First Barbel Trip of the Season.

 Since mid March when the 2017/18 season ended my angling has as many of my consistent readers will know has mainly comprised of carp fishing, not something that I have done a great deal of in the last 15 years or so, or at least with any conviction. A few hours spare in the early afternoon on Tuesday last week meant I could do a bit of fishing, however I hadn't packed much and carp weren't really on the agenda truth be told.

 I left the house with my MKIV and match aerial combination with a mid summer barbel in mind. A tin of luncheon meat and my polaroids was all that was required, well other than the obvious fact that I had to find a feeding barbel, having not fished for them for nearly six months I was quite excited by the prospects and yes the carp fishing has been great fun and a challenge as I knew it would but to break it up with a short session targeting something else was welcome.

 Having parked up after negotiating the already building rush hour traffic a few likely areas were thought of and my experience on this particular river gives me a great advantage, blanks over the last decades have been very very few and far between, local knowledge really is king. I decided to employ my favourite tactic of rolling meat as I feel supremely confident in the approach when done correctly and I didn't have to wait long as on my second trundle through I was rewarded with a fighting fit juvenile of approx 3lbs, not the monsters that I usually seek but a start nevertheless.

 After a fast start it became apparent that there wasn't too much to cast at as water clarity was fairly poor which is unusual considering there hadn't been any rain for weeks upon weeks, this meant I had to roll blind which does catch fish but I prefer to stalk my fish and hopefully winkle out the bigger specimens in the shoals. Maybe an hour or so had gone by without much to speak of until I finally clapped eyes on something a lot bigger, something I had hoped for. Underneath a large Oak tree I could see the snout of a very good fish indeed, gently gliding across the bottom between to beds of ranunculus whilst occasionally levitating to the upper parts of the water column to intercept bugs or other foods in the process, this fish was certainly on the munch but its position to cast a bait too was very awkward.

 Seven or eight attempts had already gone by without any success as I couldn't get the right angle on my bait and then drop on the rod tip to get the line under the outer most limbs of the tree so it didn't snag, on the first successful cast the bait dropped to the bottom like a stone and then began to ease down the gravels, I thought to myself "this is perfect, she has to go for it!", no sooner did that thought cross my mind she headed straight for the meat, swirled but only to see she had missed it and the bait continued down the run with no follow up. I thought my chance had gone.

 Not to be downbeat I could see the barbel wasn't phased at all and continued its constant marshalling of the gravels, it took another half a dozen casts to get it right again, this time however the sheer fact of losing another meal proved too much and the bait vanished from sight and there was no hesitation on my part to set the hook, a powerful surging run against the current made for impressive viewing as I couldn't do much to prevent it, in the pacy current she held firm for well over 3 or 4 minutes giving me very little to do but keep the pressure on, as she tired out I seized the chance to put some side strain on and ease her out of the flow and towards my awaiting net, second time of asking I had a good one, a double, resting up to recover after its strong showing.

 I wasn't quite prepared to see the Rueben Heatons settle on 11lb 2oz though!, very surprised by that and weighed it a second time to just to make sure. I was very happy with that and no sooner had I rested her up again after some photos and watched her swim off strongly the heavens opened and the first rains for nearly two months quickly made up my mind, my day was over. A cracking trip and a double figure barbel to wrap up proceedings was certainly not in my mind, however I'll take that!

 Back to the carp.....for part Eighteen.

T.H.P.C: Part Seventeen: Twenties Delight.

 With very little change in the weather over the last 8-9 weeks my tactics have varied slightly when it comes to stillwater angling, it is either bread crust or flake, its not rocket science but as the summer has wore on I have found carp less obliging to feed on the surface, so slow sinking flake has been the winner on most occasions as the further down the water column my bait has gone freely the more confident the fish have been, plus one of the waters I am currently on the Rudd populations have exploded and fishing crust has proved to be a battle of whits.

 Often leaving at 4-5am to get to my chosen waters for dawn and a full day of work ahead my sessions of late have often been just 1-3hours long, no pressure to catch, just enjoying the time out as coming across a forty plusser in a couple of these waters isn't going to happen, where as on the other two of my ticket lakes the possibility is not distinct but hopefully an eventuality! thats self confidence right there for you, is my confidence mis-placed? who knows, only time will tell.

