Spring Carp

As I drove through the gated entrance of this nearby day ticket venue, I was greeted with an array of Crocus in various colours.  This pretty flower is often given as a mothers day gift as it emerges in late winter, early spring and is a sign of longer, milder days. Officially, according to the UK meteorologists the last day of February sees the end of winter, so I suppose my winter campaign on that chosen venue is over. 

My aim during the spring and summer is to fish 2 different venues, both day ticket, in search of larger carp and I have set myself a target on the number of twenties I would like to land during that time.  I do not normally set targets in numbers of fish, however, I am relishing the challenge.   The last time I set such a challenge was 10 years ago whilst fishing a Linear syndicate with good success, I go into great detail about this in my ebook "Fishing The Dream" which will be available for download in the coming months.

The staff at this venue are always helpful and after a chat I chose my swim, the lad then pointed out that I could drive directly to it, bonus, no need to use the barrow.  The swim I chose had access to deep and shallower water with some tempting margin features.  Regular readers of my blog will already know that my favourite type of carping is at close range, fishing to overhanging trees, reeds etc.   Alot of anglers avoid the margins and prefer to cast at range believing all the carp are holed up in the middle, im sure some might be, but certainly not all!  In this session I adopted 2 tactics, I chose a margin feature and baited up sparingly and left it for 2 hours.  During those two hours I would cast the rods around at regular intervals to various features to see if I can find out where the carp are feeding or receive any line bites.  

The only sign of carp in those first 2 hours was when a single carp head and shouldered near a dead patch of lillies on the far bank.  I walked around the lake, threw in a half a dozen of the Charwoods MPP boilie and then cast to this feature and decided to leave the rod there for a while.

The other rod was now cast to my prebaited spot on the edge of the nearside reeds and did not take long to give me my first fish of the session.  The hook bait had only been positioned there for 10 minutes when the alarm screamed out and I played a strong carp away from the thick reed bed.  The water was obviously still cold and this reflected in the fight, the carp plodded and never really troubled me once he was in open water.  

At over 13lb it was my first fish from the lake on my first visit and it came from 4 feet of water.  I introduced a few more MPP boilies and recast, sat back and had my own lunch.

The Charwoods MPP boilie has served me well through the winter and its a bait I am sticking with 12 months of the year.  With its candy like aroma and good nutritional value, as soon as you open the bag you want to stick one on your hair.  They are a good food source all year round and have caught fish from the very first time a venue has seen them.  For more information look up Charwood Baits on facebook or follow the link above.

 A cold wind sprang up in the afternoon which made it feel wintry once again.  The wind punished the left hand bank rustling through the lifeless reed stems sending a firm ripple across the lake.  The afternoon remained quiet, no showing carp, no liners.  

Two other anglers turned up mid afternoon to fish a night session. Sure enough it was not long before single hook baits were sent flying out to the middle of the lake, directly in front of my swim, just as well I was fishing the margins!  This is the drawback with day ticket venues, they can become busy even early in the season and although each swim has a sign with your fishing areas marked on them, they are not always adhered to!

Above all this, there is a reason why I keep returning to carp fishing and that is the stunning variety of carp you have the pleasure of catching.  At over 13lb, its far off the venues best however it was a cracking looking fish from a lake I had not fished before, that has to be a result.

Over the coming months I will go into more detail on my boilie only approach for carp, my preference to use glugs in the warmer weather and more in-depth look at margin fishing.