Nuts about Carp

7th March 2010.

Hi all....

What a bloody terrible season it's been on the rivers this last year! Apart from the new PB 14lb 15oz barbel I had late last year, I can honestly say it's been one of the worst seasons I can ever remember for river fishing here in the South of England.

The barbel that used to inhabit both the Avon and Stour just don't seem to be there in the same numbers that they used to be. There has been an increase in the number of anglers fishing both waters but there has also been lots of flooding, road salts, and of course the anglers best friend....the otter!

Something that seems to have increased ten fold around this area.

Well, numerous blank winter sessions has pushed me a bit too far this season, so I decided to step back over to the lakes for a while.

I've been concentrating my efforts on an extremely hard small water near Ringwood...the water in particular contains a small number of exceedingly large carp.

The only problem that you encounter whilst fishing for these beasts is the over excessive rules which apply on the venue in question.
These rules stop night fishing and all other numerously silly rules!

Unfortunately many people in the past have targeted these prime fish and they are now some of the cagiest fish I have yet to come across!
After doing a few weeks of day sessions amongst working hours, I've manged to do plenty more blanking!

I had to get back to my grass roots fishing some how soon.....It can seriously take it out of you when you haven't bagged a fish few a while.

With this in mind I set about having a few odd day sessions at some more prolific waters. This would hopefully get a bend in the rod and give me back some confidence in my approach.

The first of these sessions was at a small club water just outside of Christchurch. The water is a couple of acres in size with an island and a fairly good stock of mediocre sized fish.

After a few separate sessions there  I bagged numerous carp to late double figures on a mixture of boilies and pop ups.

My next session saw a return trip to Broadlands Lake near Romsey.....I say return trip but it's been a fair few years since I last stood on the banks of this venue. I opted to fish a swim that Keith and I fished many years ago. We named it the Princess Diana Swim as we were fishing this swim the day Diana was tragically killed.

I pumped a couple of rods out towards the shallower margins of the islands with a maggot madusa rig attached. It didn't take too long to get the first take....around 11.15am I had a mental screamer of a run on the left hand rod. A good scrap ensued and after some 10 minutes I was sat looking at my prize in the bottom of the net....a nice lump of winter mirror carp! 19lb 1oz to be precise.

After popping the fish back I had a cup of coffee and decided to take a little walk around.....I spotted two pike sat in the margins and I was able to watch them for quite some time before they moved off.

I've got a few more days off work in the not too distant future so I'm hoping to get back out for some more winter action.

Tight lines all

Magoo

Stenhill Syndicate, Collumpton, Devon.
4th March '10.

Another great weeks weather ahead! Well, that's how it first looked on the usual weather sites and news. In actual fact it was beautiful on my arrival to the lake on Monday. So much so that as the gear was being set up I was only wearing a T-shirt for a change.

This unfortunately short lived weather spell turned decidedly colder on Monday night.

In fact the lake just managed to stay a smidge away from completely freezing over again.

I set up the gear and got the baits into the usual spots with a new prototype boilie I've concocted for this week.

I wasn't sure whether they'd take to it, but within 3 hours of the first bait going in, I found myself connected to a very angry carp.

With it already being pretty dark and not having the headlamp to hand left me totally unawares of what I had connected to my line until it was on the mat staring back at me......

Amazingly it was a fish that I had attempted to stalk the prior week with a freelined lobworm!



At just 12lb 14oz it wasn't going to break any records for its size but what it lacked in weight it made up for in it's shear good looks. A totally orange Koi.

I'd decided also to try a few different touches to my rigs this week too. I opted to try slightly longer rigs at around 12-14" in length and made with some of the new Nash Missing Link Silt.

I quite like this stuff actually! It's really rather good and with the discontinued Korda Soft Silt which seems pretty much unavailable now, it makes a good alternative. My actual rigs were fairly basic but a size 10 Nash Gaper hook and 1oz inline leads seemed to do the trick.

The lake was a tad busier this week with a few new faces appearing from the woodwork now the weathers improving a little!

Mark Sowten a regular day angler managed to bag a nice 17lb 5oz common and Steve Bliss bagged 2 from the back channel. 13lb 4oz koi and a 15lb 5oz mirror too. Well done fellas.

