank whenever he looks into the water. To be fair, this is because he's been on the Avon three times already this season and is after not just a particular species (barbel) but a particular fish (Hubert? I don't know, and Sean's not telling). Anyway, given Sean's skill level (high) and the water's inhabitants (plentiful, obliging) I'm pretty confident we can do something about it. Last time I bought someone here they caught a 22lb personal best mirror carp. Bodes well.

It's overcast but warm with a wind from the west and conditions are pretty nigh perfect. We both start catching roach and rudd, Sean on some mad strawberry mini-boilie and me on sweetcorn (I've also brought a couple of handfuls of crumb from the tail end of one of my home made loaves which produces the best, stickiest groundbait I've ever used). I catch a little tench. Then a bigger one, then Sean shouts something. I reel in and scoot along the bank to find him deep in negotiations with a rather large fish. Because he's using 6lb line and a centrepin, this turns out to be great fun. I video it and we take turns in guessing the weight. I start at 12lbs, mainly because I can't see the fish yet. When I can it immediately becomes clear that this is a mirror carp that won't be seeing 12lbs again - it's considerably bigger. Sean plays the fish gently, coaxing it round the swim, calling it 'fishy' from time to time as if in reassurance. There's the occasional powerful run but mainly it stays deep, pulling hard rather than tearing off. When it finally comes to the net it looks nearly 20lbs and turns out to be a spit over 17lbs. It's a beautiful fish as you can see. Sean's the one holding it, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.

I went back to my swim and caught more roach and rudd, a smashing 4lb 1oz tench (I love having a set of scales after all these years) and then inspired, tackled up a carp rod and tried the swim next door on the other side of the tree which I'd been baiting up with corn and bits of luncheon meat. If this were a story I'd have saved myself a 20 pounder to insert into the day about now but all I got was a couple of taps from a passing rudd.

So that's Ray and Sean sorted out with big carp from the lake, both from the same spot. My turn next.

It's good to be fishing with Ray again, even if we don't arrive at the same time and don't even sit together, and it feels to get re-acquainted here, at the little lake where we started fishing at this club all those years ago. June the 16th it was, when there was still a close season on the lake and everyone arrived the evening before so they could start fishing on the last stroke of midnight, even if it was just with one symbolic cast. I caught 17 tench that day. Seventeen. That's more than I've caught in 10 trips to Blenheim Palace lake.

I got there early, while Ray was still working out the kinks by doing his yoga routine (and shaking off the effects of Yvonne's birthday party the night before). Despite the forecast, there was no sign of the sun, only a damp mist that hung over the fields, broken by the necks of dozens of bright-eyed alpacas, as the car bounced down the track to the bottom. Not a soul about (unless alpacas have souls) and a wonderful time to be out and about in the world. I wandered over to my favourite corner and baited up with the last embers of my opening day maggots (they'll only last a couple of days indeed - take that, tackle shop owner) then opened the plastic bag of casters to be greeted by a smell so foul, so sweet and mealy that it swept me back to the days when we holidayed with auntie Margaret in the little house next to the piggery. Strewth. I smelled my fingers. How am I going to eat my Ginsters?

Now I've watched my share of John Wilson videos where he cooks up a ground bait concoction of maggots, caster, bran, beer, corn, all the kind of stuff and then balls it up for the fish, but smelling my fingers again and looking at my static float, I just can't see it. No fish is going to want to put that in its mouth.

The float sails away twice in two casts. Both times I strike perfectly and completely miss the fish. It's as if they're trying to eat the bait and spit it out at the same time. After a while I give up and switch to luncheon meat. After the casters, this smells like little pieces of chopped and shaped and mechanically reclaimed heaven. The fish think so too and in quick succession I catch silver bream, roach, rudd and then a couple of nice tench. I've got a set of digital scales my daughter bought me and they're pressed into service for the first time today on the largest of the bream - a good 2lbs 1oz. Lovely.

