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Following on from my last diary entry, after catching that 21lb 4oz mirror carp from the river dee I left my gear in the hall ready to go fishing again the next morning. My intentions of heading to one of the Cheshire carp lakes I have a ticket for were honourable but when I got up the next morning I just didn’t feel like going fishing. That river dee twenty was a season maker for me, it was such a good result I didn’t feel like sitting beside a carp lake watching for fish and trying to work out exactly where the carp were before it was time to go home so I packed my gear away for the week and went shopping to Birkenhead instead!. I was happy to wander round the shops picking up the odd new shirt and tie for work and that Saturday I didn’t miss being on the bank at all. Whilst writing this my mind wandered back to my carping in the early 90’s, I was a lot more dedicated back then and there’s no way I’d have missed a days fishing for anything regardless of what kind of result I’d had the evening before, in fact I probably wouldn’t have gone home!. I guess after 18 years of carp fishing I’m just not as dedicated as I used to be. I’ve learned over the years that there’s more to life than fishing and I don’t mind regular breaks from being on the bank these days. Years ago, I never gave anything but carp fishing a thought and looking back now, I realise I’ve been overlooked for promotion in a few jobs due to my desire to be chasing north west carp and I’m so glad I came to my senses and realised that carp fishing is just a hobby and that I don’t need to spend every waking moment fishing or thinking about fishing!. I think these days my life has a lot more balance to it, work is going well and since changing jobs a few years ago I’ve risen through the ranks quickly and doubled my salary in the process, ok its been at the expense of my fishing but I can live with that, a 30lb north west carp isn’t worth spending my life on the breadline for, I hope I find that north west thirty one day but I’d rather go without it than be poor!. Having digressed a little bit I’ll once again bring my diary up to date, this week I was at a loss as to what venue to fish. I do have a wide choice of north west carp waters to fish but I usually end up discounting most of them for various reasons, my favourite being carp feeding times. If you know a carp lake tends to produce well between the hours of midnight and 6am, there’s little point in fishing from 10am until dusk as you’d be up against it straight away. My sessions are usually short so I want to tip the odds in my favour and choose a water where I stand a chance in the daytime. Eventually I settled on a quick visit to a carp water in Cheshire I’ve written about before in my diary, its somewhere I go occasionally when I want to be in with half a chance of a run, it is generally a night time water but if you get your approach right daylight action is possible. I made a great start to the day by over sleeping and not getting up until 11am!. I had nothing else planned and I did feel like whiling away a few hours on the bank so I went fishing anyway despite being late up. I arrived at the lake around 1.30pm and had a look around, it was windy and I couldn’t see any carp movements at all. I knew from looking at one of the carp fishing forums I’m a member of that it had been fishing hard so I figured I’d try off the back of the wind, I dropped into a swim that gave me the option of casting across to some dying lily pads and I put both rods into this area on the opposite bank, the seagulls were a pain when it came to scattering a few boilies around but eventually I managed to get a few baits out and I settled down to watch the water for signs of any carp. I’d like to say I spotted some fish but nothing showed during the afternoon, I knew the area I was fishing might give me a chance and I decided to stay on after dark until 9pm to see if anything was going to happen. Sadly for me, this week it didn’t, I blanked without even so much as a sniff of a carp. Coming back down to earth with a blank is nothing new for me, sometimes you catch and sometimes you don’t, just to make my blank a little bit worse the heavens opened 10 minutes before my pack up time, typical, there hadn’t been a drop of rain all day and evening and 10 minutes away from leaving a shower comes in! I waited for it to pass then packed my fishing gear away wet and headed for home. I already know I won’t be fishing next weekend as I’ve a meeting to attend next Saturday morning, having looked through my diary entries since I started writing I can’t find anything on carp rigs so with this in mind I intend to make next weeks entry about them. I wouldn’t imagine it will be a long entry, my carp rigs are very simple and have pretty much remained unchanged since the early to mid 1990’s but more about my rigs….or rig! Next week. The week after next I will begin my winter carp diary. I've yet to visit any of my chosen winter carp waters yet and I've got my first trip pencilled in for 24th November, once we get into December I'm hopeful I can put a few winter carp on the bank, winter is a good time to be out, the carp are getting fat and the banks don't see as many anglers which all sounds good to me, until then, be lucky.
Tight Lines
Mark.