My session was a bit up and down, but come Wednesday I was back in the thick of it with another 20 on the bank.

At 24lb 10oz it was my second biggest from the venue so far. This was followed up by another stunning zip linear of 20lb 4oz.

I also managed to bag an 11lb 2oz mirror and a 15lb 5oz common too.

Next week I'm back down to Reading with site regular and good friend Keith Parris (Travelling Hawk)......I think it's going to be a tougher week but I'm ready to give it a go!

Tight lines
Keith

Stenhill Syndicate 26th Feb 2010

What a swine of a start to this week! Sunday morning I had to pick the wife up from her night shift at work.....I awoke at 5am Sunday morning to a proper pasting of snow! Just what you want to see when it all looked ok the night before and a few hours earlier.

Needless to say I spent about 2 hours on the phone trying to get hold of the store she works at to give her the news she'd have to get a taxi home......well, no bugger answered the phone and I was left with the dilemma of just sit at home and hope things improved or chance it?????

I chanced it..........silly boy! I got two thirds of the way down our hill and went into a fish tail slide......crunch, crack stop! Oh no no no no...my beautiful Audi had a rear light missing and the most ghastly scrape along the bumper. I suppose it could have been far worse, but it has left me with a rather unscrupulously high bill for paint and a new rear light unit.

Oh well, there goes the only little savings I had for my holidays this year! Blast it.

Anyway, after swearing, cursing, crying and generally blaming everybody else for my own poor actions and driving, I decided I wouldn't let it spoil this weeks venture down to the Syndicate water in Devon.
I arrived a little after 1pm and set up in the lazy git's swim again. This has it's obvious pro's and fairly obvious con's too.

Spots were to be the same as last week and so was the baits....pop up on the L/H rod, Tiger and plastic corn on M/R and maggot madussa on the R/H rod......I set out my stall and got things moving into place with a few small free offerings. Things started well early on and I bagged a 16lb 8oz common within a few hours of the first cast.

A 15lb 5 oz common followed shortly after...both taking the Tigernut option. Again around 5pm the middle rod was away...another 16lb 2oz fish bagged.

That night passed fairly quietly with only a plump 1lb 14oz roach to show for my efforts.

Monday saw a lovely common get me excited as it was again another 22lb 10oz fish. And my fourth from the venue in two weeks.
Night passed by without any activity apart from a 4lb eel! Not my favourite of species if I'm honest!

Next day was very quiet really up until late afternoon when I bagged a 17lb'er, 18lb common and a 21lb mirror too. All to the maggot madussa rig!
Final day excitement fell to the maggot rod again and a beautiful 14lb mirror.

That's it for this week, but things should be good next week as I have another 4 nights to do then.

Tight lines

Keith

Stenhill Syndicate, Devon
Feb 18th 2010

Well, what a difference a few days makes! Thankfully this weeks catch report from myself has a little bit more fishiness than last weeks pathetic efforts. On my behalf I apologize to all of you who read last weeks effort to write an expressionate and interesting report on Brasenose which included little more than no carp captures at all! Plenty of wildlife and aircraft pictures were to be had, but sadly that was just my way of filling the void of sadness! lol

Oh well, this week I ventured back down the M5 to my beautiful new syndicate water in Devon. As many of you will know, if you read my report from a fortnight back....it's appearing that this place is a bit of alright in the winter angling stakes! This weeks adventure was even more delivering than the last trip!

Things didn't start so well for me though as I had planned an early start on Monday morning.....the alarm never went off and I ventured into the loo at 5.30am for a pee as you do when you get to my age! No jokes please! Only to find our electricity was off??????

I went down stairs to reset the trip switch, but to no avail it just wasn't going to come back on! After swearing at it numerous times and of course un-deliberately waking the Mrs up (I wasn't going to be the only one pissed off at being up at this time! lol)

We managed to suss out that it wasn't the trip for the lights but for the plugs in the wall?????

