A trip to the dark side

Seeing as I haven't done any blogging for ages I thought I'd better put something on otherwise it will be getting on for a full month between updates! To be honest I've not done a great deal of fishing lately mainly due to working lots of overtime. I did have a couple more perching trips after my last blog update but other than catching a couple of small ones they were fairly uneventful.

A couple of weekends ago I played host to the lads of the Milton Keynes specimen group who had booked one of our club stretches of the trent for a fish-in. After meeting up with them and giving them a quick tour they seemed very taken with the stretch and certainly  didn't waste any time setting up. Within the first hour Dickie brigden had landed a lovely Barbel of 11.14 which was a great weight off my shoulders after telling the lads how great the stretch was! The rest of the weekend passed off brilliantly with more double figure barbel and plenty of other fish to keep the lads occupied, they had a fantastic time by all accounts and I'm so chuffed that I was able to contribute to it in my own small way.

Just lately I've had a real hankering to go Carp fishing, don't ask me why, it's just a sudden urge I've had. In fact it's been more of an urge than I originally anticipated because I suddenly found myself in the tackle shop last week handing over a substantial chunk of cash for some new Carp rods! It's unbelievable what a couple of episodes of Carp crew and Thinking tackle can lure you into!

Anyway, armed with my new gear I headed to one of our club lakes in a bid to scratch the itch. The lake in question is around 3 acres and contains around 200 carp to low twenties so it's not overly difficult but it can be tricky on occasions due to the underwater topography and very clear water.
I was pleased to find I had the lake to myself upon my arrival and it didn't take me long to see a few fish moving about. I was quite surprised to see them so active as the weather had turned pretty chilly over the previous few days and we'd even had a couple of light frosts . I quickly set up in a swim which gave me a couple of good margin spots to cast to in the area the fish were showing. A couple of bags filled with 10mm boilies and a few halibut pellets were soon in position and I sat back to await events.

Fish continued to show but they were now further out and after an hour of total inactivity I was starting to convince myself I was fishing in too shallow water for the conditions. I was just contemplating a recast when suddenly my left hander buckled around and I found myself doing battle with what felt like a decent fish. After a feisty battle in the deep water it turned out to be smaller than I thought at around 15lb but it was a nice way to christen the new rods.

I took the opportunity to recast my right hand rod to where the fish were showing and I placed the left hander back where I'd just caught from. At this point another club bailiff came round and we'd been stood there talking for around 45mins when I received a blistering take on the right hander. This one was slightly smaller than the first but I was well pleased because I was fishing a new rig and it seemed to be working very well indeed.

Shortly after that fish the weather closed and it began to rain . Almost as soon as the rain started the fish stopped showing and i had the feeling id had all the action i was going to get for the day. Three hours later the feeling proved right and the temptation of a nice hot Sunday dinner back home was too much to resist. I emerged from my trip to the dark side fairly unscathed, maybe this Carp fishing lark isnt so bad after all . I wont be making a habit of it though!