The first day of autumn was upon me. I packed my van with the ever-increasing amount of tackle I have amassed for a session at my syndicate water oakbank fishery. The conditions weren’t great a brisk easterly was blowing in off the Solway Firth but due to work commitments and the dreaded swine flu this would be my first outing in a month.

And I was not going to miss it.

Oakbank is syndicate water near to the Scottish border that consists of three lakes. I had decided to fish Barn Lake. It has a head of 200 carp and at 12 acres it posts a challenge.

All the three lakes are very weedy and not being all that deep only 9 feet in places my choice of swims were limited, but I finally settled on a swim which gave me a cast of 40 yards into a horseshoe clear patch of gravel. The fishmeal had been producing this year but with the drop in temperature I decided on purelake baits tutti fruitti twist boilies. I would feed this in every two hours and fish a 3 boilie stringer with a wafter over the top, only time would tell if the change of bait was the right choice.

The first night was pretty quiet but for a couple of reassuring liners and with the wind picking up all was not great, but I kept the bait going in fighting hard against the wind just me and my throwing stick against the elements.

At 12.30 while eating my lunch I received a text asking me how it was all going I was in mid reply when my left-hand rod started the heart pounding screaming we all love. Although I was locked up pretty tight the power of this fish took me straight into a weed bed where it all went solid.

I kept a tight line and felt it give a little then a little more when a massive clump of weed appeared on the surface. I thought the fish had gone and I was gutted as I hauled the large clump of weed towards me when I got it in close in I saw a swirl underneath it the prize was still on.

It was far to big to net so off came my shoes and pants and I waded in net in hand and broke off large handfuls of the slimy stuff and slid the net under what looked like a common.

Making it back to shore I carefully placed her into my weigh sling and stood up still dripping. The scale read 26lb 5-oz I was elated this fish was one of the bigger fish in there. After the trophy pictures back she swam followed by more of the tutties then I dried off hoping for another one.

I had to wait till 1.30am for the delkims to scream off again resulting in a lovely 14 lb. mirror this fish was crammed full of boilies so I had to bait up again in the dark hoping I was hitting my spot. In went another ½ kilo before I settled down to sleep

7 am I had a small drop back followed by a couple of bleeps. And I lifted into another good fish a mirror weighing in at 20 lb 12 oz. then as I returned her the middle rod one toned on me then stopped as the fish got bedded in the weed. I managed to gently persuade her into my net and I was well pleased to find another mirror weighing 17-lb. 7 oz.

Not a bad 48 hours.