 Catching carp of any size is fun, losing them not so fun, it has happened a couple of times so far and those have been big fish, both either at the far end of upper 20's or low 30's which has left a bitter taste in my mouth, the effort unrewarded, the fire lit for retribution.

 Catching twenty pound plus carp can never be sneered at as they represent for most anglers, old and young a worthy adversary and a specimen fish which would brighten up anyones day and so it should, one of the reasons I stopped carp fishing, back-biting, one up men ship, sabotage and so on are all issues that were flying around, not for me thanks, catching fish should be fun and enjoyable.

 Thankfully for me this challenge has been enjoyable so far, yes I have lost a couple of fish I wish hadn't have, that is fishing for you! My most recent sessions have been a success with a few good carp slipping into the net. Here is a little group of fish taken over the last 2 weeks on those fleeting sessions I spoke of.

A wood carving mid-double common.

17lb 9oz warrior.

21lb 8oz park lake common.

Night vision.

22lb 5oz park lake warrior.

22.5 release shot.

T.H.P.C: Part Sixteen: Park Life.

 River heartache is an experience I never wanted to endure, especially when it was possibly the very carp I wanted, big, old dark common. I have had a few broken sleeps because of it, so naturally I had to put my mind at ease and switch onto the still waters to break it up.

315am

530am, just beautiful.

 A couple of late afternoon/evenings and a couple of mornings of stalking gave me even more to ponder over. Ten weeks ago most of the lakes I frequent had scores of carp spawning, three days ago there was still plenty of reproducing going on, countless erupting weed beds as carp stormed their way through gave way to calm waters where the remaining population which would have finished were feeding quite confidentially, knowing some of these were only recently finished I opted to leave them be and probably answered the questions as to why I struggled to tempt anything in the early hours of dawn.

 Change of scenery was called for and finally a water where the activity was entirely food related, numerous mouths mopping up the Daphnia blooms along the outskirts of the dense weedbeds was a sight to behold, the average stock is around the 19-23lb mark from what I have experienced so far and that is quite impressive with a smattering of 30lb+ specimens in the mix. My tactic was a simple piece of crust on a size 6 hook, my only change to the usual set-up was the crust was fed through a hookable band mounted on the shank to keep my point of the hook entirely free, so far it has worked fairly well.

All set with the bait and wait approach.

 To begin with the carp were just within range, roughly twenty yards. Freelined crust is only really effective for close range angling as the distance factor does complicate proceedings and rules out feeding fish any further out than the max casting range, for that problem I do also carry a couple of 5g and 15g Korda Interceptor controller floats and the Korda Kruiser control 12lb BS floating line, yes any brand can be used and I've used loads of different brands in the past, however this line is pretty good at remaining straight and does lay nicely on the surface.

 Within an hour the first opportunity came in the shape of a 15lb common carp, a good spirited battle which ultimately was won, a wet net is always a good remedy for such poor luck last time around, bad luck does unfortunately seem to manifest itself in many ways and on this particular morning, Tuesday to be precise, a large mirror came into view from a thick bank of weed, I have to say it probably was a thirty pound plus fish as I recognised it from a photo I had seen earlier in the season and know it was the same fish, then it went 33lb+, but based on the fact they've been spawning quite a lot an educated guess would suggest it wasn't quite thirty or it was just over.

 She came up and made a bee-line for my crust and in no time at all my bait disappeared and the tension was taken up by a swift and firm strike to feel a good connection, just a few seconds passed when a massive swirl was followed by my line laying slack on the surface....I had lost her, initially I thought the hook pulled, however upon reeling in there was no hook attached. The break appeared to have occurred just above the knot on the line, I was quite peeved by this and took me five minutes to get another bait out.

 When I did get a new hook on and cast a lump of crust out I was quickly rewarded with a mint male common weighing at 20lb 3oz, complete with dribbles of milt on my mat......

 For that session it was over....it wasn't before I had the annoying pleasure of losing two more carp, thankfully these weren't anywhere near as big so to get really down about it would have just been counter-productive. I'll get my chance again! 

T.H.P.C: Part Fifteen: The Heartache of A Lost Leviathan....

 Angling is full of highs and lows, some of the highs are so high you feel nothing can ruin your vibe, then the polar opposite of that is experiencing those moments in angling when you question everything as it seems someone or something is conspiring against you, of late, I have felt like that. My pace out of the traps at the beginning of this challenge was pretty quick, however I currently find myself struggling to get out as little time has been available as readily as I'm used to.

