T.H.P.C: Part Thirteen: Biding My Time.

 After a little break from fishing I got a short session in last Sunday and visited an old haunt of mine. Back in those days I donned Adidas tracksuits and a pair of snazzy fairly expensive trainers, armed with a 12ft Tamar 2.25tc rod from what I can remember and targeted monster carp with not a lot of success. Opportunities were often fleeting, not that a 12, 13 year old cared an awful lot. Wide expanses of water were virtually untouched and enormous carp ( usually from the wildest depths of my dreams ), here they really did exist but my angling prowess was not what it is now and only now having got back into the groove as far as carp fishing goes have I decided to revisit this particular river.

 Having arrived on the bank I was greeted by a cool rising mist as the sun only just began to lighten up the horizon, as the sun swiftly gained height the light shone through the mist to create an enchanting glow and could arguably have been one of the most picturesque moments I've had the pleasure of being on the bank for. Rolling back the years, it did just that. In ten foot plus of water and around 120ft across its no easy task to stalk a carp out, that however was my challenge for the morning and I knew real monsters lurked here, like real monsters that may never have been caught before, the sort of scenario to make the most evergreen of carp anglers salivate, well I know it did that for me, the drive down was punctuated with thoughts as to what could be there. Knowing this waterway from my childhood and never hearing anything about it for years really filled me a different type of thought, is there anything in there still?, have they died off? have other anglers found it and decided to hammer it?, those questions could only be answered after visiting it and continue to do so to build up a bigger picture.

 The sun began penetrating the surface film and for the first time in more than half a lifetime, I saw my first carp on this river and it was a sight for sore eyes. Then two more came by just ten foot from me and proceeded to feed on the surface, just the sort of action I could only have dreamed of.

 I decided to tackle this stretch with the same tackle as I have been using since April, this comprises of the following:

Nash Dwarf Abbreviated 9ft, 2.75TC rod, Shimano Baitrunner 4000fd spooled up with Korda Carpline 12lb, a Korda controller 5g and a size 10 Deception tackle wide gape hook and my every faithful bag of bread.

 Within 5 minutes of casting out at the three carp I drew back my controller and presented the crust just a few feet from the feeding carp, their mouths were working overtime, clearly hoovering up something but couldn't tell what, the crust however lasted all of thirty seconds as the smallest of the three carp eclipsed my bait and the line pulled up tight as she made off towards the middle of the river. After numerous powerful runs a lovely spawned out common glistened in the morning sun on my mat, which incidentally was now only just getting through the trees behind me.

 That was what I hoped for but not expected, that will do. 17lb 4oz :)

 The only thing about hooking that one carp was the other two vanished and for the rest of the morning I didn't see them again. A move was decided upon but as the sun got higher which should have made the job of fish spotting easy infact revealed nothing much at all, maybe its a good idea to keep heading back until I build that clearer picture, are they still there? clearly there are some and the other two fish were roughly 23-25lbs which is great, I can only think that bigger do still exist. I shall bide my time and keep dropping in, it may turn out to be a dead rubber, I guess time will tell!