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Thanks, I spend a lot of time in the water hunting for feeding spots and clear patches when I'm at the lake. I know the course of the old stream bed, and pretty much know when the shallows get to swan reach depth. The swans can get to be a right pain. There are 3 pairs on the lake, one at the dam and who is extremely dominant and a pair two thirds of the way up who regularly argue with the shallows pair. We then have as many as 150 to 200 transient swans who are not yet old enough to have a territory that have been ejected by their parents. The dominant pairs (males especially) will attack or bully them. The Fens on the Norfolk and Suffolk border are a big area for the younger swans. We don't feed them, but some of the reserves do. For us swans can get onto bait or go through lines with absolutely no idea, yet geese and ducks avoid the lines.

Went to a local days only park lake yesterday and in 8 hours had 7 fish including 2 x 18lb'ers and a PB common from that lake of 19lb. It really was a case of "buying your fish" as I used about 8 litres of spod mix and about 2kg of boilies. Every time I topped up the swim, the bites would immediately start and then go quiet about 15 minutes, which was the cue to top up. I had to ease up about half way through as I was starting to run out! I'm sure I would have caught more if I had knocked up another pressure cooker load. I chatted to a couple of blokes on the way out and they had struggled but they did say they didn't put in many freebies. This time of year, the fish really are up for a good feed. I'm sure that if I had gone down the "PVA bag and one bite at a time", I would have struggled.