We went round just about everything in the house to unplug and still it wasn't coming back on! Damn it....there goes my early start! Well, fortunately for us our good friend who lives local was able to come around a few hours later and source the problem of a slug crawling it's way into a fuse spur for the cooker extractor fan. This lead to a short between the earth and live which in turn caused a massive explosion of slug guts all over the inside of the spur box! Truly unbelievable!

Anyway, back to the fishing! I arrived eventually on Monday afternoon around 4pm to yet again an empty lake! What a joy! I set up right next to the car this week as I just couldn't be bothered to walk the distance of 20 yards to the next swim! .....honestly I'm a hard core carper! lol

This gave me pretty much the majority of the lake to fish with my three rods. I targeted the top end and west bank corner of the lake with a popped up madussa maggot D rig/hinge combo and a light 6lb flourocarbon hooklength. This was positioned over a small helping of maggots to get them grubbing around.

The other two rods were positioned in the middle of the lake in open water with a corn/tiger nut combo to same light set up and the 3rd was placed next to a set of tree roots with a white milky toffee pop up and 4-5 free offerings of nashy's white chocs in 8mm.

The first night passed by with no action and I worked each spot throughout the Tuesday until eventually around 1.30pm the right hand rod chuckled into life with a nice 18lb 8oz mirror which owner Brian did the fine deed of photographing for me! (Top job pal!) did good on the pics! She was put back and we had a cuppa and a good old chin wag putting the world to rights!

My next fish came around 9pm to the middle rod and tiger nut corn combo...this time a reel screamer of a run. I got to the rod and found myself in touch with a busy mirror of 17lb 2oz.

Wednesday was the best morning for some time for me.....the right hand rod's bobbin just rose about an inch around 1pm....I watched the rod tip to see just a slight nodding on it.

That was enough for me and I lifted into a dumbstruck carp which suddenly decided it wasn't having any of my heaving with the rod and charged off around the lake at a rate of knots. I hung on for dear life with my 6lb flouro hook length and 12 hook which I have no idea how it stayed in????? Albeit a good effort from the carp to drill itself into the silt, after about ten minutes she was rolling over the waiting mesh of the net.

This certainly looked a bit tidier than the last few and at last I'd broken my 20's duck for the new venue. It's not hard to see how these fish fight so hard with a face like this evil devil had....It looked like it had swallowed ten burley bouncers for lunch and still wanted more!

On the scales she tipped around to an impressive and very pleasing 26lb 14oz.

Wednesday night flew by really with little activity to talk of until I was rudely awoken by a 16lb mirror at 6am, right in the middle of a mother of a hail storm. I tried to play the fish from under the front of my STI but eventually succumb to having to get wet!

Brian popped around at about 12pm and we sat and passed a few hours by with lots of coffee and good banter.

Around 2pm the middle rod blipped and a quick pull signified a good fishes intentions.

Quickly sweeping the rod round and off she went on her merry way! I just held on and watched from afar as she took me on a bit of an embarrassing walk around the lake....fortunately with Brian on hand we tamed the little beaut and within ten minutes she was in the bag.

Another absolutely stunning common of 21lb 4oz!

What a way to end a great winter session!

Brian left me around 3.30pm. I bid him farewell and I started to pack away what seemed like an endless pile of sodden gear. The rain had certainly been persistent I can say!

Just as I was about to pick up the left hand rod to reel in, the middle rod was again singing and dancing again. I picked up the rod and watched another healthy looking curve envelope the 2¾lb tc rod.

A good battle commenced in the poring rain before some 8-9 minutes of scrap ended with another fine common in the net and yet another 20lb specimen! 20lb 4oz to be precise! Well and truly chuffed to bits with this weeks captures and very wet, I finished loading the car and headed for the hills and home.

Hope your all out there bagging a few kippers too.......the weathers taken a bit of a turn today with some more snow etc but fingers crossed it won't last too long and spring will soon be with us.

Tight lines all

Keith

Linear Fisheries, Brasenose 1.
11th Feb 2010.

My report for this week comes from the awesome Linear Fisheries complex, Brasenose 1 in Oxfordshire.

Unfortunately it wasn't particularly awesome angling for myself and two good pals Jess and Keith.....this being down to some of the most atrocious weather conditions that have blighted the UK for some consecutive weeks now.

