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Trip 16 Carp Fishing – 2019

With the man flu finally fading away (I hope), I’ve popped down my Estate Lake (my new lake) for a few hours today.  This will still take a fair bit of effort, which I need to be mindful of, as gardening season is just around the corner and it’s time to stock the family fund up again!

After spotting some carp yesterday in the bay behind the island and with more sunshine today, that just had to…

I did manage to arrive just on dusk for a quick look about – a fellow Syndicate member had messaged me about the number of anglers and the swims taken.  This was a mega help – thanks Woody.

On the drive down, I put some thought into the weather conditions and where the fish had been seen recently.  I picked an area to head for, as there clearly was not enough time to look everywhere.  I had a choice if 7 swims which were perfect and my choice was soon made up.

I set up the Deeper, marker and my 2 carp rods as I like to get the deeper out there.  With a nice southerly wind, it drifted across the swim nicely and I then flicked the maker out as a point of reference.  I felt the lake bed until I found what I was looking for, then reeled down to the float and clipped up.  When I am setting up in the dark, I like to only fish one spot as its hard work baiting up, casting accurately, spomb out bait and come the next day, if I feel there is another spot in the swim I will then bait that up for the second night.  I think it is best this way otherwise there will be too much of a spread of bait.

The rain arrived at just before 9pm and its been here all night.  It will be here most of the day, which is a bit of a shame but it will give me a chance to sort through the tackle box, think, play with a few rigs and refine things a bit.

No joy in the night and this morning so far will have to get the Deeper out at some point and see if there’s another interesting spot to fish and top up the swim with some more ground bait & chopped Smokey Jack boilies.

The rain today just continued all day long and I was pretty much bivvy bound until later afternoon.  Around noon time, I sorted out the rods and stuck a few more ground bait balls out.

    There was nearly a glimmer of sunshine just be dusk after the rain had stopped.

Which was very nice to see.  It gave me a bit of an opportunity to stretch my legs, get some tea on and settle down for the night.  This was broken by a bream on the righthand rod just before 11pm.  That was the only action of the night and I was only disturbed by the geese just before 8am doing their morning honking routine.

The weather conditions were a lot better than I expected.  I was pretty confident over the session and even had a couple of fish roll over the area, these were clearly carp but unfortunately, the bream picked up the bait.

I have just under 2 hrs before pack up time and as we all know it only takes a moment in time to change the session from a blank into a trip of a lifetime.  This is why we love the game so much.

Until next time

Richard

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Trip 3 Perch Fishing – 2019

With a few hours spare (and more to the point I had finally sorted out some perch fishing), I had a go on my local day ticket water.  I took a small rod with a few choices of jig heads and had a play around.

I knew there were perch in here, so I headed for the dead pads and would you believe my luck?  On the third cast into the swim, 1lb 1oz will do me for a starting point.

Not a happy Perch.

I…

Ever since I started carp fishing (back in the early 80’s), I’ve recorded my fishing trips not just catch report but a log of the time spent on the lake, hours fished and a description of features, bait, rig, weather etc.

I’ve got a big stack of log books and I have even started to add this to my computer.  I have a memory stick full of them but I find it too hard to analyze information.  I then…

As my favorite swim was free and the wind was pushing from the south, there was no other choice.  My Deeper lake book map had certainly paid off the other night and the spot was looking good.

The spomb was still clipped up from my last trip (which was a help).  I got about 10 Spombs of a mixture of SF tiger & hemp Particle, a mixture of the pellets I have been playing with and some catalyst boilies all out there.  I then did the rods with a mixture of the same in small bags with 15mm catalyst Wafters on both and to my amazement, the first take came about 2130 to the left-hand rod (again) and after a very hard fight, I had a nice 22lb common sitting in the Nsr 50.

      22lb Common

  Not a bad start, I was feeling very happy with myself after throughs hard months.

The second take came on at 2330, around the same time as my first take the other night.  As I was playing the fish, the other rod pulled up and then slowly dropped down, after another good fight the next fish was in the Nsr 50.  I picked up the other rod, unfortunately with no fish on but the rig was in a right mess, the fish had managed to shed the hook.

      22 lb Mirror

The fish in the Nsr turned out to be another 22lber on the dot.  I’m glad I use digital scales and a zero them every time otherwise I would have thought I was seeing things.

I got both rods back out there again and settled back on my bedchair, thinking this is more like it.

This is turning into one of them trips to remember.  Well in fact it has.  My next take came sometime around 0045 and it was a pretty good fight.  I avoided the tree to my right and the fish slipped over the cord of the Nsr very easily.  When I looked in the net, oh wow now that’s a lump and when I lifted it out the water, oh boy.  After three times of checking the weight of the sling and zeroing the scales again, I settled on a weight of 40lb 1oz and the joy filled the air.

      40-1 Mirror

I was well over the moon and this had been a long time coming.  No sooner than that fish was back in the water, my right hand rod was away and with an amazing battle this time another fish was in the net and ready for some snaps.

      22.12 common

This one was like a torpedo, which was why I had much difficulty getting it in the net. With both rod’s back out, it was time to spomb some more bait out to keep them in the area.  Not sure if I will get any sleep tonight, it’s just after 0200 but I don’t care – I’ve just had a 40lber and a new PB.

I think the next run was about 0245, it was a very hard fight avoiding the overhanging tree to my right.  Which unfortunately resulted in me picking up the right-hand rods back lead, oh boy but the fight was soon done and a lovely 29.6oz common was in the net.

      29.12 Common

The next take came along at about 0340 with another nice common gracing the net.

      24.11 Common

There was a break in action until about 7am, which gave me the chance to a little bit of sleep until the next run arrived. I also took all the rod’s out again the fish kitted left under and around the tree.

      24.2 Common

With the rods back out, I topped up the swim with a few more Spombs of the particle mix, I was low on boilies and pellet, so I had only for bags now.  As I really needed to use them as I was fishing weed, there was an amazing amount of weed floating around, (which was partly due to me and the rest due to the carp ripping up the bottom), there were still signs if fish, so you never know.  The sun was very much up and on full blast.

Well, folks that was it and what a night it was.  I’m not going to forget that for some time to come.

Think the pictures are all in the right place, does get a bit hard with these common carp.

Until next time

Richard

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Trip 42 Carp Fishing – 2018

It’s been over a week since my last trip, this years number of trips have been reduced down, due to my extension being built and my part-time gardening job, going a bit full time, this happens every Summer.  This is a big factor why the number of fish I am catching (or should I say not catching) are down.  It’s all about time, observation and it’s simple, if your not out on the lake how will you…

Trip 30 Carp Fishing – 2018

Well, this was a surprise trip.  After messaging Ian about not thinking I would be down the lake on Sunday night as the weather was looking rubbish.  As luck would have it he was already there and with one of those begging texted to the wife, she gave me a weekend pass.  I am off fishing for the weekend.  My wife is so understanding. (I love you).

With my swim already selected, my brain was…