Whinwhistle Fishery (k)

 I arrived at the fishery midday-ish in great conditions, sunshine and cloud, no wind. Completed the formalities and then set up to fish on The Rail, a long thin lake with no-one else fishing it.

Size 14 hook to 5.6lb line straight through with 5 maggots on the hook and feeding loose maggots. Fished a run between the lilies and the bank - it was hard to control the float position with a 9'6" feeder rod - I would have liked to be a bit closer to the lilies.

Quiet to begin with then I began to catch a few small perch who did well to get the float under. After some time had passed I lifted my rod in preparation for checking the bait and recasting when to my surprise I connected with something very solid. There followed a hectic few minutes round and about and in and out of the lilies before I could bring it to the net. A beautiful common as you can see from the photo above. Grounded an 8lb scale with no trouble whatsoever so I'm confident in calling it as a double. Sadly that was it for the day except for a procession of lovely little perch.

I was lucky enough to see my third kingfisher of the week just before I left rounding off what was a thoroughly enjoyable day at a very friendly and well kept fishery.