Back on the old estate lake

 I made my return this morning to the old estate lake to target the tench, with a low pressure front moving through over night and a gentle south / south westerly wind conditions looked perfect.
 As I made my way down to the lake at half four it seemed even more so as I could see fish fizzing and bubbling allover the place and by 4.40am had one rod out with a bolt rigged maggot feeder rig. Previously I have sent this rod well out into the lake past where the weed beds were starting to pop but today it was clear the fish were feeding much closer in and so it went out only 30 yards or so slightly to my left. I had only just cast my second rod out, this time on my usual groundbait feeder rig and again shorter than normal when the alarm sounded on the other rod and line peeled off the spool. I was kind of half expecting a quick bite this morning and tench number one rolled into the net at ten to five, a very nice looking golden colour and the smallest I have had this year from this water going a good 3lb.
 Soon afterwards whilst just rolling a cig the feeder rod whacked me on the thigh!(this leaves me with a bit of a dilemma that I will come back to) Now I was sure I had not knocked it and dropped what I was doing and grabbed hold, good job really as tench number 2 put up a good scrap. Doing the usual trick of kiting around the reed beds I waded through and netted a nice 5 pounder. I expected plenty more to follow but it went quiet until around 7am when I heard an almighty scream of 'GET IN' that made me jump.
 I couldn't work out if it was on the bank as there was already a car in the car park when I arrived or up on the main road until someone shouted a little quieter if I could lend a hand so with that I wound the rods in and headed along the bank. The chap in the next peg was carp fishing and had managed to bag one of the much sought after fish from the lake and requested some photo's taking. I over looked the scales and the fish went 24lb 12oz. Now as you know I am not much of a carp angler but this was a fine old looking fish and the lad told me it was his very first from the water and had had 21 blank trips prior to today so he was over the moon, I stopped and chatted for a while before heading back to my swim.
 First chuck out and the rods had only been on the rests 5 minutes when the tip nudged around and I struck into what felt like a smaller fish, it turned out to be a nice bream around 4lb. Afterwards I was surprised by the lack of interest from the fish as they were still fizzing away out in the lake but it seemed to take forever for the next bite to come, at around half past eight the tip slammed around and another nice 5lb tench made its way into the waiting net but sadly that was the end of the action for today, by 9am the fish had stopped fizzing and despite a south westerly blowing a nice ripple at me no more bites came and I packed up at half ten.
 Now back to the dilemma I was talking about. When I started my campaign on here I was adamant that I did not want to sit behind a pair of alarms and bait runners so opted for traditional feeder tactics and baits before introducing a second 'sleeper' rod on an alarm just to try and tempt an extra bite or two. However it has now become clear that some days they prefer maggot and caster feed and others a carpet of food laced groundbait. I had been slightly worried of the feeder rod going off whilst doing something else with the other rod and tried to keep a good eye on it but with savage bites coming out of the blue I risk loosing a rod or worse tethering a fish. I would still like to sit and watch a quiver tip but I'm now seriously thinking of swapping to two rods on alarms, after all the fish come first and I can still fish light ish line and groundbait feeders.
Your thoughts and suggestions please....................