Choose life. Choose a lake. Choose a swim. Choose a bait. Choose a rig. Choose sleepless nights under the stars. Choose the nocturnal music of branches creaking in the wind, leaves whispering, and the eerie night-calls of owls and wildfowl. Choose bright moons shattered in the rippling surface of lakes, and purple skies at sunset perfectly mirrored. Choose silent mist-shrouded pools at dawn. Choose visions of white-flowering waterlilies turning green-gold in the half-light. Choose the flashing bronze flanks of carp, twisting below the surface, on the edge of visibility. Choose a heightened heart-rate. Choose an emotional rollercoaster. Choose the psychological assault-course of planning, watching, locating, preparing, casting and waiting. Choose the endless hours of strung-out anticipation. Choose the rush of striking, hooking, fighting, and landing (or losing) the fish. Choose to walk the tightrope between desperate failure and the adrenaline-inducing, life-enhancing triumphant high of success. Choose life. Choose obsession. Choose Carp Fishing.
"Greg Freestone, Carpspotting 2011"

Monday 9 December 2013

Dont you just love blanking

Blanking comes to us all and after 3 weeks of blanks its starting to get to me.
carp fishing has its ups and downs and the last few weeks has been a bit of a down for me, with others catching the odd one or two I didn't no what I was doing wrong.


Few Winter Stunners from the last week - even a 52lb cat that you don't see much of this time of year





Wrong swim? wrong baits or rigs? I don't no I thought I had this lake sussed out by now but it looks like I was wrong.

I Cant let it beat me and I will keep at it for the short time I've got left this year and looking back to when I started this blog I'm gonna try what worked for me back then.

Heavy baiting over one area with hemp, party mix, low oil pellet, corn and mixed boilies seemed to work and catching 38 fish over the winter months I would be silly not to try it again.




Winter time I always use white pop ups as they stand out well over big beds of bait and i have full confidence in using them. i haven't tried it for a wile but on my next fishing trip i will be soaking them in irn bru giving the white choc pop ups a bit of a kick with the unique combination of 32 flavours and citric acids.



Big commons seem to like it and seeing this common come out not long ago at 38lb+ it could go 40lb this winter.


With so many fish stacking the weight on i must have at least 6 40lb fish to go at just hope the carp gods are kind.

Some of the 40lb carp i'm after this winter -




Sunday 20 October 2013

Over Nighters

Few Fish over the odd night - still doing it just not getting the time wish my xmas holidays would hurry up :)

New PB for my mate Ben of 37lb was glad to see the smile on his face when he pulled it in




Wednesday 25 September 2013

The Autumnal Equinox

After a few weeks off from fishing it was nice to get back out on the bank for a few nights with some mates.

I headed down to the lake after work on the Friday and with the fish on the feed big time I armed myself with 5kg of bait as I know they can be greedy buggers and like to clear you out.

With it being a weekend I knew it would be busy so I aimed to head to the pads midweek and when I sore it was free when I arrived I was one happy man as I knew the fish would be in and out of there wile there was a southwesterly wind and spots of sunshine.

The nights are starting to pull in now so I didn't have much time to find my spots before it was dark so I had a quick lead about near a small weed patch and found it was fishable so I baited it up with 3kg of 15mm monster squid and kg of mixed black monster squid and amber strawberry dumbbells.

With the swim so tight I was only fishing with two rods so one rod went onto the baited area in about 12ft of water and the other rod went towards the pads I around 8ft of water.

My choice of rig for the area I was fishing was a stiff hinge rig made from 12 inches of silt black missing link and 3 inches of fluoro carbon with a size 6 fang x hook.
Bait Wise I armed the rig up with 2 10mm white amber pop ups to match the freebees I had put out.

I like to use white hook baits as the lake has lots of muscle beds that glow white on the lake bed so i think the fish feel comfortable feeding on them and don't see white baits as much of a threat.

After a quite night with only the odd liners I spreaded out a few more handfuls of monster squid over the area as I knew the fish would soon be moving in when the sun started to get up and it wasn't long before me and my mate nick was into some action.

25lb leather carp

Fight blood to nick with this nice 25lb leather carp. The fish started to show big time this end of the lake so I knew we had a good chance of bagging a few.