I fish until the midday sun gets uncomfortable and then pack up. The vile maggots and caster are flung into the pond (interestingly, the little dark frogs that hopped round my feet all morning have gone to town on the luncheon meat but steered clear of the casters - and they say youngsters will eat anything) and I walk round to where Ray's fishing in the opposite corner just in time to see him catch this lovely little tench.

You'd think I'd know by now. That I wouldn't fall into the trap of believing that the same thing can happen twice in a row. I mean, who'd be daft enough to go back to the river three days later with the same tackle and bait, arriving at the same time and expecting the same outcome? I'd had a different swim in mind of course - can't go living off past glories in their entirety, because where's the fun in that? So off I wandered, heading downstream to the swim where Ray used to fish a lot, where we both caught rainbow trout that mad June 16th five or six years ago (hell, everyone caught a trout that first morning, the silly buggers were everywhere).

You'd think that all the swims would be the same but they're not. Can't get near this one because the bank's too high and overgrown and it's too bloody dangerous. I need a longer landing net handle, a stouter rod, 6lb line and some freelined luncheon meat or cheese paste, not all this trotting gear.  Still, by the time I realise this, I've had a perfectly good walk and ended up back at the first swim I fancied, round the corner from I where I fished the other evening and the first port of call for lazy anglers who - like me - have parked by the gate. I always feel ambivalent about swims like this. On the one hand the fish here are accustomed to food, on the other, they may also be a bit knackered.

You'd think it wouldn't take long to tackle up but it does, mainly because my first float has a split in the eye at the bottom so having attached it to the line and tied the hook, the line pops out at the first opportunity. So I take it off (and put it back in the float tray so I can make the same mistake again in a month or two) and re-tackle with Thursday's float. It's deep here, a good 18 inches deeper than round the corner. Slow too. I see shoals of dark bream filling my keepnet (not that I've got one) but intsead, third cast I hook a big chub and then lose it.

You'd think I wouldn't be using the same size 16 hook that lost me all those fish on Thursday, but there it is. How do I know it's a chub? Because I can see one of its scales on the hook. Judging by the size of the scale, that was a big chub - the scale is almost bigger than the roach that I haven't caught yet - and losing it kills the swim. I move upstream, catch the tree on the far bank on the first cast, the reeds in front of me on the second and then the bottom on the third. The supid, fish-ejecting hook refuses to give way and each time is returned unharmed. Then I sit on a slug.

You'd think that after a fishless hour in the new swim I'd resist the temptation to move back to the scene of Thursday's triumphs but I'm too weak-willed and moments later I'm at the same buffet, catching nothing but a tiny perch, barely hooked on the outside of the mouth, who looks up at me with his angry little eye as if to say 'only just mate, only just'.

Yeah, you'd think...

The river's been fishing pretty poorly of late. When I think back to when I first started coming here (after the initial getting-to-know-you phase was over) there were good fish to be had. We caught carp to 10lbs, bream to 5lbs and chub to over 4lbs; pretty good for a river that in parts, you can almost jump across. Recently though, those fish seem to have vanished, or at least moved off to pastures new and trips over the last few years have disappointed. Truth be told, the river has sometimes felt a bit fished out, as if it was in decline and unable to renew itself.

But it's June 16th and that means I have to be here, even if the weather's like a jack-in-the-box and there's a smart wind blowing hard from the west. Despite going through the motions (choosing my 15 foot float rod, centrepin, 4lb line, a few stick floats, going to the tackle shop to buy maggots with a bait box so small that the guy there smiles and asks if I'm taking the kids) I don't seem to want to go. Haven't been since March and it's only later that I realise my last two trips have ended blank or with just a couple of little fish to show - small wonder I'm not motivated.

Nevertheless, I'm here, wading through uncut, thigh-high wild grass down to the river, delaying my first sight until the last possible moment, until I have to see it or turn back and go home.