 The highs have been enjoyed as much as I can, knowing full well that these are usually punctuated by a stroke of mis-fortune or user error, the lows tend to happen when I least want it to. Last weekend I had a free shot at whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, so I chose to head on to a river in search of that elusive thirty pounder that I'm sure exists. My journey north was rather quick and before I knew it I was trickling in a couple of handfuls Nash Scopex Squid to hopefully get some fish cruise into the area, this was around 830 in the morning, within five minutes I was setting up my rod and tying an 18'' hook length so I could keep the lead away from the bait to hopefully give the fish more confidence when out the corner of my eye a massive black common came downstream straight into the baited patch and began feeding!

 Never have I experienced such a quick response to baiting on a river and this fish was almost if not the very fish I travelled for, anything between 28-32lbs of pure solidness, she was wide enough to put a saddle on and ride, long enough to know she was big and gut to match! It was almost as if it was a mirage or I was dreaming but it certainly existed and was grubbing up right in front of me and caught me so by surprise I froze with the rig making material still in my hand as I watched this animal in complete awe.

 I began to shake almost uncontrollably as many scenarios pulsed through my mind, all of this unfolded and concluded in just a minute or so as roughly 40 boilies were cleaned off the clear gravels and then my dream river carp lifted up in the water column and eased downstream further and out of my view, the dense pads and ranunculus meant I couldn't track her in the water, so I set my trap as quickly as possible and baited the spot back to how it was with the hope she may return to have another feed.

 Six hours passed without a single show from a carp or anything else for that matter so I decided to put another two dozen boilies down and aim to keep an eye on it every other hour up to dusk. At around 230 in the afternoon I had a couple of dark shapes ghost in over my spot and they turned out to be bream, two were certain doubles and the other not quite of that calibre....thirty seconds later the smallest of the bream decided it liked the boilies and munched mine. 8lb 3oz and nearly as dark as an undertakers hat.

My smallest river bream of the season :) 

 That proved to be my only success downstream and really didn't see much at all, in previous trips gone by I had seen much more, I can only imagine the 31c weather had something to do with it and blaring sunshine that baked me all day, thankfully the heat began to abate as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. Leading up to dusk I headed back into the cutout I began my day in and noticed all my bait still there, so it was clear nothing had been back to mop up again, I didn't add to the bait already down and plopped my rig down right in the middle of the patch in the vein hope something would feed under the cover of darkness. I was halfway through eating a lovely rump steak when I was abruptly taken away from my food as my rod absolutely melted off, as I looked down in the water I could see a huge common powering off downstream, my nerves were shot and I think that I was a nano second away from shitting myself! She was huge and two powerful twenty yard runs just in view made for terrifying experiencing, I had to just let her tire in the main flow where very little could be done but turn her head when she wanted to go further down, a couple of minutes gone by by now and I slowly got the better of her as she cruised up under the far bank briars which were pretty much parallel with me, I could see every part of it and it was for sure the same carp which took me by surprise in the morning, I grew more and more confident as she gave that tell-tail side roll as the power was drawn out throughout the fight which was probably now at 5 minutes or so.

 The plan was to tease her upstream a couple of yards so I could drop the net below and allow her to drift down into the awaiting folds of my net, the plan was perfect. Then, out of nowhere she kicked into second gear and shifted a biblical amount of water against the flow as she caught a glimpse of my net! I say second gear, as the previous minutes were not in the same ball park, my clutch hissed as line pissed off the spool so fast I could nothing to stop it as a vast mid river weed bed came into the carps view, the hard work was soon unravelling and when the fish disappeared into said weed bed I could feel and hear the line grating and within ten seconds or so all the tension let up and I began to reel in a set-up minus my size 6 hook.......I was absolutely gutted, so close yet so far from what was possibly my river target of a 30lb+ carp. Writing this a week later almost to the hour the pain of losing it has abated very little.

10lb IQ2 hook length minus a fish and hook :(

 I stood and watched the river in amazement in how it could give and take an opportunity of a lifetime in such heartless fashion. A minute or so later I watched the weed hump up and at the top end of the bed I could see the shape of a prize I so very nearly won, just five feet was the difference or possibly five seconds. I am confident in myself I did everything right, this was just to be one of those moments I'll probably reflect upon for years to come for all the wrong reasons. I however will not give up and retribution will hopefully be sought after successfully.

