I’m one of those anglers who goes more on instinct than common sense and rational thought. I’ll think through how I should fish - and then execute it instinctively, which is usually completely different!

I’m gullible; easily persuaded. I’m a retailer’s dream - I’ll see something in the (fishing) shop and I’ve GOT to have it!

Today I’m back at the lake intending to fish a one-nighter. The fishery is extremely busy. There are only a limited number of swims and they seem to be well-filled with those out to catch their first carp of the year. Although the sun is shining and it is warm inside the bivvy, a cold wind blowing from the east tells a different story and I’m grateful for my fleece. I’m presented with a swim I haven’t fished before although I have ‘scoped it out previously. Away over on the far side there are some tall trees,

the branches hang out over the water; this looks a good spot on what is an un-fished bank. I’m thinking the fish must at some point patrol this bank, carp in particular liking nothing better than getting in under overhead cover. It’s a long cast though and although I have been trickling in bait from over there, the seagulls still home in on the first catapult-full! Spodding is the only real answer.

I’m also trying out rigs again… Since I haven’t caught a carp this year yet I’m very low on confidence and badly need to catch something for reassurance in both bait and presentation. I’ve been watching the new Fox Edges DVD that’s just out and I have been totally persuaded that the 360 Rig demonstrated by Tom Maker is the way to go. Tom is such a good angler, he could catch a twenty pound carp on a bent pin and a stick! As usual I have no confidence and always think other anglers are ‘doing it’ better than me.

I manage to get a couple of rigs over to the trees and another into open water half way across. Plumbing reveals the far rods are in eight feet of water whilst the general depth all the way across is twelve to fourteen feet; this means my line is four feet from the bottom all the way across virtually ‘cutting off’ all the water to my left. Not ideal and I think about how this might inform my fishing as regards to bait positioning.

I faff about all day. I mean all day. I sit in the bivvy tying up rigs, casting them out… and reel them back in. They don’t feel right. I try Tom’s 360 Rig in the edge. It sits very low in the chod as does a ‘Ronnie Rig’ and I try something else - a Darrell Peck pop-up rig tied with Korda ‘Semi-Stiff’, the pop-up anchored by a BB shot. This looks ok, but again, instinct raises the faintest doubts in my mind. It’s no good, I’ll have to fall back on a rig I have used for many years but for some reason abandon in favour of the latest whizz-bang confection - a Hinge Stiff Rig. I don’t know why I don’t fish it consistently - it has always worked for me! My gullible self however thinking other, more successful anglers do things differently and catch more than me, therefore their rigs must be superior to mine. Even after all these years and thousands of carp, I have yet to convince myself I really know what I am doing!

My friend Peter arrives and he drops into the swim next door for a cheeky over-nighter. Peter is one of those organised chaps who gets all his gear to the swim in ONE BARROW-LOAD! How does he do it? It never takes me less than two fully-loaded! I see he has one of those Nash pop-up bivvies that a fat bloke would be bursting out the door of. How he fits himself, a bedchair, and all his gear inside I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a Tardis and is bigger on the inside than on the outside(?)

The night is freezing cold. I mean FREEZING! As I get up for a wee the frost crunches underfoot and their is frost on the bivvy. Thank God for my winter sleeping-bag. I am dressed in only summer gear and it’s a matter of taking refuge in the comfort of the warmth, snuggled down with just a runny nose poking above the covers… Sleep comes eventually however…

At midnight the buzzer is going!… I’m out of the bag and at the rod and lifting into the fish! I’ve got one, my first of the year! This fish comes to the net quietly and I can tell it’s not huge; an issue arises however with the chest waders. I have to wade out to net the fish and I can’t get them on! They have been left out in the dew and when I try to slip my feet into them they stick to sides like glue. The bloody things won’t go on my legs! In the end I have to put the rod down in the dark, sit on the damp ground and forcibly pull them up my legs, squeaking as they go! Nightmare!

I get out there and after a grope around in the dark, catching the rod tips of the other rods in the meshes of the landing-net I manage to get the fish. I weigh it and it barely makes a double but it’s a mirror unlike most of the small fish in the lake which are commons. I wonder where it has come from. It’s certainly a nice ‘scaley’ fish and will be very handsome in about ten years time.

Once again the Stiff Hinge Rig works for me. Why oh why can’t I stick with it instead of chopping and changing?… Although I fish the following day and get a ‘pass’ from the Boss to stop another night I catch no more fish although during the second night I miss a take which stops and starts and which can’t seem to make its mind up about whether it wants the bait or not.

My Confidence has certainly returned though and I look forward to the coming weeks and months with great anticipation.