Saturday November 20th ,the weekend was here again and the trio were heading towards Heskin Old Hall Farm near Wrightington , with the weather cooling there are not many places that will guarantee a good days fishing with the chance of a few carp. It was a rather mild morning as we made our way up the M6 to junction 27, once off the motorway the country lanes went foggy and in places fields glistened with frost.

At Heskin, Steve & Nelson chose pool two while I opted for pool one. This pool is very picturesque at this time of year and I wanted to capture some photos of the pool with all the late autumn colours .It's about an 150 yard walk across the field, on went my thermal boots and winter suit and off I tracked across the field. I was first on so had the pick of any peg.

The sun was just starting to rise behind me while I was setting up, the peg I chose would give me the option of using the pole to start and waggler later on if the day warmed up.With the weather now cold tactics have to be thought about.This pool has plenty of carp in it but they will have slowed down and the silvers are the fish I will target.

I looked around the pool to see if any fish were moving, there was the odd small fish topping, tactics would be to fish in the margins on the off chance of a carp lurking or a large perch. To my left hand side there was an overhanging tree & brambles, it looked an ideal spot for carp & perch to be located.

I threw in a few maggots and casters and gently placed my light rig under the tree, on a size 16 hook I had 2 maggots as bait, it wasn't long before the float went under and I was into a small roach.

I kept feeding a few maggots and casters with small roach being the end result, an hour went by and the bites began to slow. I have just bought a new pole " Carp Cruncher " by Shimano. This pole goes way beyond the reach of my beastmaster pole so I opted to try an 11 metre line at 12'o clock position with about 4 feet of water.

I put in a few micros, maggots & casters , on the hook I decided to try breadpunch, as the float hit the water and the bait began to sink it was evident the fish were just off bottom.After a few missed bites I began to hit into small roach & skimmers. I had plenty of these small fish but wanted something a little bigger. The swim slowed down so I changed to another one at about 5 metres.

I came up a foot off bottom and tried caster, this seemed to work and I was catching larger roach, everytime the rig went in I had a bite and was catching steadily.I noticed some large swirls in the swim, could this be a carp?.I changed to a shallow rig and put soft pellet on the hook, nothing happend, after five minutes I went back onto caster and was back into roach. I had one in the net that looked a decnt size, when I weighed it , it was 13oz and the best roach of the day.

I was now fishing about 2 foot deep and catching decent roach & skimmers, no carp had shown and I resigned myself to the fact it was not to be today.For the last couple of hours I fished with my top 2 in the margins on a shallow rig, maggots on the hook and catching roach after roach.With the sun setting fast behind me the float went under another time, I hit this fish and it felt like a crucian, it was a good fight and I was surprised when it turned out to be a tench.

The last fish of the day made my day , all this on a £5 day ticket . The car park has recently been extended and there is a toilet on site.