Harry Almond I made the 200 mile trip to Cambridge for the first trip this year, fortunate enough to have a ticket on this lake, steeped in history. This is my second trip after a blank in December , conditions were far from great with freezing temps and high pressure but somehow managed to pull it out the bag, a small group of fish were grouped in a small bay , so boating the rod to a near dot island and just flicking a small lead and a hinge rig up to the far margin keeping disturbance to a minimum, half a dozen pouches of cell and iso fish over the top and then creeping the boat back to the swim. A bite early on in the evening saw a love scaley double , always a memorable one the first fish , I repeated the process getting the rod repositioned and an hour before first light the rod was away again, felt much different this time and eventually a large common found its way into the net, there no other feeling like it, hard frost on the ground and a proper one sat in the sling. A call to mark and he was soon heading down to meet me, one they call slope head, getting on for 45 years old and a real privilege to get a chance to hold her up for some pictures , my first February 40 , absolutely made up