On The Top Again!!

I wasn't going to go fishing today; I had been on-call for the last couple of nights and I just felt exhausted! Well, I found myself in the somewhat enviable position of being kicked out by my dear wife to go off fishing for a few hours and unwind. I grabbed some boilies from the freezer and some dog biscuits from the local shop and with a couple of outfits including my sons' 9 foot budget spinning rod. I seem to be getting a little predictable again with my choice of venues, and headed off to fish "Little Allers" again, especially as I had seen the first signs of a few dark shapes swimming around the island the last time I went.

The weather was first class today, warm, a light breeze and the sun was out, this was in complete contrast to yesterday when it was grey, wet and miserable. I had the lake to myself on arrival at about 10am which really surprised me considering what a fantastic day it was. as usual I set up a sleeper rod using a Dynamite baits peach and mango boilie. These smelt so nice I could have eaten one myself. I put out a few dog biscuits at the spot I was fishing but at that stage nothing was showing itself. I reeled in after about an hour and wandered around the lake with a bag of dog biscuits catapulting a few into likely looking spots. Well, to cut a long story short, the sleeper rod remained firmly in snooze mode despite my wonderful smelling boilies. I am beginning to think that maybe they are designed to catch anglers rather than Carp! At about 1pm I thought I caught a glimpse of a Carp roll on the surface right at the edge of the island. I put out a few dog biscuits and sure enough I heard the all to familiar slurp and I could see a couple of pairs of thick Carp lips taking a few off the top. I was cursing myself now, as although I had unpacked the little spinning rod I hadn't rigged it up. So with some haste on went a bubble float and a fluorocarbon trace that I had tied up the night before of about 6 feet long. I had tied this rig slightly differently with the hair coming off the strait shank part of a size 10 hook at right angles. I had seen this tied on the Korda volume 3 DVD and it leaves the hook hanging directly under the dog biscuit and out of site. Clever!. I tried to photograph it for this posting but alas it didn't come out to well. I will tie it on a larger hook from my sea fishing tackle and see if I can grab a picture that way.

Anyway, back to the fishing, in a window of about 90 minutes I landed six carp, five around the 5 to 6lb mark (didn't bother weighing these) and one that when weighed and adjustments made for the net came out bang on 12lbs. My sons little spinning rod and reel certainly worked overtime and the rod took on an interesting shape. I only had 6lb main line and the trace was around 5lbs so I had to be a bit careful and let the clutch do its job.

5lb Mirror Carp (approximately)

6lb Common Carp (approximately)


12lb Mirror Carp

The carp were staying within a few feet of the edge of the island so this called for some pretty accurate casting on my part, and I felt a bit rusty hitting only about 50% of casts in the zone where the fish were. The Carp turned off the feed as if someone had flicked a switch, the window of opportunity was that small. I persevered for about another hour before deciding to pack up. A very satisfying and productive session, and did I feel more relaxed.............definitely!!