I headed back to my bivvy to have a recast on my right hand rod to move it off the pads towards my baited area and moments later my left hand rod started to scream off so I dropped my rod and struck into the other to feel the force of a hard fighting carp, I knew it was a good fish from the way it was plodding along with the odd burst of fight.
I got it closer and sore it was a common and a good one at that so I played it softly and slipped it into my net. I took a quick peep and knew it was over 30lb so I unhooked it in the net and slipped it into my retainer sling and went round to grab my mate for some pictures.

35lb 8oz

35lb 8oz

35lb 8oz


I was buzzing to catch and was even more buzzing that it was another 30lb+ fish, 35lb 8oz this weighed and after a quick few pictures the lump was slipped back into the lake to fight another day

After a few beers to wash down the excitement of catching such a lump it wasn't long before the rod was off again, this time a cracking mirror which looked bigger then the common I had earlier that day but as I was just about to net it the hook pulled and the carp turned over and swam back to the depths. GUTTED! that's fishing for ya cant get them all.

With no bait left singles was all I was left with to fish with and wasn't feeling to confident as I knew they had cleared me out.

With my mate nick in the next swim he managed to get a few more bagging a few 26lbs and a cracking 29lb 15oz two tone mirror


29lb 15oz

26lb+

26lb+

Sunday 25 August 2013

Home Sweet Home

After another crazy trip to spain it was back to the lake and after a few weekends of blanks I managed to catch this cracking mid 20 carp on a short overnighter.



Just cant wait for winter now Bring on the lumps :)

Sunday 21 July 2013

Birthday bash

Its that time of year when I need to get away and enjoy some sun and ice cold beers and some fishing, even though I have spent most of the year doing this my birthday was just another excuse to hit the might ebro river again.


I headed out with a mate and we had 4 nights fishing ahead of us - we met up with my mate nick that lives out in spain and he had a few other guys out fishing with him at the time so it was a nice small bunch of us and I couldn't wait to see what the river was going to produce





The sun started to rise and the sound of carp and cats boshing all over, this is a truly stunning place to wake up to and I really feel at home when ever I come out here.


Here is a few of the cats we all caught over the Two days

Paul with his PB cat 110lb

Dave with a 80lb+ cat


133lb lump

Andrew with his PB cat 133lb


Not a PB but couldn't let them have all the fun with the cats 60lb+
 
 
 
Now On To The Reason I Come Out Here
THE CARP
 
With me letting my mate have most of the cat runs I was just fishing for carp and I managed to get loads of runs from 20lb to a new Ebro PB hard fighting common of 31lb
 


















Sunday 23 June 2013

know your feeding times

Back to the lake for a short session and with the feeding times mainly early morning I wasn't in any rush to get my rods out.
I stopped off in the first few swim to have a few beers with the birthday boy chris and rob before heading round to set up, a few hours past and beers went down lovely and was time to let the guys get some sleep so I dumped my gear in the swim and had a walk around to find most people fast asleep.
I got round the other side of the lake to find my mate nick asleep under the stars, crazy bugger I thought so I woke him up and cracked open the beers.

3am - time to leave :)

I headed back to my swim and really couldn't be assed to set my bivvy up so I thought I would just brave it and sleep under the starts too - which I found out a 6am was a bad idea.

6am came and with the last 2 hours of it pissing it down I looked like a drowned rat. the bivvy went up sharpish and got a few hours of sleep.

 After missing bite time I thought I had a good chance mid afternoon towards one of the corners where I know the fish head mid day so out went a stiff hinged rig with a 15mm white choc pop up on into about 12ft of water.
I knew it wasn't going to take long before it took off with the odd few fish showing over the area 25mins it took before this crazy 22lb mirror was on the bank.




with missing bite time early sat morning I wasn't going to miss it again so I rested the swim for a wile and with only 1kg of bait with me of nash monster squid red I baited a spot I like with the 15mms and waited for the sun to go down before I put my rods back out.

bang on time 5am came with a one toner - I opted to use a snowman style rig over all the freebies on a nice silt patch. they do love a bit of monster squid in this lake and another 30lb+ was on the bank again.