T.H.P.C: Part Fourteen: Stret Pegging for Carp.

 My fishing over the last 4 weeks has become rather sparse owing to my work schedule packing out with lots of lovely clients happy to splash their hard earned money ( most of them, some born with silver spoons with their mouths ), however, I don't ask where it comes from, just that it's used to top up my funds!. Finding little snippets of time hasn't been easy, yesterday morning I made the effort to get up before the post-dusk disappearing act commenced on the carp front which seems to happen every day since the heat and strong sunlight has dominated.

 In truth I haven't had the urge to really get after the carp in the last couple of weeks as dissolved oxygen levels are undoubtedly decreasing everyday as we now enter the fourth week without as much as a drop of rain. The added disadvantage of tired targets due to spawning has wiped out the urge to get on the banks more often as I wait for conditions to become slightly more favourable, hopefully my patience will be rewarded with the capture of some very special fish.

 It was that time again to have the car serviced, so with a 9am appointment booked in with the Audi service centre I knew I'd afforded myself with some time on the bank, so thats what I did, 430am and I was already on the bank, ten minutes later I had found two carp, one a koi, the other a dark common, I had them both feeding, successfully got one to take a lump of stret-pegged flake and had it resting up in the net whilst I prepared myself for a couple of photos. Not bad, only small but a proper little character which one day may make a real brute.

6lb 4oz, my smallest carp of the season but one of the prettiest.

 Stret-pegging is a tactic I don't use often unless the swims are fairly slow or offer slacks where I can pin a bait whilst fishing over depth, only trouble is that sometimes when you know a fish is in your swim, this particular time, a carp, is that when the float slowly cocks and shoots under you would expect it to be that fish, however, I got a little surprise in the shape of this fighting fit summer barbel which went berserk in its full blooded attempt at freedom. My Mark IV had other ideas, in the net you go!

 A plume of bubbles with only a carp in view and end up playing and landing a barbel....only me eh.

 No threats to my river target on this trip and not likely to be from this particular watercourse but its enjoyable, that is good enough for me.

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!

T.H.P.C: Part Twelve: Search For A River Thirty Begins.

 June the 16th for me always comes around with a sense of anticipation and my mind works overtime at the thought of endless possibilities for my river campaigns. This year however proceedings will take on a slightly different feel as I look to maintain my current pursuit of Carp. So far I am thoroughly enjoying it and the challenge ahead is shaping up quite nicely as my targets certainly don't feel any easier to achieve than they did before I began in early April, the opening of the river season would add another dimension to enable me to now target all three of my challenges.

 This year there was to be no midnight start, no early season chub or barbel session, no 250 mile round trip. To mix it up I stayed closer to home and afforded myself something of a lye in, 5am the alarm sounded, forty minutes later I was in the car and on my way to my destination. I hadn't managed much time on this particular river to find out feeding areas or to pre-bait so going blind was the only option, not that it matters sometimes.

 To begin with a single rod approach was the preferred tactic to keep myself mobile, knowing how transient river carp can be, my options had to be kept fairly open to hopefully make the most of any passing opportunity. Upon arriving on the river I could see the occasional Bream floating around, sometimes even having a grub around on the bottom, Carp however remained very anonymous. Like most years the weed growth has been very good, hiding places increased ten-fold, just to make my job harder.

 Clear patches weren't to difficult to locate and after much deliberation for a few hours I settled on one and flicked a few broken boilies out and a handful of corn in a couple of patches of the gravel. With no sign of a carp by 1pm I was beginning to get a little curious as to why I hadn't seen any, I was tucked away nicely, so it wasn't going to be my presence that was putting them off when against the back side of the gravel run an absolute pig of a common waddled upstream with about ten Bream which were also really big fish, most of them I kid you not were double figure fish, IN A RIVER!

 Within five minutes of the fish arriving on the gravel run the carp had shifted on, clearly not interested in the little bit of bait on the bottom, the Bream however thought differently and my delkim sounded as my rod started to peel line. In the absolutely gin clear water I could see a huge slab shaking its head, possibly the biggest Bream I've ever hooked and within a couple of minutes a new personal best lay nestled nicely at the bottom of my 42" net. It's no Carp, who of sane mind could possibly turn their nose up at that! Awesome creature!

