When you go and fish a new water for the very first time, make sure you find out as much about it as you can so you have at least some idea of what to expect and how to go about things. In the case of Linear Fisheries near Oxford there are literally hours of YouTube videos featuring the many lakes which are available on a day ticket. Not only are the lakes accessible to all, they hold a terrific number of carp up to fifty pounds, with many forties resident in virtually all the lakes. If ever there was a venue to get a new PB then this is it!

It’s not as simple as that. It isn’t ever is it?

I decided this would be my venue of choice since I’ve been wanting to try somewhere different for some time so I was off in the car at the crack of dawn, braving the jams on the M25, and almost three hours later was standing beside Oxlease Lake - the home of the fifty pounder. It was rammed with anglers; in fact there were so many there the car park was full and vehicles had been left all over the place. I took one look at it and decided it wasn’t for me and jumped in the car and slowly drove back down the road with its seemingly endless number of ‘sleeping policemen’ making me (and everything inside the car) jump about like a jack-in-the-box!

I was fortunate in that I ran in to Ian the bailiff and I was deeply shocked to discover that he addresses all anglers as ‘sir’. I have never encountered this level of curtesy (and as it turned out, helpfulness) anywhere. I can think of one or two venues where you’d get a reluctant grunt if you were lucky! It seemed however that Hardwicke and Smiths was fishing and if the first two swims on the fenced road were available I’d be in with a shout there. I needed no more telling and in a few minutes I was unpacking my gear.

Things were looking good; I saw a fish move to my left about forty yards out and confidence rose. “Gotta get one here” thinks I. How wrong I was!

I slung out a lead on the marker rod a fairly long way (18 wraps) and there didn’t seem to be too much weed on the bottom - the lead was coming back with a bit on it, but it wasn’t getting horrendously stuck. I decided on my usual wafter rigs on a helicopter rig with the top stop about a foot up the leader to accommodate any weed on the bottom and got two rods out. However, I had a bit of a disaster clipping up the first rod. Somehow (without me noticing) several loops of line came off the ‘distance sticks’ resulting in a monumental ‘birds nest’. I spent a good hour trying to unpick the thing - it didn’t look too bad to begin with, but eventually I lost patience with it and cut the line loosing about forty yards from an already depleted spool.

I got some spod mix out at eighteen wraps; this was a simple confection of sweetcorn and boilies. Linear Fisheries is ‘Spod City’ in the world of carp fishing - everyone around the lake seemed to be doing it and I dread to think how much food goes into the lakes. The carp are certainly well fed at Linear!

On reeling in however, both rods were well and truly buried in the bottom weed and I immediately changed to a solid bag setup. I had been prepared for this. A lot of the reports on the Fishery website news contained pictures on fish caught by anglers on solid bags and with so much weed this seemed a sensible choice to make so I made up one with a double buoyant corn bait, anchored down by the weight of the hook,

and on the other I fished the same bait I’d done on the wafter rig - a boily bottom bait, topped off with three-quarters of a 12mm Cell pink pop up. This was the first time I used Korda ‘Bag Stems’ and I found them very good for ‘licking and sticking’ the bag around.

These can be easily cast eighty yards, and if I really push it - a bit more. As I’m such a rubbish caster they could undoubtedly be thrown over the ‘ton’, it’s just that Ive never wanted to compress the rod to that degree to see just how far they will go. I’ve had rods ‘blow up’ on me in the past and it is both an unpleasant (and expensive) experience.

Nothing happened all afternoon apart from a visit from Ian to take my money - probably the most efficient system of an carp fishery; you pay by cash or credit card and since I never have cash on me, the card payment meets my needs perfectly.

More advice from Ian - “You want to be fishing a couple of rod lengths out sir. Down the edge there sir. That’s where they’ve been catching them sir”. [For God’s sake Ian, give the ‘sir’ bit a rest will you!]

So, more spod mix out in front of the marginal trees. It was at this point there came a terrible grinding noise from my old ‘Daiwa Emcast’. With a squeaky sigh, it at long last, wound its last yard, seizing up solid as a rock. I tried taking it to bits but there were bits of metal floating around in the grease and the spool oscillation was - well, just not oscillating! Goodbye old friend. You have served me well for over twenty years, but I fear you are in no fit state to cast a glance - much less a spod.

Nothing all night… With just a couple of hours to go I went back to helicopter rigs and put a couple of stiff hinged rigs on but these too were buried in (what must have been) very thick weed. I know what I SHOULD have done - zig rigs. Could have made these ten or twelve feet long and fished above it but by then it was too late. Time to make my long way back to Kent.