Pursuit for Large Carp

A week's session

When I first arrived at the lake I took the usual walk around it to get my bearings and pick that all important swim to set up in. Within ten minutes of being there I had already witnessed a couple of fish crashing towards the middle of the lake. Then quickly decided to set up in a peg that would give me the opportunity to reach those fish. I chose some features to fish towards and carefully cast my rods out armed with TF 36inch clear leaders and a 3oz clear lead hopping with this approach wouldn’t spook any fish. This wasn’t very productive and didn’t achieve any instant results so I sat and watched the water with all theories and methods going through my mind. A couple of hours later when the sun was really beginning to warm everything up I noticed a small group of what looked like 40+lb carp cruising around the bay next to me.

Not wanting to spook them off I quickly loaded the bait boat up with some broken up fruity boiles and placed two lines very close to them. I then watched intently waiting for that take, which by amazement came about an hour later. There was what can only be described as an awesome fight and a 40lb 8oz mirror was in the net. This really put my hopes up for what promised to be an excellent week to come. The following night a 44lb 12oz mirror was landed from the same spot. Things became very slow going from then on and I soon realised this was no runs water but a lake you had to work very hard at in order to catch. I decided to take the rowing boat out and really get to grips with what was happening. It soon became obvious that the fish didn’t stay in one particular area but seemed to move every couple of days so I decided that my best option was to move with them.

All Set up and ready to go
I then set up in a peg round the other side of the lake with a bay in front and to the side of me and the island within reach as well. I could cover a lot of water from there really be on top of the fish. Luckily the water was crystal clear and it seemed far too easy to locate ideal clear spots in amongst the weed beds. I marked up some different areas and decided to feed small amounts of bait to them on a fairly regular basis. This helped land a couple more fish a day apart from each other so I decided to stick with it for the rest of the week being happy with the fish that had been caught.

40lb Carp in the Weigh Sling

Towards the end of the week there was the most amazing storm come over, it felt as though a steam train had just come straight through my peg. There was thunder and lightning all around and all I could do was keep my fingers crossed that the fish switched on due to it. It was like all my hopes and dreams came true and during the following 24 hours I landed some amazing fish ranging from 31lb 4oz up to 42lb.

All I can say is “What a week”