i arrived at the lake and went for a look around, it didnt take long to find a friend tucked away up in the back bay. with it being such a hot day, and the water level being fairly shallow in this half of the lake i was soon pushing my barrow with enough supplies to last a couple a days. i say enough supplies, i was hoping to beg borrow and steal to see me through.
i staggered the rods at varying distances like all the best textbooks tell you to do. i flicked the left one into a 12foot gully in the margin (did i say it was shallow up here lol ) i catty'd out a good kilo of bait over this rod. the middle rod was blasted to a small dot island with just a stringer for loose feed. the third and final rod was put on top of a gravel bar in about 3ft of water with a few kilos of boilie spread about.
it was quiet for the first two nights, but on the 2nd morning things started looking up.
it was about 11am and i was just contemplating a move into the bigger, deeper half of the lake as it looked pretty dead and lifeless round here when all of a sudden a carp slid silently out the water out towards the dot island. a rod was on the spot within minutes!
i was sat drinking tea when i had a stray bleep on the rod toward the dot island. at first i looked at the moorhen that had just swum past the edge of my rods, but when that bleep turned into another, and then the line pinged from the clip i was on the rod in seconds.
by this stage the light bobbin is rattling around the alarm and the spool clicking away.
the fight wasnt much to speak of, i had my mate in the water and i can honestly say i thought it was a tench. once in the net a carp it was!
23lb 4oz
i packed up and went home for the time being. on arriving back at the lake i set up directly opposite where i was before. not only is it an easier cast but i could bait up more accurately. involving something like a 2 mile walk i hoped it'd be worth it!
once round there i decided on setting up quite far back so as not to disturb my margins.
nothing happened in the night, or the following morning. hmmmmm
i just felt i had to be where i was a few days before. before committing myself to the move i spent a few hours looking. i spotted a carp roll in the middle, but there were anglers fishing to the middle from the other side so i didnt fancy this choice much.
i ended up in a swim to the left of where i caught the carp the other day.
three baits were cast to the far treeline and it wasnt long before i had an absoloute one noter on the middle rod!
my arm was forced to the left as soon as i tightened into it! its power was unreal. the line on my reels were well down. this fight wasnt going to be over in a hurry.
the carp knew what it was doing the whole way in, 15 minutes later and its using the depth of that gully to its full advantage.
once it was nearly beaten i threw the net to the other side of my rods and carried on drawing it toward me.
when it came to picking up the net i had a problem! i was the only one here and my net had come apart at the spreader block, i could now clearly see that i had a nice common waiting to be netted. it was literally sat in the margin waiting patiently! i stripped down, got in, retrieved the net and scooped him up!
i eventually found someone for the pictures (must remember my tripod this week) and we weighed the fish at 23lb 14oz
i fished the weekend just gone and boy did that wind pick up! the alarms were constantly bleeping and i ended up mistaking a dropback for some stray bleeps. when i realised what was going on the rig had been dumped in the silt a few yards from my spot.
am i still kicking myself? i'll let you make up your own mind
thanks for reading
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