It looks good. Despite the lack of rain it's not too low, there are lilies in the slow stretches but it's not overgrown with weed and stone me if it doesn't feel a bit fishy. There's only one angler on my bank (everyone else must be upstream on the other side of the road bridge) but he's tucked away out of the wind and approaching rain under a brolly so big that I can't see him at all - just the tip of his rod pointed at the river. It makes me think of Strider's pipe poking out from beneath his hood in the Prancing Pony.

I walk down to the willow and - remembering an arm-wrenching take from  few years back - nearly set up there, but the swim's been cut a bit too large for my liking so I carry on downstream, past the old tree and round the corner. I see a large fish drifting in the current, just below the surface. At first I think it's an enormous roach but then it flicks a steadying tail and I can see it's a decent bream. I make a note of the spot for later and move on.

I've decided to fish the bend. Although it's completely exposed to the elements I like this spot because it's a bit like a buffet. You can fish close in to the left, trot through slightly further out, trot the far bay and then pull the float round in from of the lilies before letting it travel on downstream, or flick it round to the right and let it sit in the slack or pull it out into the current and hold the float back so the bait rises in a tempting Crabtree-esque fashion.

I tackle up, cast out and the fish come. I get pretty much a bite a cast for the next two hours, starting with dace, then roach and then perch - the biggest of which you see here (it's only when choosing the photograph that I notice something has tried to take a chunk out of its flank). But I'm also losing fish after fish, and not in a barely-hooked-one-tug-and-they're off kind of way, either. One of them's certainly a jack (the line comes back minus the hook) but others are not - one feels like a good perch while another has chub written all over it. Stepping up to a size 14 makes no difference and although I catch continuously, I'm still losing almost as many as I land.

Things slacken off about 9.15pm and it's then that Nessie makes her appearance. A bream of perhaps a couple of pounds comes wobbling through from my right and heads upstream to the top of the swim, then turns and comes back before making a tight little circle in front of me and disappearing back the way it came. It - sensibly - ignores the bait I try and drop in front of it's questing snout (twice) and for the entire visit keeps its back a clear inch and a half out of the water. It doesn't seem distressed in the slightest, by the way. It's just moseying.

The bites die out around 9.45pm and I take a last look round and pack up. Heading back up the field to the car in the dying light I realise I feel terrific.

Thank you.

Sometimes it doesn't take much to sum up a fishing trip. There's always the temptation to over-think or over-write what's gone on, but usually the fewer words you use, the better. Especially when there's not actually very much to say. The day was bright - too bright as it turned out - and the water still cold from the long winter, so it wasn't surprising that the fish weren't really interested. I saw one carp banked - not by me - and it came in like a small sack of spuds, barely bothered enough to flick its tail. Nice fish though.

As for me, all the action was concentrated into a single moment just as the sun went down. Bob, went the float. Bob. (That's me repeating the same bite for emphasis, rather than me describing a second bite). And that was that.

Readers expecting a bit more action than that after all this time, I'm sorry for your trouble and I apologise if you feel you've wasted the last two minutes. You should have been there for the other four hours...

It's not often that I've had my rod  pulled in - or nearly pulled in. It happened on Munky Island once on the Thames when I returned from a crafty slash to find my rod, reel and everything to do with both had just...gone. I eventually spotted the tip of the butt end poking out of the water about 20 feet downstream and then when I retrieved in and wound in there was a single large bedraggled swan's feather on the end. That was nearly 40 years ago.

But the other night, no sooner had I cast in with two grains of corn on a 14, light ledgering where I imagined the shelf dropped off into the main lake, than the rod jerked off towards the water and I had to drop my camera, grab the butt, lift the rod and strike all at the same time. The culprit was - another - roach and by this time I'd caught 15 or 20, between four ounces and maybe a pound (I've still no scales) and all in  beautiful condition. Add a three pound tench, the fact that I caught in two swims using float and then ledger and that I spied not another soul (unless deer have souls) all evening and it was my best catch of roach since the Latchmoor pond days.Nothing to match the glory of that maginficent river roach caught earlier in the year but just as wonderful. This here's a typical fish. What a beauty.

