Well if you chuck and hope you tend to get what you deserve…
Having literally just a spare hour whilst at mum’s managed to get bank-side this weekend, although as it seemed colder than the 7 degrees the car thermometer indicated, maybe an hour was enough. I guess that if you are going to have just an hour then the hour before dusk is best, so I got that bit right at least. However, by plumping for Piddinghoe Pond, on the strength of reported pound plus roach this time last year, I was fishing a water for the first time. Given that I tend to favour estate lakes and smaller rivers, this is also the largest water I have fished for a while, Piddinghoe Pond being a vast sheet of water belying the description of pond. Faced with a choice of swims, there being no other angler there, I plumped for the first likely looking swim and launched into bread crumb feeder tactics and alternated turmericed flavoured white maggots and flake on the hook. I possibly had one small knock, but overall paid the price for a lack of research and blanked. Pleasant surroundings (although some way from Wessex) in the Ouse Valley/Sussex coastal plain area just north of Newhaven with the pond reed fringed and plenty of bird life to see and as dusk fell the lights of Newhaven Harbour made an unusual back drop.

GG