Carpy Catch up

I am going to have a quick look back at what I have been up to since I came back from the Inter Services Carp Champs in late September, most of my time has been spent on the club lake and I have managed to continue with a fair bit of success.

In early October I managed a trip back down to the lake for a night, although my admin after the Inter Services left a bit to be desired I still managed a mid-double in the middle of the night from a known winter swim.  It was an eventful battle though as it saw the fish kite into a marginal tree and me having to paddle out to it in my pants in the early hours of the morning, it was a bit chilly but fortunately the water barely came to the middle of my thigh.

The next visit saw me working off information that I had gleaned on my previous visit, with the conditions very similar I decided to try a new swim and fish a margin spot.  It worked with 2 fish of 25lb 9oz and a small 9lb pup.  Both of these came from the new spot so I was well happy that I had found something that I had not seen many people target.  This session was marred however, with an otter deciding to show its face in October, so that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the winter.

The next week saw me back in the same swim but this time I still had a bite but unfortunately I suffered a hook pull, I had just swapped patterns as I had an occurrence in the morning of the last trip that I thought was a fish getting away with it.  I had swapped to the super aggressive Horton rig and although I hooked the fish I could not keep it on for some reason, even though it had been on for a couple of minutes. That was the end of the action that trip even with a morning move onto some showing fish in the next swim.

To get over the loss of the fish earlier in the week I went on a day session to Waldens Farm Fishery to try and get some confidence back in some rigs, it was not easy by any stretch of the imagination but I managed to land a small carp in the end after losing a couple to hook pulls, again it was all snag fishing though so you have to expect some losses.

The following weekend it was back to the club lake to find the area that I liked to target quite busy, I went for a look and found some signs of fish in the shallows so as I was there for the night I set up I the transition between the shallows and the deeper water, my trap was tripped around midnight with a 21lb 5oz common ending up in the photo album.  Again the fish were very active on this trip but they still were not easy to trip up by any stretch of the imagination.

By now it was the first weekend of November, I had managed to get to the lake for dawn and found some fish at the same time as another member of the club, we went on a gentleman’s agreement and fished in close proximity to each other, I was in my margin swim again. At about 11am with the weather worsening I had a bit against the snags that for the first time made it into the snags, I could feel the fish kicking on the end of the line so with a bit of help I ended up wading out into the bitterly cold water to free the fish.  I found it and it popped off the snag and the hook with the lightest of touches to the hook shank, It was a mid-double and yet another Common.  The weather took a turn for the worst for the rest of the session and after about 3 in the afternoon until I left I didn’t see a single show which is rare for this lake.  It coincided with a blank remainder of the session apart from a bream, even though I moved into the swim next door where the fish had all been showing throughout the day once it was vacated.

The next couple of weekends were taken up with fishing Willow Park fishery, 24 hours practice and then a 48 hour Carp match, long boring story short, I saw a few fish, had a couple of liners but caught nothing. No fish came out during my practice and only 4 came out on the match, but the venue is really nice and the food in the café is great.

This made me go on a trip to Todber manor to try and get a bite if nothing else, on the advice of Matt and Kia I was soon set up in the middle of little Hayes putting out maggot bags. I managed one on a cast to a showing fish in the evening but they all seemed to be up to my left more, I decided that I would move in the morning only for 6 people to turn up in the morning stitching where I had fancied a move to.  In the end I tore down and moved with just rods into a quiet corner where I managed two bites landing one and losing one in a little over an hour. 

 And that brings us to December, I will start doing these Blogs monthly unless anything EPIC happens, if you want to know more, just ask away in the comments and I will answer what I can.

Until the next time tight lines.