For a couple of days this week, at several venues, the carp began to scour the edges towards the end of the day.

Warmer water saw a feeding frenzy at Marsh Trail Lakes, giving good vibes for the forthcoming festival at the beginning of May. Grown on from last year, a new crop of near 2lb commons browsed Lake A's edges at the left hand side while hot-peg number one had much larger fish.

Across the way on the far bank, the close in six foot plus deep troughs saw tench beginning to make their presence felt with their firm green flanks and beady eye making a run of 2lb tincas most attractive.

Topcroft's silver fish have been on the move at 7-8 metres and the bigger boys amongst the bream have spawning follicles beginning to show on their stubby foreheads. For those fishing the red maggot on scaled down terminal tackle, and in spite of the Autumn's netting of them, 3-5 ounce skimmers have been slowly sucking in the bait and drawing the float down slowly in impressive for numbers with 12-14 lb for a day's outing.

At Aldeby Hall Fishery it has been the bream boosting catches for the faithful who like the tree-lined swims and average reasonable depths but here too big carp have begun to browse in the Norfolk reed whipping away at great speed as soon as they feel the tightness of elastic or when well out the weight of the pellet method feeder pulls tight. Broome Pit A is still providing quality bream and tench fishing. Cherry Tree president Sam Patrick had three seven pounder bream on the feeder, and treasurer Colyn Taylor three near 6lb tench in an outing with his pole.

It is the AGM season with clubs looking for support to continue their administration, hone rules from members' suggestions and take on board in some cases amendments for those miscreants who just cannot resist the temptation to bend the rules. Even small club matches appear prone to those who still sneakily use hard shot in some sizes and have been found with barbed hooks. Some fishery owners have had to remove nylon from waste-bin receptacles which have been found to also contain banned bait samples. Albeit bread may seem an unlikely source but reminds one to check and decide when hook baits are actually boilies although maybe in miniature.

Then of course it is time the year's new Environment Agency Licence comes into play with these days a good team of Enforcement Officers out checking on the banks. An expensive mistake that can run into hundreds of pounds.