Richard Stangroom A bittersweet session. I got to the lake and by 5am I’d got all three rods out on their spots - just as the rain started. I managed to get the umbrella up in time to stop everything getting soaked, and then sat there in the cold, wet and wind, hoping for, but not really expecting a bite. However, between 7:30 and 8am I’d had four runs - but for various reasons, really frustratingly, I lost all four!! Being there at this time of year and in these conditions, you really don’t expect to catch any, so to have four runs and lose all of them, was exceptionally demoralising - particularly as one felt very big. I changed the rigs on all three rods. primarily to use a different hook pattern, in the hope that I’d have at least one more bite, and actually get to land it this time! An hour or so later I managed to catch a small fish of around 18lb, and as it was raining heavily I took a quick shot of it in the net before releasing it. The weather forecast had initially said it would stop raining by 11am however, that changed to 3pm so I decided to wait until it had passed before packing up. This worked in my favour as I land this lovely 31lb 4oz mirror followed by another cracking 29lb 14oz mirror.