Following last month’s diary piece where I described events surrounding the two Nash roadshows that I’d been involved in, I received quite a bit of feedback and a number of queries about various aspects regarding sponsorship (I’m very fortunate to be a consultant for two very successful and well regarded companies; Nash Tackle and Dynamite Baits). I was going to devote much of this month’s article to answering these related queries and highlight what can be involved with angling related sponsorship/consultancy.
However, as I’ve enjoyed some rather exciting fishing this last month I’m going to leave discussing the subject of sponsorships until next time and concentrate on telling you about the carp fishing that I’ve been doing recently.
As is often the case my recent success has come about as the end result of a bit of a campaign. This particular campaign had its origin a few months back, so I’d better start at the beginning and relate the relevant events that bring us up to date.
It all started off with the opportunity to do a bit of social carp fishing with a good friend of mine, Steve, who I’ve known now for around 15 years or so. Although we’ve never really fished together where we’ve both been targeting a specific venue, Steve and I usually manage a social session about once a year, with me usually fishing as a guest on one of his carp waters whenever this was allowed. This year however I had thoughts of possibly joining a local water that gave me a chance of doing some carp fishing close to home during the summer months; something that I could potentially fit in around my various other commitments when the opportunity arose. Steve was also on the lookout for another water to carp fish as an alternative to his regular syndicate venue so we ended up looking at a few club waters that had potential for a big fish or two.
As it happened, our first choice of venue appeared to have suffered from the effects of the flooding during the late spring period and there was a possibility that the biggest fish had disappeared into the nearby River Nene. Fortunately Steve was soon highlighting another pit controlled by a local club with a small head of around 12 to 15 old original carp, a few of which were 30lb plus. The largest of the old originals was a really nice solid-looking common that rarely saw the bank but had been out at over 40lb the last few times it had been caught. Not having ever had a common over 40lb I was suitably impressed with a picture of the fish at over 44lb at its last capture back in March that I was soon in possession of the requisite club book.
It was around the middle of June when I had the first opportunity to walk around the pit with Steve, and I immediately felt at home on the place. It’s quite a small and very mature pit with lots of overhanging trees, reedbeds, and masses of weed visible through the lovely clear water and several little overgrown carpy looking corners and finger bays. That first short visit was a weekday evening and there wasn’t anyone fishing the pit at all, which tended to support the idea that this particular water had pretty much gone under the radar, despite holding a handful of very desirable fish. Obviously being really quiet also added to its appeal and we were soon making plans for the first session.
The first fishing trip was a couple of nights squeezed in towards the end of June before heading off for two weeks exploring the catfish potential on a stretch of the River Ebro (detailed in an earlier FM diary piece). No carp were caught but a couple of small tench got the indicators moving and I was encouraged by what I’d seen. I’d certainly enjoyed the first session and couldn’t wait to get back to have another go.
The next opportunity for a session came around mid July and actually produced a couple of carp.
The first fish came about as a result of a couple of hours’ stalking in one of the shallower areas where I’d seen several carp mooching around using a large weedbed that reached up to the surface as a kind of focal point for their otherwise seemingly random wanderings. Every now and then one or two of the carp would dip down for a quick munch through the silt and fine weed in the area surrounding the big weedbed, disturbing small clouds of fine silt and other debris and the occasional stream of little bubbles as they browsed. None of the feeding spells appeared at all sustained; in fact they usually dipped down for just a few seconds before coming up again and continuing with their wanderings.
Half an hour of careful study revealed that one of the favourite ‘dipping’ spots for the carp was close to a corner of the big weedbed; easily reached with an underarm flick, using the weed on the surface as a handy visual marker. I had a chod rig already set up on the rod I had with me, and after tying on a fresh 15mm pop-up I had the rig in position while there weren’t any carp too close to the little spot I’d decided to target. About a dozen free offerings were carefully thrown out by hand and I sat on the grass in the early afternoon sun, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, with the rod on the ground next to me with the freespool, the reel engaged and the line left nice and slack between the rod tip and the rig.
