More Stalking Carp & Night Session

During the next few days on my angling adventures, my aim was to catch a carp from one of the harder lakes on my local club complex. The days were getting warmer and I was rather excited, deciding to target these carp from the harder lakes with surface or slow sinking baits, as well as bringing a few bits and pieces for some opportunist bottom bait fishing in the edge. I arrived the day after I had that enjoyable session with Ollie to find that a few carp on the middle lake were yet again cruising and basking. I tried again to gently lower baits into their path but all I was greeted with was the fish spooking and also completely ignoring my bait. I couldn't believe it at some of the points as I managed to gently get the bait to kiss the water and hardly leaving a dimple on the surface but they were still spooking. After a few hours of frustration, I placed a bottom bait in the edge on the middle lake on a small barrel bait which eventually was eventually engulfed by a bream. After this, I felt I should call it quits and go home and think about how to tempt those fish that were showing.

I again returned and tried the two harder lakes which again was a frustrating affair. This time I had stocked up on more dog biscuits as lose feed, therefore I opted to go on the slightly easier lake in search of getting off the mark. After a few minutes of trickling in dog biscuits I managed to get a few nice carp coming up and taking a few mixers and then dropping down again in the pads. It took a while to get one fish confident but with little helpings of mixers now and then one fish started to slurp a fair few up. I saw this as an opportunity, so I casted just above its path and tweaked the biscuit back slightly. This was a painstaking moment as the fish continued to slurp and coming rapidly closer to the hook bait. The first turned and slurped in my mixer along with another; this was met by a firm strike and I had a good fish on. I instantly put some steady pressure on the fish in order to guide it out of the pads, but unfortunately it kited at an unexpected time and therefore consequently pulling my hook. As you can imagine, I was disappointed as I was pretty sure it was a double figure fish, which to me would have been more than welcome. Not feeling too sorry for myself, I chucked out a few more mixers in the pads to see if I could re-gain another carp's confidence. After just over half an hour of watching the odd carp come up now and then and take the odd mixer, I noticed one fish quite happily helping himself to quite a few of my freebies. This I felt was another opportunity and as it was continuing to feed, I managed to cast perfectly over it and gently tease my biscuit bag with leaving barely a dimple on the surface film. This fish hurried to my biscuit in the appetising position it was, and with no suspicion whatsoever, took the bait as good as gold. I lifted decisively into a nice carp and I was ready to cup the spool when it tried to charge in the pads. After a mental battle of kiting left to right and diving down deep, putting my barbel rod to test, I managed to guide it into my waiting net. This was a great result and I punched the air with delight as I was so happy to get some great sport. This fish was no monster but decent enough for my liking! After this quick picture I slipped the nice common back to its watery home and after that I decided to head home and get some revision done.

Low Double Common off the top!

A day or so later, my good friend Oscar Bates and I chose to do a night on the middle lake. The lake itself is shallow and silty and has a good head of carp to over 20lbs (rumours of 30s), Tench to around 7lbs and some nice bream. We opted to fish bottom bait rigs with one rod each after carp and one rod each after bream or tench. Oscar had managed a rather large tench specimen from this swim from the reeds straight ahead, therefore we opted to put our tench and bream rods towards this zone. The carp rods we aimed at the pads nearby on the left after spreading a generous helping of bait in the area. I managed to hit the areas I wished first attempt and after a couple on his carp rod Oscar got a perfect cast on this carp rod. It was just after he had sunk his line and put on the bobbin his alarm screamed off, but when this was met with a positive lift into the take there was unfortunately nothing there. After Oscar put his rod back in, we had a good chat about various things and watched the light fade. It wasn't until midnight but after a few bleeps on my carp rod, it slowly started to rip off and I was also connecting into nothing. We both found this somewhat confusing as there was nothing wrong with our rigs or bait presentation. We assumed it was tench or bream picking up the bait and not being hooked properly but I still do wonder whether it wasn't carp getting away with it.

After a reasonably cold night and the light starting to arrive again, I re-casted both of my rods and it wasn't long after this until I got a run on the tench and bream rod. I lifted into a weight of some description, but this was a leaping bream! I was pleased to be off the mark. I re-casted again to the same spot and again, it wasn't long until a bream had latched onto my bait. After doing another quick flick into a similar position, the next take was a slow but decisive take with the bobbin shooting up. I was again connected to a small fish, but the way it was fighting would to me suggest it was a tench. Sure enough, a small male tench popped up which was great to see as it shows a hopeful sign of new big tench for the future. Oscar had also managed tench similar to this size, which is a good sign of flourishing recruitment for future bigger tench. One more bream was to follow, but it was a nice little session and social with Oscar and certainly looking forward to having more trips with him in the near future...

Tench for the future!

Tight Lines,

Tom