A new personal best at 12lb 7oz!

 Understandably I shaking, a lot, when my other rod decided to tare off, Bream number two on! and I hadn't even slipped back the twelve pounder yet, so I wedged the landing net pole between my legs and let one go as I guided the next in, this one smaller, which weighed 9lb 1oz. Crazy times.

 After that madness of having both rods out of the water the dust settled and I was able to take stock of what had just happened, I have not fished for Bream out and out before and have felt the time is near, this showing just illustrated how much I do need to give them a serious go, maybe next year.

 It took quiet sometime for the Bream to come back, when they did the inevitable unfolded as my left hand rod sang and a fish could be seen trying to shed the hook in the weed which lined the gravel bar that I had baited. Battles never last long with Bream usually, this one however either had a bee in its bonnet at being hooked or it thought it was a Carp! taking line and heading back for the weed bed isn't something you expect to have to prevent, it wasn't a small Bream in fairness.

My second biggest ever Bream at 11lb 15ozs. Wow!

  Maybe I got it all wrong and should have targeted Bream, who knows, the Carp may have shown a lot more......as the carp fishing session went there was a lot riding on the evening/night portion, so naturally my mind was in turmoil, where would I spend the evening? should I keep moving? gamble that the carp would maraud under the cover of darkness and find me?

 Sunset had been and gone, the last snippets of light were fading on the horizon and the Owls kept me company, that was until their chorus was broken at 2245 by one of the most electrifying takes I have ever experienced, my Delkim went into meltdown and something made off very quickly. I could only imagine it was a Carp, not a very happy one either.

Proper river carp, wrist on that carp!!

Possibly my best ever photograph.

 This stocky specimen was the culprit and at 19lb 1oz it was a great start to my river carp campaign, that wasn't to be the end of the fun as throughout the night I had the pleasure of another four carp. Reason for not much by way of description as two of the four takes came at times when I had dozed off and practically hooked, landed and photographed the fish in a daze. The later pair of the four came at dawn where the conditions for stalking were made worse by the arrival of some dense cloud and a nuisance shower which lasted almost an hour. Not ideal as I made the decision to leave the shelter in the car overnight as it was a lovely evening, the dawn shower was not in the forecast!

Best of the four at 19lb 14oz.

The prettiest river carp I've ever seen, 16lb 10oz

A lovely old looking 16lb 0oz Mirror.

 These are my lovely additions to an already great campaign, next up for me would hopefully be to press on with one of the target weights so I leave myself a bit of time to focus should time get tight.

Dutch Successes.

 It's been nearly two years already since I last met up with friend Yannick over in the Netherlands, we had threatened to do a few trips in between, but the closest we got was a failed attempt last April due to the ridiculously poor weather. This time around everything looked good and we both got a few days off at the same time.

Beautiful place to spend a couple of days.

 After a relatively quick journey to Stanstead Airport and then a 40 min flight to Eindhoven it was time to get started. Yannick met me at the airport and we drove about an hour south in search of our first target, Grass Carp. I had a desire to catch a 20lb specimen and by the end of the evening I had the pleasure of banking a 22.00 personal best, this was backed up with another at 16.02 which also was a PB as it was caught prior to the "twenty".

16.2

22.00

One towing me around.

All hell braking loose as another is hooked.

Yannick with a mint Dutch specimen.

The smallest of the visit.

22.14 and a new PB for not very long.

 What a start that was!. We had another 3 days, so the grass carp specialist decided that we should give them another go to see if we could get something even bigger and it was to be an inspired decision as I landed another five Grass Carp weighing: 14lb, 16lb, 20.3, 22.14 and 23.4, the sport was brilliant. We were however made to work hard for them as the dense pads which lined most of the waterways made capturing and landing a very difficult challenge. As dusk approached the showing fish became almost constant which was quite awesome, so many big fish and not enough hours in the day to catch them all. We left around sunset and got back Yannick's house around midnight or so.

My Personal Best at 23lb 4oz.

Awesome feeling!

 The clock was set for 4am as we then decided to head out and search a load of drains, lakes and other small waterways in Rotterdam and I was met with an incredible amount of choices, we could only work at it logically and that was to basically do a portion of the waters in an arc that would see us finish back on a lake close to where we parked up. Apart from the odd shape ghosting around we actually struggled to get close to anything apart from a large common between 30-34lb which I stalked for a good couple of hours, I simply couldn't get my presentation right, it really let me down.

