Carp Fest in Bandit Country.

 Back to the wild west for more carpiness, carpiness that is sure to get you out of bed at 430am and not think about the lack of sleep that night yielded. Gear more often than not is in the van ready to go so its a case of showering, getting dressed and out the door. With my pre-dawn ritual complete and on the road the brain switches to carp mode and constantly praying the wind isn't scuppering my plans!

 Having breezed through the normally busy streets of London I got to my chosen water, a nice clear morning with a gentle 3/4 mph wind SW it was almost perfect. 2 hours to get the business done. To begin with I simply fished freeline tactics and within half an hour I came across a decent common grubbing up in the margins, two foot behind it went my squeezed flake, a minute or so later the common turned 180 degrees and inhaled the flake, easy as tying your laces.

 With very low battery I decided to not photograph this one as I hoped for something a little bigger. 14lb 3oz on the scales she went, then swiftly back to the lake.

 That fish seemed to then kill off any further sport in the margins and walked a section of the lake with the view to picking off any other carp that were unsuspecting of my hatched plan. Problem was that as the sun got over the trees the fish seemed to be moving out into 6ft+ of water and at a range of 25/40 yards, as good as I am at casting only the controller would get me there, so on it went.

 The results of that change over were almost instant, a decent set of lips came up at distance and as the crust disappeared and the controller took off I got that feeling through the rod that I was connected to something fairly larger than the first carp. A good battle at distance played out as the first run stripped forty yards off and spent the best part of a few minutes gathering the slack back, as she got within netting distance she rolled and clapped eyes on one of the prized fish in the lake.

23lb 2oz and a proper mint one!

 Not many carp get the double sided treatment but she was a cracking mirror and the battery died after three shots of the other side! 

 The smile was certainly genuine and I hope to catch the remaining fish of her ilk. As the early morning wore on I got another shot at a carp and slipped a mint common of 16lb 5oz, which again was good sport but can't photograph everything I catch, especially when it's dead. Then it was off to work.