I went to Albury, on Monday evening, for the first time in ages, mainly because I have been too busy and Ernie has been in hospital for several weeks now. I first looked at Weston Lakes but decided that it was too weedy and then went on to Vale End. Both lakes were virtually clear of weed but of course there were several people there.

I found that at the far end of the big lake, several places were free. As I had found a daddy long legs in the shower that morning, so I started with a dry daddy. I changed to a different dry daddy but still had no luck even though I had seen several fish breaking the surface. In the end I gave up with dries and went to an Ugly Bugger.

I had been fishing with this for about five minutes when the phone rang. It was the office checking my availability for work on Tuesday morning. As I spoke my line curved away. I got off the phone quite quickly and started to play the fish. It shot off and ran almost to the other side of the lake. It then leapt out of the water, in an aerobatic display. It took some time to land but eventually it weighed in at 3 1/4Lbs.

I changed files a couple more times and on each one I had very positive tugs but did not hook anything. The other problem at this time of year is the evenings are drawing in and it is dark by 8:45pm.

The fish I caught replaced the one we had from the freezer, during the day. We had had a family Bar-B-Que for five people and it rounded the day off nicely for me.