I nearly bottled it. Driving back from Bucks through sheets of rain (and only a poncho in the boot because the brolly's still under Marion's bed) I just thought I'd leave it. I'd get soaked, the banks would be beyond treacherous - and recalling my last visit, well... But as my brother had joked earlier: "Back on the horse," and as I drove south the skies cleared, my mood lifted and I thought - why not? I'd return to the same swim, fish the same way with the same bait (some things will never change) and hopefully, catch some nice roach and rudd.

What a difference five weeks makes. Last time I was here I could barely get in the car my knee was so knackered (plump actually, like a strange knotted fungus) yet here I am, almost tripping gaily down the hill to the lake - which despite expectations is empty - and then opening the gate before stepping gingerly onto the bank proper and looking around suspiciously.

Hmm.This doesn't look slippery at all. In fact, it's just like any other bank that gets wet from time to time so that when some eejit...etc.

There's been talk that the unpredictable weather ("it's hot!" "it's cold!") has confused the silver fish so that they might either feed like the fury or be off spawning, but I'm hopeful because it's warm, overcast and there's no-one here to see me fail. On such an evening, what could go wrong? Well, there are no bites for a start. I remember to feed little and often, I move the float around the swim, I lift it and let the bait drop, but there's nothng happening here. The Canada geese are having fun though. It's really hard to tell if they're fighting or asking each other out - but whichever it is, there's a lot of screeching and flapping about, flying off as if they don't care, then wheeling back to renew hostilities. Of course it doesn't help that to a human they all look the same, so there are probably all sorts of subtleties that are escaping me.

But what's this? I get one of those lovely deliberate bites that looks as though someone's leaned in and rubbed part of the float out really quickly - and then clicked 'Undo' so it pops up again. Then there's amother nudge and the float wanders off. It's a smashing little rudd. not as golden as the one I caught last time, but very welcome. I re-bait and re-cast. After a few minutes there's a similar bite, though if anything it's more deliberate. I strike and things start to occur.

First, it's clear that this is a much bigger fish. Second, it's clear that it's half-asleep, because it feels like a wet bream in washing machine and third - crikey-heck - it's woken up.

Now I've never been one to trouble myself too much with the technicalities of reel drag, but for some reason I remember setting up properly this time - probably because I recall colliding with a carp some years ago in almost the same spot. So blow me down if the reel isn't set almost correctly when chummie wakes up and starts parading round the swim as if he's serious about getting off. And he nearly does. It's like real fishing this - the sound of the drag, the reel being wound fast and hard in short bursts, the grabbing of the landing net to shoot it forward into the water ready for the moment when the fish is coaxed towards the bank, hooking the rod butt under the arm slightly to relieve the strain on the elbow before - bugger me - he's off again, haring over to the left towards the reeds, then back again towards the lilies on the other side. All the while the rod - all 15' of it - is thumping up and down and up and down. Then I see it - a big common carp - and I sneak a look at the landing net, then back at the carp, then back to the net again. Oh, oh. Expecting silver fish I've bought my Adur landing net and as I eventually ease the fish over the edge I watch as it keeps coming and coming until there's no more net left to hold it. Fortunately, right at that point, there's no more fish either and the tail folds neatly into the net.

Up on the bank I unhook and photograph it. I don't possess any scales (there's never been much point) so I estimate the weight. More than 10lbs and less than 15lbs. I give myself 12lbs, which makes it my joint biggest fish ever. He goes back and I fish on, but my heart's no longer in it. There's no point anymore. The lake has given me more than I could have hoped for so I pack up and ride my horse slowly up the field and back to the car, stopping at the top to feed him an apple. Then everything goes into the car, the gate opens, I drive out, stop, close and re-lock the gate and return to the car. Minutes later I'm back in the world.