Again we found ourselves sat out in extremely cold conditions with the water struggling to stay open due to icing over. Despite the conditions we tried our luck on a very quiet Brasenose 1.

There were a handful of brave souls out on the North bank upon our arrival. These fellas were on a day ticket with nothing to show for their efforts bar cold feet and hands.

We decided to get on the back of the ever increasing cold Northerly and fish into the windless section of the lake. This we thought would give us the best chance of success on the vast openness of 35 acres of water.

Hopes were high as evening started to fall and the sight of a couple of fish head and shouldering at a little past 140 yards helped to keep us motivated in the alleviated air temperatures that were quickly falling well below zero.

Baits for the week were 2 gallons of the ever trusty red and white maggots. A whole bag full of mixed pop ups of all sizes and colours.

Pellets etc etc etc. Just about everything you would  expect to catch on during cold weather conditions.

Well, needless to say the fishing was less than easy, in fact I can honestly say it was some of the hardest angling I have ever done on any fishery in the UK to date.

For such a highly stocked venue such as Brasenose to totally lock up it's doors left me personally feeling very hard done by.

All of us threw everything we could think of at these fish......with absolutely nothing to show for our efforts.

Jess and I spent many hours tying new rigs and recasting throughout the day and night in a valid attempt to locate these fish.

Unfortunately it was just too cold for both the fish and our site regular K.P who just stopped the one night.....poor old Keith just found it far too cold.

He decided to call it a day around mid day on Wednesday with the early onset of hypothermia setting in.

Jess and I stuck it out but had to call it a day on Thursday as the ice was starting to collect around the lake and heavy snow was starting to make things extremely uncomfortable.

The fishing may have been incredibly poor yet the scenery did a lot to keep us interested....many large RAF aircraft were seen flying into the local airbase ferrying service men back from the Middle East.

The wildlife was of some interest too, unfortunately the swans albeit very pretty were a total nuisance due to being fed by lots of people in the past.

They made undiscerning efforts to continually wipe out our rods and generally make life bloody hard!

Anyway, we did enjoy ourselves albeit the harsh fishless conditions and it was lovely to spend some time with such good company.

I'm back out again on Monday, down to the syndicate in Devon with the high hope of bagging one of the many bigger carp that inhabit the lake.

Tight lines all and hope your all well!

Keith

Stenhill Carp Syndicate,
Nr,Collumpton, Devon.
5th February 2010.

Hi all.

Well this is my first report for 2010 and at last I've had the opportunity like many of you to get back out on the bank side. Many reasons for not getting out which include the obvious horrendous weather which as blighted the UK for the best part of a month and a half.

We personally had some of the heaviest snow we have seen in Wales since moving there some 6 years ago. The children obviously enjoyed themselves hugely and the schools remained closed for two weeks. Thus giving the local kids a four week Christmas holiday! Poor parents! lol

Winter has always been one of my favourite fishing periods in the year. The banks are quieter, the fish are in their finest dark conditions and if your brave enough to really stick it out, catching fish during winter conditions gives you the most incredible feeling of accomplishment.

I have already started 2010 with a good spell of luck in the form of a new Syndicate ticket. The venue in question is the feature of my first catch report for this year. At just around an acre and a half, it's not the biggest and most complicated water I have fished.

Albeit a very good level of stock to mid thirties and a big stock of twenties, it still requires a level of skill to catch these somewhat wary carp. The water is shallow, around 4ft maximum, with two small islands, a short horseshoe channel section and plenty of tree and reed growth to target the many very attractive specimens held in there.

I first went to the venue early last week for an informal meeting with land, fishery owner and extremely keen carper himself, Brian Cox..... Brian is a real gem, proper character, and all out genuine gentleman. The welcome was second to none and I truly hope we will over time become very good friends. The venue itself is set in some of the most glorious Devonshire countryside and the quiet hamlet of Stenhill.

Extremely good security, solid standing car park, running water, toilets and of course top quality fishing make this water one to certainly have a ticket for.....hence I jumped up and down when I received one of only 25 tickets issued per year for this very exclusive opportunity.