 In the evening we decided to leave the carp and head over the Waal river which is a very busy
tideway which is primarily used to allow freight liners and fuel barges to connect between Holland and Germany. To think in all of that our target was an Ide, a species I have never had the pleasure of catching or seeing. Just as dusk was settling in that all changed as I was in contact with a fairly powerful fish which stripped a few yards of braid on numerous occasions before the net slipped under my prize. Quite an awesome fish to be fair, the surrounding environment isn't what I'd call safe for them, clearly this isn't a problem. 3lb 9oz new and only PB for the specimen. There was to be no happy ending for Yannick as his valiant effort to woo an Ide ultimately was cut short by the lack of light, at gone 11pm !

Very happy with that!

 On the last day we knew that I had to be back at Eindhoven for 745-8pm roughly so that gave us a decent amount of fishing time still where one of my hosts friends also joined us for a days carp fishing (none of us had fished here) so it was all new to us.

 The first part of the morning yielded very little apart from the odd fish bubbling. By around 10am we decided to come away from Rotterdam and head back toward Yannick's village where we continued to stalk carp and two out of three were successful, for me, my first ever Dutch king carp.

 We spent the rest of the day under no pressure and proceeded to knock a few beers back and a BBQ! The Dutch way. Great successes for me certainty! Many thanks go out to the main man for making it happen and in October there will be some British species which will be targeted, like the Barbel and Grayling.

T.H.P.C: Part Eleven: Patience is Key.

 My carp campaign over the last two months has been successful, around two dozens sessions have been made covering a wide range of canal sections and a handful of lakes of differing sizes and stock levels.

 The most recent of visits to the bank were in search of my first carp from this specific venue. 6 acres of lily pad cladded margins offered plenty of hiding places for the resident carp which are reputed to surpass the forty pound mark. My target was not necessarily to catch a monster on my first trip here, but certainly do enough research to mount a serious assault, which hopefully would culminate in either a new personal best or even better still a forty pound specimen which would be incredible.

Very carpy!

 Upon my first lap of the lake it became apparent the only places carp were spotted was amongst the pads, the open water looked devoid of fish as a stiff wind whipped up a chop, making stalking fish at distance practically impossible, so I was totally relying on feeding off scraps in the edge. To get an idea of depth I used a plummet and plodded it around to build up a picture of what I was working with when a couple of big carp cruised under a set of pads under my feet!

 To say I was surprised by their size was an understatement as two specimens, both over 30lbs nudged the underside of the plants as they ambled through, the anticipation was incredible, a lump of flake couldn't have been cast out faster. My only concern wasn't whether I could tempt them, but it was the density of the lily's that I had to contend with.

 The carp for a while remained active in front of where I was hidden, only trouble now was their lack of intent on feeding. For possibly half an hour I had two big carp and a couple of smaller ones tracking backwards and forewards, not at any time did one show interest, so I decided to waited it out and then introduce a small piece of slow sinking flake when one appeared. The largest of the carp was a common which was surely an upper 30, colossal in both length and depth, not at any point in my angling years so far had I been so close at targeting something so big for so long, normally its a 20 second window to make it count.

 For the entire duration of their presence my legs felt like jelly, monsters circling like vultures around a carcass. Possibly an hour or so since poking my rod through the bushes I finally got my shot as a smaller common showed some intent by taking a couple of seeds off the top. I readied my bait and flicked it past the common and drew it back straight next to where it took the seeds, just a few seconds later it backed up enough to get my bait in view and its eyes transfixed by my offering she took it obligingly, a decent sized mouth closed and with no invitation I struck into what turned out to be a carp with not much intention of fighting, or she didn't know what was happening as the fight lasted but a minute, not that I was complaining. The lily pads could have made that very difficult.

A hint of Koi in there somewhere.

 A nice common of 16lb 2oz on the bank and it was job done as far as I was concerned, a new water and success within an hour. A couple of snaps and the obligatory weighing and her ordeal was over, a quick sulk was followed by a right ol' soaking as she tore off....bit late, that was supposed to happen before landing her! But I don't mind.

