Allow me to share my ups and downs with my fellow anglers...

RECENTLY, it seems there are so many negatives inflicting our great sport. A constant barrage of woe about matters of poor fish stocks, predation, pollution, river abstraction and so on.

Could I be allowed to lighten the mood by telling you about a couple of days in my fishing week (with apologies to Des Taylor)? THURSDAY 4Aprrmiv ed at Royalty Fishery for evening session. 5 H. 3u0rprimca. ne Brian arrived too. 6B. a3c0kpimncar park. Soaking wet. Took off my wet outer clothes and about to get into wife’s car when a tornado blaster blew the door shut, activating central locking and leaving me locked outside with the car keys inside.

I called dear wife to come for me and went to wait outside Davis Tackle in the High Street for shelter under the shop front umbrella. Got a sarcastic proposal from a funny looking woman in Wellingtons. 9Hpomm e never looked sweeter. FRIDAY Wonderful weather, with high pressure and wall-to-wall sunshine. 5Ppicmke d up my ‘grab-and-go’ carp gear and headed for private lake close by. No-one else on the fishery.

I spotted movement against reed stems on the opposite side of the lake so I filled my catapult with a mixture of small pellets and fired them out in a fan pattern.

Next I got out my venue favourite of Squid and Octopus boilies soaked in their matching juice for a couple of days.

I wanted a few ground up to go with the pellets but hadn’t packed my crusher, so I chewed some in my mouth and spat them into the mix. Yuk! What do carp see in this stuff?

Out went another catty load to hopefully keep the carp searching. First cast, a carp picked up the bait, but dropped it, so I changed to a semi-fixed rig and put a float stop on the line to act as a brake. 5 B. 4in5gpom! Scale-perfect carp on the mat. 6 B.a3c0kpomn the sofa watching Strictly Take Two with my wife. Ron Brooke, email