So, the day came on Monday of this week. My first chance to get back out on the bank side and of course my first chance to wet a line at the new water. I arrived mid morning to a lake covered almost totally with a thick layer of ice.....not what you want to see after 2 hours driving on the motorway!

Well, Brian was very helpful by clearing a couple of small areas for me to get a line into and gave me a few guidelines on the rules and of course the all important hotspots! I'm not saying that I need help to locate these spots, but of course every little bit of help edges you closer to bagging the all important first fish from a new water.

I set up on a nice grass section of bank next to a small island channel......the only clear patch on the lake. It just so happened that a few nice fish were clearly visible under an overhanging bush. I decided to target this area only for the first night. I managed to use the Microcat to position a bait just under the overhanging bush, which Brian assured me was totally clear underneath.

This was baited with a Mainline Milky Toffee 14mm white pop up on a split shot multi rig and size 8 Korda Choddy hook to 20lb Hybrid. Lead was a 2oz inline semi fixed set up to 2 feet of tungsten tubing.

It wasn't long into the session before my first take. In fact the rod had only been in the water some 40 minutes or so before it tore of. The fight was a brief affair and a little one sided as the fish had little opportunity to head anywhere other than straight into the waiting net.

It was all over before the fish knew it was even hooked! Feeling totally relieved to have banked one already, I felt sure that there was others still under the bush waiting to be caught. I weighed the fish, a very pretty white Koi Carp of 13lb 10oz. Brian runs a strict ruling of using only onsite nets, weigh slings and unhooking mats....this is to obviously ensure that no disease is past onto these stunning fish.

Around 10pm on Monday night the lake was already struggling to stay away from being completely iced over as temperatures again dropped to well below zero for a consecutive night in a row. I managed to keep the ice away from my little spot and around 10.15pm I had another nice run from the bush rod. This fish fought a bit harder and I was happy to bank a nice mirror of 14lb 2oz.

By early morning the wind had swung around to the West and rain started to come in. This brought the air temperature up and started to melt the ice on the lake. This had a somewhat detrimental effect in that the ice obviously melted into the lake and dropped the water temperature by a further degree.

Doesn't sound a lot but the difference between 3-4°c in angling for carp can mean the difference between catching and a total blank! Subsequently the day passed by with no action whatsoever. My next run came around 5pm on Tuesday and from around the still partially un-iced area near the island bush.

A small common soon breached the rim of the net and took the dial around to 11lb 6oz. The night pass by with no activity and I was left feeling a little disassembled by day break!

I felt my chances of bagging yet more fish from the small bush were pretty slim now. There was certainly very little activity around and under the bush and no fish were now visible. I decided a move to the open, deeper water section was the order of the day.

After breakfast on Wednesday I checked the water temperature and was chuffed to see it had at last risen to 5.1°C in the margins. I decided to position a rod to my left down the margin to a lovely set of tree roots which invades the water by some 2 feet. The other two rods were placed out into open water and some nice choddy spots.

I thought my luck was up by midnight as I'd had a few liners but no takes. I made the choice to recast all three rods around 2am and after a brief shower of rain, everything was ready to go again.
3am and the RH rod ripped off. A good scrap ensued and a few minutes later I was self taking pics of a nice 17lb 10oz Common.

I placed the rod back out and around 6.15am she again tore off at a rate of knots. A very pretty deep and dark mirror graced the net and swung the Reubens around to 18lb 15oz. A great way to end a cracking winter session.

So, it just goes to show that even in the hardest of weather conditions you can still catch Carp!

Get out there and bag a winter whopper! I'm off to Brasenose 1 next week for 3 nights with site regulars and good pals Jess(The Jester) Collins and Keith (Travelling Hawk) Paris.

Tight lines boys and girls!

Keith
x

17th December '09

Hi all......

Well, all I can say in starting this catch report is that it's certainly been a tough couple of months fishing from my side of the fence. 12 blank nights spaced over 3 separate sessions and a little over a month and a half.
Things had suddenly turned rather wintery and rather hard fishing was the agenda at the syndicate.

K.P and I spent 4 days in what looked like a banker spot with the wind in our favour and conditions fairly amicable. Yet, all our hard work conceived only the one run from what felt like a very decent fish, only to have it shed the hook near the net!