 After that bit of fun the remaining fish vanished and for a couple of hours I pottered around the lake with Brian as we looked for a showing fish. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the lake appeared and upon speaking to a couple of other anglers a mental picture was being built. The picture was of a hard water where not many carp were getting caught and average weight was pretty impressive at mid 20's with a healthy population of 30lb carp and a couple of 40's, whilst in conversation with these various anglers they were all doing the same thing....bottom baits or pop-ups and waiting for the opportunity, with a stable barometric pressure of 1015-1022 for well over 10 days and no immediate change in the forecast the carp were seldom going to feed on the bottom as they'd be up in the water column.

Tempting the carp was just part of the jigsaw!

 All the gear and no idea. That quite often seems to be the case with a proportion of carp anglers, on the top is where the action is likely to happen owing to the high pressure and sunshine, I just don't get it, anyway, having walked a couple of full laps of the lake I decided to head back to roughly where I'd started, Brian wandered off for a look elsewhere on another lake and I hoped the carp I saw in the morning would revisit, that decision turned out to be a great one!

 Just ten minutes after returning to initial peg we started at a large mirror and common cruised into view from the deeper water and barged their way through the densely padded margin, shortly afterwards they began to feed off the top, this scenario was tailor made for me and I could not wait to get a bait out.

 As my waterlogged flake lay just under the surface a large mirror circled and with no pause she slowly glided up to the bait, one huge slurp was followed by a powerful surge, one that I would absolutely expect off of an angry carp, my 9ft Dwarf's 2.75 test curve was called into action as I battled tirelessly to keep her out of the denser area of pads where my 12lb line may have struggled to resist the constant strain. I knew straight away it was a thirty plus specimen and with that knowledge it put extra pressure on me to maintain the upper hand but that was not easy to impose, with the weight behind her the battle just kept going, on a long run which proved to be it's last she headed out towards an island where she began to round it before I had no choice but to clamp down and hope for the best, thankfully I had a favourable angle and managed to turn her head, thus forcing her to abort the attempt at freedom as I'm certain it would have been. That move turned out to be the deal maker, thirty yards of line gained and she approached the fringe of the pads once again, this time a little more tired there was no last minute gasp for freedom and on my first visit I had one of the lakes larger residents in the net.

I'll take that, ta!

 Buzzing in this shot with a 31lb 10oz stalked mirror, still buzzing now to be fair a few days on!

And a release shot :)

 I have to be honest here, once I watched her waddle off into the murky depths I lost the urgency to catch another, allow myself the opportunity to enjoy it for what it was, a fantastic carp caught from a tough venue on my first visit, not bad at all. The remaining couple of hours slipped by without incident and that was it. 

T.H.P.C: Part Ten: 37 Days, New Canal PB.

 Thirty seven days is how long my canal personal best carp stood at, that was until I beat on the 26th May. Having worked so hard for my common which tipped the scales at 25lb 7oz I was rewarded with yet another towpath titan! Many early risings, many many miles walked and plenty of time spent muttering to myself it has surely got to be easier than this.

Releasing something special :)

 On my iPhone there is a health app which also has a pedometer, for my nine trips on to the canal since the beginning of April I have sauntered along 120 miles of urban and rural canal sections. Many of those miles walked have proven to be more fruitful than I could have ever imagined.

 Before this particular day I spent eight sessions for a return of four carp, but having walked so much and beginning to see the same fish (not specimens which will enable me to achieve my goal on the canal) the search for new pastures had begun. Within an hour I was to be rewarded with this lump!.

 With the sun high and bright, very light northerly winds and zero boat traffic I was able to stalk unimpeded, this doesn't always happen and when I stumbled over a small group of carp (four to be exact) I stuck around to try and catch one, as I tracked them a large mirror just caught my eye as my brother noticed it lift up off the bottom. Was this the very specimen I was looking for? As I tracked her every move I decided not to cast until I could see it slow down as she was cruising with real intent. About 40 yards from where I first noticed her she cruised into the margins and got her snout down into the weed, as she did that I flicked a piece of free-lined flake out which I hadn't squeezed so it remained very buoyant and as she arched up off the bottom she noticed the flake.

Absolutely ecstatic!

 Five or six minutes later a new canal personal best carp lay resting in my net, although she was ready to burst her appetite was certainly not thwarted, at roughly 0930 I cradled this wild monster. At 27lb 9oz it is actually my fourteenth largest mirror ever. I could not have been happier. Am I going to find a carp to break the 30lb barrier? I will certainly try!