Still, before my departure a 34lb leather was caught

For reasons best not gone into here I will not be pursuing the carp at my planned new pit any longer this spring or summer, it’s hard enough pitting ones wits against the carp without having to second guess the other anglers antics. Still, before my departure a 34lb leather was caught. Good angling, well maybe. It’s all yours now though chaps. I would never have caught more from there anyway… or would I??. Not to be put off though, I have spent a couple of very enjoyable sessions at a lovely lightly pressured big water not far from work in the last week, not during the thunderstorms unfortunately but still. The water is over 100 acres but like all pits, the main features are in fact on the margin shelf so it is here I concentrated. After all, I’m not very good with a boat! The first session was a lovely spring day with a gentle easterly wind making gentle ripples slap musically into the gravel beach as I set up. I had baited a gravel shelf underneath a sunken tree the day before and had been pleased to see at least two carp milling around through the rippled water when I arrived. Retreating stealthily I crept back to the nearest swim. The cast would have to be spot on first time; there was no room for error. If no carp had been present I would have liked to put out a small PVA bag to create an instant feeding area but the disturbance this would have made would have been curtains before I started. Therefore I simply underarm flicked a half-ounce lead with a single 14mm boilie tied on the hair. Swinging it back and forth several times finally the momentum was right so I let go, plop, right on target, feeling it down through the water I felt it thud on the gravel. The leadcore had to be flat on the bottom so I left the line slack for a minute or two before putting on a light indicator. For the other rod, to my right was a gravel hump twenty yards out. I could not see this feature but I knew from way back in 1985 that it was there. That was the year the carp were stocked into the lake at an average weight of 4lb each. I was fishing for the big tench and we all presumed the carp would disappear into the wilderness of the lake never to be seen again. So it seemed. It was not until mid August that a few of us were getting fast takes using sweetcorn and after spirited fights the hookholds would fail. It took a while for the penny to drop until finally a few of these carp were landed. After a while catches of twenty to thirty carp were not uncommon. Most of the fish were 4lbers but some went as high as 8lb, a couple of years later a 15lber was caught I remember. By the early 90’s I remember discussing the lake with a mate, we were pike fishing it at the time, we knew then it would someday be a superior carp water, so it has proved. Funny enough it was that year when we were pike fishing that we had two strange encounters with the carp. Apart from them giving us terrific line bites, real screaming takes, the line going one way, the deadbaits still being in the other direction. We also hooked two of the carp, both mirrors, on static smelts fished on the bottom. Both were normal pike like runs, on both occasions we let the run continue for a few seconds before sweeping the rod back. The fights were unspectacular; it was not until carp of around 20lb rolled in the margins did we realise that all was not as it should be. Unfortunately on both occasions the carp came adrift just as they approached the net, there was no mistake though, they were carp. Has anybody else had such encounters? I have heard of carp being caught on deadbaits but this seemed so bizarre, after all there is an abundance of food in the lake. The carp grew and grew; the odd 30lber turned up, not all were original fish of course, it’s amazing how carp grow legs when carp anglers start fishing lakes. Then, finally this year the big mirror in there went over the 40lb mark and it was just a matter of time. It’s a mere coincidence that I have found myself back on the lake after a break of five or six years, honest! Back to the session in question. I managed to locate the gravel hump quite easily. I was surprised how little weed was around, it was spring, and a cold one at that, so perhaps I should not have been surprised. This time the PVA bag did see the light of day and with it full of trout pellets and crushed boilies it splashed down on the humps edge. I considered a third rod but I didn’t have a second rod licence. I was pushing my luck anyway after all, so I settled down for the night, the car just behind me. As dusk fell a carp crashed out by a sailing buoy, about 80 yards out, splosh. It did it again, and again. I considered whacking a rod out there into the rings but doubted my casting talents. The lake was surprisingly peaceful as night fell; the drone of the ever present motorway was the only sound. Darkness came suddenly as I watched the bream roll their way down the centre of the lake. I remembered the blank-flanked specimens I caught back in the 80’s from this lake, over 11lb some of them. Dramatically the snag rod whipped round and fell back, the buzzer giving a series of strangled bleeps, the rod was locked up, whatever was responsible was not going far. I was on it in a flash and immediately found myself backwinding as a beast from the depths chugged its way out into the lake. The fight was dramatic and dogged, I played it gently, unsure of the underwater hazards. All went well before, at the first time of asking, the carp rolled into the net. I reached for the torch and shone it into the net, there in the folds was…, well log on next week to find out.

Have fun!