Things got decidedly worse the following fortnight and I managed an unholy great blank whilst doing another 4 nights by myself this time.

So, what to do next. I needed some runs and a few fish on the bank to save myself from indignity and a severe belt of sagging confidence......A trip to White Springs had to be on the cards.

I loaded the motor and headed down Sunday afternoon and set up in the swim in front of the old cabin. 4 rods were placed in likely spots that I had had good fish from in the past.

I stuck it out with the new bait which up until this blank spell, had been fishing very very well.....The first night past with little bar a few bleeps and it wasn't before 10am on

Monday that the first fish fell to my left hand margin rod.

A good scrap and 10 mins later she was in the net safely, with me feeling a whole lot better about life!

On the scales she went 12lb 10oz....far from a whopper but very welcome in cold conditions to a busted up and bruised carper.

All bar a few knocks again for the rest of the day and night and 10am on Tuesday saw the next fish fall prey to my trap set along the marginal shelf. 12lb 8oz this time.



I bagged a further 2 fish from the margin around lunch time including a nice 15 pounder and a slightly better 16lb 3 oz mirror too.

The nights were I have to say 'dead'! the only other action to follow was from an 11lb 8oz mirror just as I was packing away on Wednesday.

Albeit far from my best session at White Springs but I was again feeling in the groove and ready to take the carp bug again, right by the short and curlies!

Oh well, that's about it for me this side of Christmas.....hope you all have a tremendous time over the festive period. Drink plenty, eat plenty and if there's time to sneak out while the Mrs is asleep...get on the bank side and bag a winter whacker!

Tight lines all.

Keith
x
 

30th October

Well what a busy fortnight it's been in the house of Supple!!! lol.

A phone call from site regular Keith Paris....'some of you will know him as Traveling Hawk from our forum pages', got my week off to a banging start with the invite to stay with him and do a spot of dangling at a local club lake of his.

Always after a new challenge I gladly accepted the offer and headed up the motorway to Coventry for a brief overnight stay and day session.

I must say how delightful the welcome from Keith was and how he certainly made me feel right at home. We had a really great evening chatting all things carp and stuff over a lovely bottle of Red vino and some top nosh!
Cheers pal!


Well, the fishing wasn't so spectacular unfortunately.....the lakes themselves are very well laid out and quite pretty in their own right.

There certainly seemed to be a biggish head of fish present in the lakes but they were all sat just below the surface and no manner of Zigs or anything else to be honest, got them going.



I managed to pull a huge blank and only K.P was able to save the day with a lovely 14lb Mirror taken on one of his own boilies on a zig rig.......well done Keith!


This weeks antics were pretty similar at the syndicate too....I took my brother in law Liam down to the lakes for the first time and set him up with 2 rods and some quality bait to have a go at them with.

On arrival we teamed up with regulars Harry and Darrell who had set up pitch already in 'Lazy Mans' swim....we chose the 'Beach' just above them and got set up as quick as possible as rain was forecast.

The first night went by quickly and with little more than a few bleeps from most of us....Harry managed a Tench of around 5lbs but that was it!



The next 3 days were pretty similar really, with little to talk about than a dozen or so small pike gracing the nets of both Harry and Darrell, who made the most of what would definitely feed!

On our final night Liam's rod positioned in a new spot came to life at around 3am.....with a proper good scream, off it went.


He managed to keep her under control and we netted a nice first ever carp for him of 15lb 5oz.


Thoroughly chuffed but rather tired and deflated from the tiresome hardwork we had endured all week, we left around lunch on Friday.

Tight lines

Keith.

Hazel Court Ponds
25th-27th October ‘09

Being back to school means I don’t often get out, but recently my mate Jon wood and I took a trip down the road to a small lake near Cowbridge called Hazel Court Ponds.

We got down the lake at about 6 o’clock and set the bivvies up and got the rods out. On the complex there are six lakes and we fished the specimen lake. We didn’t catch anything through the first night, so we had a good night sleep.

Morning came and we got up from our sleeping bags. Behind my bivvy there was another lake called the ghosty lake or lake 1. There’s a nice bed of lilies on the lake, so I kept feeding in crushed bollies and small pellets next to it.

