A cold, but sunny afternoon, was the only chance to fish this week, with rain forecast for several days after. Having had good bags of common and crucian carp early in the year before, I took the short walk to my very local Allsmoor Pond, to find three of the swims occupied by other anglers. All were struggling to get bites, with fewer than a dozen small rudd and gudgeon between them. At least it was warm facing the sun and I set up my heavy duty pole to 6 metres, with a 3BB antenna float rig, 2 metres long, to swing fish in to hand from the top two sections.

Ground bait was liquidised bread, ground carp pellets and ground hemp, sprinkled with a spicy red mix. The pond is only two feet deep above fine silt and the mix was damped down just enough to hold together for the 7 to 8 metre throw, putting in two balls on that line. Starting off with a 6 mm punch of bread on the size 14 hook, the float slid away immediately as a small rudd gorged the bread. After a repeat of this half a dozen times, I went up to a 7 mm punch and swung in a better sized roach.

The 7 mm punch seemed to be selecting better sized rudd and I was busy swinging them in.

Smaller rudd were still taking the bread and I went up to an 8 mm punch in an effort to attract larger fish, but the small stuff were still having a go and even gorging the bigger pellet, while I bumped several others, so it was soon back to the 7 mm pellet. A runaway bite on the drop, met solid resistance from a fiesty little common carp, that was still fighting and camera shy, when I tried to take a photo.

I had hoped for several more of this little fellow’s bigger brothers, but it was not to be today and apart from a similar sized crucian carp, that fell off as I lifted it out of the water, it was back to bashing out the rudd. Regular balls of feed kept the better fish in the swim.

The sun was now dipping behind the trees, bringing a distinct drop in temperature and I set my time to pack up to 5 pm, although I was tempted to continue following this rudd. One of the other anglers had given up a couple of hours before, while the two to my right had the same idea as me and began putting their rods away. Immediately to my right, fishing pellets and sweetcorn the tally was six fish, rudd and gudgeon, plus a 6 oz tench, while his friend gave up on the pellet and fished bread for a dozen rudd and gudgeon, plus a crucian carp

My three hours had produced over 90 rudd, none as big as I usually catch here, but enough to keep my hopes of better fish to come, alive.

A very busy three hours.