Scaling down

By the lack of posts on here it would appear that not too many of us have been having a great time out there? My old mate Crowy has been getting amongst them and big congratulations go out to him on catching his first English 50, the superb Black Eye at 54lb from Chad Lakes Home Pool. With him catching that fish on his first day of a two-week session I was grateful when he offered me a few days of his trip.
Any thoughts of catching the big one myself went out of the window as the fish went and sulked in a weed bed where it stayed for the next two weeks (but then so would I if I'd been nabbed by Crowy - only joking!) Dropping temperatures with clear nights and a full moon didn't help - and neither did the end of the lake which I had to fish - a quick look through the catch reports revealed that my end had only produced one fish all year!
But fish were visiting the area so I was in with a chance but as ever with small waters, they were very shy and very riggy. I was able to watch on a few occasions fish cleary avoid the rigs. Eventually I found two fish 'clouding up' the bottom right in the edge and I scaled everything down to a size 10 hook, a six inch 12lb mono hook length and two Dairy Cream 10mm hook baits (The small Solar needle was ideal for such small baits)I placed the bait carefully right next to the tuft of grass in the picture around 1ft from the bank and at 3.15am the next morning a one-toner had me running up the bank. A good scrap followed and with just hours to go before I had to leave I banked my first Home Pool carp of 28lb 2oz. Not quite as big as my old mate Crowy's but a pleasing capture all the same.