Once again threatened storms passed by, leaving a blue evening sky and the opportunity to fish my local Jeanes’s Pond in Braybrooke Park, this being my first visit since Lockdown ended. Arriving just before 6 pm, I expected to struggle to find a vacant swim, as there were reports of tench and decent roach in the past week, but I was spoilt for choice and set my box down at the first swim that I came to in the clockwise one way system, at peg 18.

Setting my pole up at only three metres, I fed onto the edge of the shelf, a mix of liquidised bread, ground carp pellets and a handful of hempseed, damped down and squeezed into tight egg sized balls, putting three down in front of me at 3 metres and another two, a metre beyond that. As expected, despite bulk shot close to my hook, small rudd grabbed the 5 mm punch pellet the instant that it hit the surface; wading through these for 30 minutes before the first decent rudd was pulling out the pole elastic.

This quality rudd was the sign that I was waiting for, it now safe to begin feeding a small ball of feed every few casts, the bigger fish driving out the small ones. I now went up to a 6 mm punch on the size 16 barbless hook.

I dropped another small ball in close to me and lifted into a better rudd. These larger fish were now near to the surface, rushing in to seize the bread, then turning away and out into the pond, the float disappearing with following line each time, no strike being necessary.

I got into a rythm, lift, play on the elastic and swing in, although I lost a few this way, bottling out and netting some, but most swung in to hand.

This was the first roach of the evening, which was taken under my feet, feasting on the early balls of feed. This area was for the hoped for tench, that cruise along the shelf, although I was quite happy to catch roach.

The rudd were still charging in to the outer edge of the swim, but in close the bites were slower as roach began to show in numbers close to the bottom.

Most of the roach I needed to net, as unlike the rudd, which were soon on their side, the roach were scrapping all over the swim.

Another rudd, the bread punch being sucked straight down, the disgorger in constant use.

I tried a 7 mm punch, but the bites were slower to develope and I dropped a couple of fish, so I went back to the 6 mm. Tiny bubbles were now coming up to the surface over the feed and a couple of missed fussy bites pointed towards crucian carp in the swim, but one brief fight and flash of gold before the hook came out was the only sign.

A crucian, or a tench would have put the icing on the cake, but it was a pleasure to see the roach. I scraped together the last of the feed and put it close in.

Another rudd made a raid on the sinking ball, running off with the bread bait and needing the net.

I’m not complaining about the obliging rudd either, another angler watching me at this time surprised that the bread was catching these quality fish, while he had fished cubes of luncheon meat earlier and could only catch tiddlers.

This roach was going to be my last of the evening, but I found myself in that just one more syndrome, while I still hankered after a tench, having had five from this swim last year, but no, another rudd took the bait.

Definitely the last fish, a roach ended the session, the wind had increased along with a drop in temperature and I had to stop being greedy.

This had been a busy two hour session, starting with small fish and working through to the better ones and a netfull weighing five and a half pounds at the end. The park gate is locked at 8 pm, but the park warden let me fish until then and opened up the gate, when the van was loaded. Its nice to know that not everybody out there is a jobsworth.

Prime roach and rudd, all taken on the bread punch.