About an hour or so had gone by when suddenly there was a frantic ‘Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’ from the reel and a split second later I was on my knees with the rod well-bent and an angry carp trying its best to put the weedbed between me and it. Fortunately the carp wasn’t too sure about which way was best for it to go and I was able to keep it from ploughing through the bulk of the weed and within a short time I’d got a very pretty fish within the folds of the landing net. I’d got my weigh sling, scales and camera with me, all carried together with some bits of tackle and bait essentials in my large corral-style unhooking mat, so it was a quick job to record a weight of 17lb 4oz of near perfect fully-scaled mirror and to take a couple of quick photos on the mat before slipping her back and heading off to my chosen swim for the night ahead.
Early the following morning my first cup of tea of the day was interrupted by a very welcome message from one of the alarms and a few minutes later a lovely dark common weighing 21lb 4oz was in the net. As I was the only angler on the pit at the time, a couple of quick shots of the fish on the mat had to suffice before she was slid back to her watery home.
The pit is quite weedy, with many areas covered in silkweed, and others with large clumps of that tough weed with the feathery leaves that tend to stick together like Velcro if it gets wrapped around your line or end tackle. With the totally clean areas very few and far between my static tactics were to find the clearer areas and fish ‘choddies’ with either 15 or 20mm pop-ups over a bed of boilies fired out by catapult (or simply thrown by hand if the spot was close enough). These clearer areas were initially found via leading around but careful observation, especially early in the morning and in the evenings, would often have the carp themselves indicating precise areas that were worth further investigation.
Depending on the swim I fished either two or three rods depending on the space available and the number of likely spots in the swim that were worth putting a bait on. In some of the swims it would have been counter-productive to have tried to squeeze in three rods and fishing just two separate little spots was more than enough, especially when most of the fishing was at quite close range.
With the success of the mid-July trip showing that the carp really liked the bait, I made a decision to up the levels I was introducing to try and ensure that the larger, and potentially more cautious, individuals got to see plenty of it and would hopefully look forward to eating the bait whenever they came across it. My chosen bait was the shelf life version of Dynamite Bait’s Sardine and Anchovy boilies, using the cork dust pop-ups in the same sizes glugged in the matching bait dip tied to my chod rigs. It didn’t take too much persuading to convince Steve that he should also switch to the same bait, which would work to both of our advantages, as we’d both be keeping plenty of free bait going in to various spots on a regular basis.
Things were relatively quiet on my next session, with not much showing after making my initial swim choice, although a move to the other end of the pit resulted in a brief period of excitement while packing up on the final morning.
With nearly everything stashed away, including the alarms and bank sticks etc, and just the final rod left out on the ground, the freespool suddenly burst into life as the bait was picked up. Unfortunately, before I could gain any sort of proper control, the fish found sanctuary in the nearest weedbed. As is often the case though, a few moments of constant pressure soon had it moving again, although it was difficult to determine exactly what was on the end as the bulk of the weight was made up of a large clump of weed that appeared to virtually enclose whatever it was that was swimming around on the end of the line. Eventually I was able to bundle everything into the landing net and a quick search through the weed revealed a better than average tench that had very sportingly decided to save me from an otherwise blank session.
The following week I was off for bit of a holiday with my girlfriend and only managed to fit in one further trip to the pit before going off to attend the two Nash Roadshows detailed in my last FM diary. No carp were caught during this particular session, but I did have a couple of bream up to about 9lb and some more tench which demonstrated that everything was enjoying the bait whenever they found it.
While I was away on my roadshow related duties Steve managed to bag his first carp from the pit, a nice mid-twenty common called ‘Pinkie’ due to a stumpy little growth sticking out from in front of one of its pectoral fins.
It was getting towards late August before I could get back for another session and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do many more trips for the carp before the temptation of fishing for the bream back on Ferry Lagoon or the big perch on the reservoir became too strong to resist.
The late summer heat saw the smaller carp enjoying the warmth of the shallow water of the bays and in front of the big reed bed on the east bank during the day when the sun was at its highest, but the larger residents were keeping a relatively low profile. However we were coming into September, one of my favourite months for carp fishing, when I often find that in favourable conditions they like to have a good feed up prior to the onset of the colder weather later in the autumn.
