With limited time to go fishing there is always pressure to get it right and make the trip successful, you never know when the next trip will be? In an ideal world I would have a few different rods set up for different situations and a river or lake at the end of my garden to fish from. I could be in constant contact with the water observing the fauna and pre-baiting some chosen areas, then spend short sessions of a hour or two. Unfortunately that isn’t going to happen.

My main place to fish is in Sussex, if I leave London at 6.00am I can get from my front door to the lake in one hour. My problem is I have no idea how the lake is fishing and I don’t have the luxury of pre-baiting so this un-known element brings on a sense of uncertainty and indecision can set in (making decisions is not one of my strong points). I like to travel light but with unknown conditions I tends to take too many baits and probably a rod or two too many.

This weekend I was going to head down to Sussex and try for the tench and some of the larger rudd but on the Thursday I was struck down with some weird 24 hour bug which scuppered all my plans to fish. On the Saturday morning I woke up at 5.30 am bright as new penny and thought, what the heck, its a beautiful day, sunny with some mist, perfect. With only sweetcorn in the house I grabbed my rucksack (always ready to go), four tins of Green Giant, a small bag of food and tea making equipement and two rods. This last minute decision stopped me from taking too much tackle and bait. Freedom!

7.00 am I arrived, peace….

At lunchtime my chance of a tench was fading but the carp were showing on the top…

By mid-afternoon it was hot but walking around with the simplest of kit, a rucksack and one rod, crouching down on the long wet grass under the shade, this is how I remember fishing to be as a teenager.