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"Cracking fish". "Hard fishing for little reward". Were you hoping that the better fish were going to leap onto your unhooking mat? Good grief..... I'd much sooner target lower 20's at a "stunning venue" than 30's at a muddy hole in the ground. Ian

not a bad list to be going on with gaz thx yeh tim, looked on google earth after the post and realized i need to rethink the drive time 55 mins will put me on your doorstep

Jon a 3 hour drive puts you within every Carp venue in the Home Counties mate . And a lot more besides.

OK lets get an idea of what lake you are thinking of trying. Mainly what level of difficulty are you upto trying and what/how many do you expect/hope to catch. Basically Kingfisher and Swan are pretty tough at the best of times, very highly pressured fish that have seen it all before - are you experienced enough to handle fish over 40lb and realistic enough to know what your chances of a bite really are? Would you see a blank as failure or the first piece of the jigsaw. Based on what I have said already I assume you are likely to be considering Mallard, Sandmartin or Bluebell. On all lakes there will be times when the majority of fish will follow the wind and times when they will be happier on the back of it, like anywhere else. My first tip would be travel light - you are not camping! Make sure you have floaters and a floater set-up ready to go, likewise with stalking. At this time of year (on any lake) I would expect to be fishing over a little bait through the night on spots in the usual way, then reeling in late morning/lunchtime and going off to locate the fish again to try stalking/floaters through the afternoon. All lakes are busy so you may have to choose the quietest for your stalking. Unless you have an extreme low pressure system come in at this time of year I would say heavy baiting would be a big mistake. Come back to me with a little bit more as I said initially and I can decide what is relevant without rambling on. Cheers