By the Monday (3rd) I was feeling a bit better and decided to head down to peg 10 at Bowood only to find that Bob, the other regular local had beaten me to it. I know that if he is pike fishing he will have two rods out and one bait would have been put to the left of peg 10, so I decided to give him room and set up on peg 8. After a while he came down for a chat and said an osprey had been seen during the week, now this made sense as the last visit I had seen a large bird with a skimmer of about a pound in its talons flying down the lake but had dismissed it as being an osprey as it seemed too dark but it was! The local twitchers and photographers were out in force on the far bank and they were not disappointed as the osprey soon appeared for them – the picture is taken from one of the photos they subsequently posted.

Anyway I started off at 9:30 as per usual with 3 balls of groundbait laced with some wheat and a few grains of corn. A couple of rudd came to the maggot before I switched to corn and I have to admit my eyes kept switching between my float, the pike float and the osprey!About 10:30 the float lifted and a solid resistance was felt leading to a sluggish but heavy weight coming towards me, as I was about to unship at the top two the fish woke up and steamed off with yards of elastic being pulled out as I hurriedly followed it out before getting a modicum of control back. My first instinct was it could be a pike but eventually I was proved wrong as a tench of 5-08 came to the net.

A few more rudd and a solitary roach came to the corn before an almighty crash 15m to my left and half way across saw the osprey dive from nowhere and pluck what looked to be a fish of about 6oz out of the water and fly off. Unfortunately for the photographers and twitchers- they had left about 20minutes before!

One further bite at about 11:30 resulted in a more spirited initial scrap from another tench of 3-12 and I called it a day at 12:30 as I was feeling surprisingly tired – obviously I was overdoing things too soon!The silvers weighed in at 1-04 for a 10-08 total.

I was a bit wary of going again too soon as I felt rough when I got back to the car and then the wife developed the same symptoms I had so it was not until the following Tuesday (11th) that I ventured out again to peg 10. This time I was on my own but the temperature at 9am was 3C with a heavy frost on the ground, by the time I had packed up at 12:15 and got back to the car it was bright sunshine and 13C! Surprisingly I had no runs at all on the pike rod and ended up with 27 roach, 3 rudd and 2 blades for 3-01, a sign perhaps that the rudd are quietening down and allowing the roach to get at the bait!

My only other visit to date was Friday 14th to the Pondtail fishing 9:35 to 12:05 on peg 2 with the 5m Chinese whip. I used a different rig to normal with a more orthodox Chinese float but with a slightly thicker bristle taking 1.3g. I set the olivette bulk 3 feet from the hook and had 3 droppers below it ending in a 0.10mm hook-length to a size 18 Blue Au Lion D’Or hook which was a mistake as it turned out! I introduced a ball of groundbait and fed a pinch of wheat every other cast, topping up the groundbait with a ball the size of a golf ball every 30 minutes or so. I was in to fish, well bites, immediately. The problem I had was the set up was too sensitive! I was seeing every dip as the fish blew the double maggots in and out. I eventually got myself in check and delayed any strike until it was a definite bite either holding the float under or lifting and holding. The other frustration I had was I was bumping/ pulling out of fish, I came to the conclusion that the blued hook was too fine a wire and springy and I needed a slightly heavier less springy hook. However as I had only taken Gareth’s canal stool there was not a suitable hook to change so I put up with it! The usual also happened with me getting a blank spell of 10-15 minutes with no bites, I am sure these are caused by either the arrival of one of the few resident carp or larger bream coming into the swim. Anyway I ended up with 30 roach a perch and a gudgeon for 2-13, having lost/dropped at least 10 mainly better fish, one being a net-able perch that escaped as I placed the net in the water!

Plenty for me to ponder, especially as apart from that one run when the reel broke I have had no interest from the pike so far and am still to open my account this season!