The Middle Level at Magdalen High Road

This Sunday almost turned into a complete waste of time for me but I managed to save the day with a last ditch effort on the feeder.
It was my week to drive and after a very poor nights sleep I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30 as I had arranged to pick Graham up at 7.30, when we pulled away from his house we still didn't have a firm plan of where we were going. Earlier in the week we had discussed going down the Welland as it had been fishing reasonably well but the weather wasn't the best for the venue and I had struggled when I had a short session on Thursday night and so we headed out to Ten Mile Bank. On arrival it didn't look very inviting and on speaking with a few anglers  it was apparent that it was going to be a difficult day and so we decided to head for the Northern End of the Middle Level at Magdalen.

Map showing the Northern end of the Middle Level

It was 11.00 before we got fishing and I had decided to fish the pole as we had done well with this method on the venue in the past, wrong. After an hour and 15 minutes I packed the pole away as I hadn't had a single bite and Graham had only managed 1 small Skimmer on the feeder. I had some lunch and went for a walk along the bank to contemplate what to do next, now I have to admit that going home was top of the list as I felt knackered but I decided to go back and set up the feeder rod and give it until 2.30 to see if I could salvage the day.
I set up a standard paternoster rig with a medium feeder a size 16 hook on a 3ft tail and
after a few chucks with the feeder I started getting indications on the tip and soon connected with a Skimmer of about a pound. I kept the feed going in by recasting every few minutes even if I hadn't had a bite and over the next couple of hours had a few more fish between 4oz and a pound. The last 1/2 an hour saw the swim come alive and the tip was often going around as the feeder hit the bottom and with that I called it a day as I wanted to have a quick nap before driving home. I had saved the day with 10lb of Skimmers and I am sure that had I carried on for another hour I could have doubled that weight. Graham ended up with a few pounds of fish for his trouble but his peg didn't really come alive like mine did towards the end of the session


A catch of decent sized Skimmers from the Middle Level Main Drain

I hope to get back on the level this coming weekend as it is one of my favourite summer venues for quality Skimmers and I am sure I am overdue for a decent catch, here's hoping.
Cheers