In previous years when I’ve been concentrating on carp fishing September has been a particularly kind month for me; and so it proved half way through my next session when my first 30lb plus fish from the pit, an old warrior of a common known as ‘Cut Tail’, was landed after a remarkably feeble fight that consisted of being almost wound straight into the margins where it had a couple of lunges before allowing me to steer it over the net cord; the scales came up with a reading of 31lb 3oz.
This particular carp appears to have become the ‘mug’ fish for the water and had probably made up nearly half of the overall carp catches from the water during the year up to that time. It was a lovely old character though and I was very pleased to have briefly made its acquaintance. It also brought my tally of carp from the pit for the year to three, which was a pretty respectable total for a place that is generally regarded as pretty hard by the anglers that have spent some time on there.
However things were soon to get even better.
On the next session another friend Paul, who had been fishing the pit since the early spring and had a handful of carp from the pit already to his credit, lost a decent fish within a couple of hours of arriving. Paul thought that it had felt like a decent fish and we were left wondering whether he’d lost the big common that only ever seemed to get caught either once or twice a year… and had already been out in March. With Steve on holiday and only Paul and I on the pit things were pretty quiet and the rest of the session appeared to heading for a blank for both of us, however with another night of my session left the breeze decided to pick up a bit and a move to another swim that was receiving more of a direct hit from the strengthening wind appeared to be the thing to do.
Approximately two hours after getting the rods out in the new swim I was ‘away’ on the left-hand rod and soon chuckling to myself as I recognised ‘Cut Tail’ going into the net again for the second time in just over a week! It was clearly enjoying feasting on the Sardine and Anchovy boilies as the scales showed that it was now at a weight of 31lb 15oz.
Things weren’t to end there though, as early the following morning I had another run and a few minutes later was slipping the net under a long lean common that looked to be around mid twenties. Once the fish was on the mat it was easy to identify as ‘Pinkie’, the fish that Steve had caught while I’d been away doing the roadshows, and Paul had caught on a zig rig a few weeks previously. This time around it weighed in at 23lb 5oz.
This was possibly going to be my last session on the pit this year, as I knew that I’d have to have a concentrated effort for the big reservoir perch if they turned up, as they seemed to have only a few short weeks when they were at their most catchable before being almost impossible to track down and catch again for the rest of the year. With a few days set aside for some fishing the following week, it was either going to be perch if I heard of any being caught at the weekend, or one last crack at the carp if the perch were still a ‘no show’.
As it happened the weekend passed without any perch being caught from the reservoir to my knowledge, so a last session for the carp of the club water pit was hastily organised.
I arrived early on the Monday morning, with two anglers remaining from the weekend, but both due to pack up later that morning. With the swim that I’d caught the two carp from on my last session free and a steady breeze pushing invitingly into the bank, it wasn’t a hard decision to start off by flicking a couple of single baits out from the same swim until later in the day when any change of swim could be decided on.
Paul arrived soon after and headed for the corner where he’d lost the big fish a couple of weeks’ previously. Steve arrived later in the morning and once the guys who’d been fishing the weekend had packed up and gone he opted to go into the swim to my right that gave access to the middle part of the pit that we’d both been baiting up on a regular basis.
By late morning it was time to reposition the rigs with fresh hookbaits and introduce about a kilo of bait spread between the three rods. Everything was sorted by lunchtime and with the breeze still continuing to push towards my swim and with nicely overcast but relatively mild conditions it looked promising for some sort of action.
Just as it was starting to get dark the indicator on the middle rod pulled up tight and the reel had only just clicked off a couple of inches of line before I’d picked up the rod and pulled into the fish. It felt like a good heavy one and it managed to briefly weed itself twice before I was able to gratefully guide it into the landing net without too much further drama. A quick glance into the net revealed a short but very broad mirror that I guessed was going to reveal itself as a fish called ‘Lumpy’, the second biggest carp in the pit.
Steve and Paul were soon round to help with the fish on the bank, where we could confirm a weight of 35lb 5oz. A few photos and the lovely old fish was soon back in its home, none the worst for its short trip above the surface.
