Looking forward

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Looking forward

After my little flirtation with the canal and with the arrival of the big thaw I decided to get back out on the lake I had been dabbling on. The lake itself is shallow and contains a big stock of carp, somewhere in the region of 300+ fish with quite a few big fish amongst them up to 40 pounds. Early in the year when the water temperature is still around the low 40's this lake really is the best option as it offers the very best chance of getting a big fish early in the year during conditions where a large percentage of other , deeper waters are yet to respond.

Unfortunately for me, the lake is also open to all and as such it is always busy. Well, when I say always, what usually happens is that the die hard anglers who persist through the early part of the year and who do all the work, start to see light at the end of the tunnel, as they see the first few fish hit the banks and then the internet anglers or 'dial a carp,' as we refer to them, wait for the first snippets of information that a few are getting caught, and then descend in numbers to cash in; a sad reflection of the modern carp “angler,” but such are the pitfalls of this type of water.

Anyway,  it seemed that every time I got a couple of nights to get down there it was busy, as most anglers jumped in on the action and the areas where the fish were getting caught, so it was a frustrating time for me. The upside though, is that on this water lots of anglers means a large and regular turnover, so it is not unusual for me to turn up at night to find the lake very busy only for large areas of bank to empty out the following morning, so it is swings and roundabouts.

On the first trip I blanked; on the second it got mild, but all I caught was a bream. The next trip down I caught a bream and a nice mirror of low twenties on a bag of maggots on the first night, where I actually got into a swim near to where the fish were held up. As you can see, it was quite frustrating for much of the time.

All that was to change, however, on the next trip down.

I arrived around 7pm, weary from the rush hour queues on the M25 and M3, but glad to finally be there, only to then take another blow as the lake was very busy with all the likely areas sown up, so I dropped into a swim that was left, which bizzarely enough, was one I'd earmarked as a good bet. With people either side of me I didn’t feel confident, but knew I could escape the lines along my own bank by going long, so I really wound up the sk4's and punched out three single hookbaits to the middle of the lake.

The evening was really mild and it was odds on that something was going to happen, so I sat up listening for fish 'till the early hours. I heard several “show” between twelve and two am, and they were in front of me, but across towards the far side and out of range. As far as I knew, there was someone across on the far bank, so I turned in to get a few hours kip and hope for a bite.

I was up before light looking, but nothing showed itself and as it got lighter, I was sure that the swim opposite, where I'd heard the fish was empty, but it was still difficult to see clearly enough. By half seven though, I could tell the swim was empty, the occupant obviously having left for work before I was even up.

As quickly as possible I reeled in and set off round the lake to claim the swim before someone else did because make no mistake, it would have gone within the hour for sure. All the way round I was expecting someone to run round from the other bank with a bucket or similar and claim it before me, but I needn't have worried and soon I'd staked my claim.

Back in my original swim I had a leisurely pack down before moving the remainder round.

I almost forgot, I had a journalist arriving later in the morning to shoot a magazine feature so the pressure was on now!

I had never fished the new swim before so wasn’t sure about the areas, but one of my friends wised me up and I soon had three rods out in a deeper gully at long range and sat back with the kettle on. Up until this point every bite had come to maggots, but as it was so mild I decided to use food as I was sure they would be more awake ,and hungry after the long winter.

I was fishing my favourite small pieces of peperami on the hook with small funnelweb bags of minced tinned anchovies mixed with a little fishmeal groundbait and oil and they were stinking, but perfect for the conditions.

My friend from the magazine turned up mid morning and had only just sat down when I got a bite!

Sometimes things do go to plan after all, and the timing of the bite was just perfect.

Soon enough I netted a nice upper double common, so the mag got their pictures and for me it was job done.

The action didn’t end there though, later in the afternoon I hooked into a big fish, that took lots of line, but unfortunately fell off after a protracted battle, but I went on to hook a few more after that ending up with five carp by the following morning, the best of which, was a lovely old linear mirror of over thirty pounds. Needless to say, I packed up happy that it had come right and keen for the following week.

Cheers,

Nick.

• Carp Fishing