By this time Jon had already had two carp…. one of 6lb and another of 8lb.

Where I was feeding up in the lilies, I could see fish feeding.

So I gently lowered a rod in and in no time at all I received a screamer of a run…..not a long fight but I ended up with a small 5lb2oz ghosty on the bank.

I did the same again and twice it resulted in fish… A 6lb 5oz ghosty and a lovely 8lb 1oz common.

I left the swim alone for a while and went back to my main swim on the specimen lake.

I could see no one was having anything round the lake, so I cast to the lilies with a Nash Amber Strawberry bollie and a small pva stick of 1mm pellets… next thing I knew, I had a fight on my hands. A good scrap ensued and after pulling it from the lilies, a lovely 11lb 6oz ghosty entered my net.

While I was sorting out my rigs, Jon had an absolute screamer of a run and it took him a good 5 minutes to reel in this lovely 16lb mirror.

We all had an early night after that. I was happy that my rods were in good spots and at about 3 o’clock in the morning I had a belting run.

I scrambled out of my bivvy only to fall over on my wet ground sheet… my mate Jon got up and helped me to land a lovely 13lb common.


Well chuffed with this fish and all in a really good 48 hours.

ADAM MORRIS

8th October '09
 
I managed to escape to Berkshire again this Sunday and after a nice steady drive down to the lakes I was greeted by a totally empty venue to fish....just the way I like it. Stiggy and I had planned to do the night on the point just for a bit of a social thing really as it's been a while since we caught up last.

Stiggy took the suicide swim and I ventured out to the left hand side of the point. The weather was fairly mild and we had a good evening chatting with the essential Sunday night takeaway greasy burger!

Stigs luck wasn't in for him unfortunately and he left on Monday with little more than a newly inherited dose of Man Flu......My swim was a little more awake and I took 2 out overnight to 15lb 5oz.

I'm on our new baits at the moment which is a combination of peanut, vanilla, bird seeds and milk proteins. Smells delicious!

Things carried on well on the fish catching front and I bagged a couple more to 12lbs by late afternoon on Monday. The weather started to set in a bit then with the odd shower, but saying that it was wickedly mild overnight with temps as high as 16c!

I had a restless night as my left hip decided to give me some nasty niggles.....I dosed up on pain relief and eventually circumed to heavy eyes around 4am after a few more mid doubles had found their way into the net.

I'm finding the new line I'm on very interesting too! It's from Stren which I believe is part of the Pure Fishing/Berkley camp.....it's blood red in colour!

Not something I would have ever envisaged me using before, but It seems to work really well! It looks really leary above water but, below it really does disappear......even in 20lb b.s!

Come Tuesday night my totals were up to 7 fish with the biggest going 19lbs on the nail. Some of these were real pretty fish too. Dark coloured with big old scales.

Wednesday morning came round all too fast and I found myself awake to really heavy rainfall for 99% of the day.......this coincided with a proper munch up from the carps point of view and I bagged a further 6 fish to take my tally to 13.

Now call me superstitious and all that but, number thirteen was rather unlucky for me this week as something went totally wrong with my left hip as I was playing this fish.......next thing I knew was I was sat on my bum in the p**sing rain in tears!

I managed to free the fish and retire to the bivvy and my bed, to lay flat and decide what to do next!

I dosed myself up again with some pain relief and after an hour or so I was able to move around gently!

This seemed to be the best opportunity to pack up before it turned dark and make the arduous journey home.

Needless to say it took me a really long time to pack away and get back to the car.

I mean it's hard work for me anyway with my health, but the pain radiating from my left side was something else!

Well, its 4.30am now while I'm writing this and after a serious dose of pain relief in the form of some Tramadol, I find myself again unable to sleep!

These pills are great for taking away pain but the side effects are minging to say the least.......Ive had some strange hallucinations this last few hours!



Anyway, hopefully my next report will be a little less strenuous and on better terms from my point of view!


We're hoping to have Stiggy write us a guest article in the coming weeks, which should be something a little different....so keep em peeled!







Tight lines boys and girls!

Keith