The following night was fairly quiet apart from the odd single beep from the alarms, but early morning observations indicated that there were still a couple of carp in the general area.
By early afternoon Steve and Paul had gravitated over to my swim as we all stuffed ourselves with fish and chips that Paul had fetched from the local village chippie and I was then kept busy supplying tea and coffee while we sat around discussing all things carpy.
Suddenly, without warning, an alarm demanded attention as something picked up the bait on my right-hand rod! I was soon bent into a carp that clearly wasn’t happy at making a mistake and was making a determined effort to bury itself into the biggest weedbed it could find.
I was able to extract it from that first weedbed, but there was a large clump of the horrible clingy weed that didn’t want to slide down the line and it made control of the fish incredibly awkward. The carp made several powerful runs into the various weedbeds dotted about the swim and got stuck solid several times before steady pressure got it on the move again. All this time the clump of weed stuck on the line stubbornly refused to slide down towards the fish, meaning that for most of the time that the carp was swimming about in the open water, I was pulling against the weed fixed on the line while the fish went pretty much wherever it liked.
Due to the weight and powerful determination displayed by the fish all three of us were starting to consider the possibility that I was playing the big common and when the fish finally showed itself clearly for the first time we could see that it was indeed a big fish, but that it was still another 15yrds further back from the weed that was still somehow clamped onto the mainline.
At this point Steve suggested that he wade out into the margins whilst I walked back up the bank to get the weed on the line close enough for him to reach and pull off. The fish has been on for at least 15 minutes by now and I was fearful that the hookhold might give way at any moment.
As it was clear that the weed was prolonging the fight and would make it almost impossible to bring the fish into netting range I agreed with Steve trying to free the weed from the line. Thankfully the plan worked a treat and Steve was able to carefully tug the weed away, leaving me in direct contact with the fish for the first time.
With more control, I’m able to steer the fish closer to the margins, but things were still far from straightforward. As the fish came in close to the bank it made a determined run to the left where there were loads of overhanging branches, both above and below the water’s surface, and at the same time it turned on its side, displaying a huge expanse of golden-scaled flank as it did so. Any doubt that I’m attached to the big common disappeared and I had to push the rod as far out as I possibly could to get enough side strain to turn the fish before it reached the snags.
With the fish facing away from me and flat on its side still hugging the lakebed, it was almost impossible to exert enough pressure to steer the fish away from danger. I could hardly breathe as the fish turned at the last moment and headed back out into open water. Unbelievably the same manoeuvre is repeated several times as this clever old fish used every trick in the book to prevent itself from being netted.
After I’d been playing the fish for the best part of half and hour it picked up some more weed from a strip of the stuff growing close in to the bank and this made it easier to control as the weed was draped over its head and eyes but, as Steve tried to manoeuvre the landing net under the fish, we discovered that there was more weed dangling from the fishes’ body and attempts to push the net under the fish simply pushed into the weed and pushed the fish further away. At this point Paul decided to help with the netting too as it looked like it might need Steve on weed duty and Paul working the net to bring the fight to a conclusion.
After a while I was finally able to steer the fish close in again and Paul waded out further with the net so that he could push it deeper under the surface. Eventually I guided the huge fish over the net, Paul lifted it up to engulf both the fish and a big ball of weed – the big common was finally mine!
With the adrenaline rush still pushing through my body, it was as much as I could do to assemble the mat, scales, sling and camera while the lads looked after the fish in the net and made things ready to bring the carp ashore. Once the fish was on the mat and the net moved away we could finally get to appreciate the size and perfection of this beautiful carp.
It was up to me to unhook the fish and once she was in the sling and on the scales, I lifted her up but turned the scales towards Steve and Paul so they could decide on the weight for me. All three of us knew before the weighing that she was going to be easily 40lb plus, but it was still a very pleasant surprise to hear the guys eventually call out 45lb 2oz as their final verdict.
I was all smiles as I lifted the fish up for the photos, but I also felt a small tinge of sadness as I realised that my time on this lovely pit was at an end. I’d caught the big common and it was time to move on, leaving the pit and its inhabitants to my friends to continue their quest.
Until next time, happy fishing!
