The Best Laid Plans

Usually I have my carp fishing sessions planned down to the last detail, bait, tackle, rigs and venue are all meticulously chosen!. Despite my careful forward planning, my carp fishing always seems to end up somewhere else and this week has been no exception!. A week off work was supposed to see me heading south to horseshoe lake for a crack at some easy southern carp, however, my timing couldn’t have been worse. A quick phone call to the carp society revealed that some swims where still under water after the recent flooding, coupled with this, the carp mecca known as linear fisheries was still closed and the kids were on their school holidays. I made the decision not to waste my money going to horseshoe lake, those easy southern carp would have to wait a while longer!. This cancelled fishing trip left me at a loose end, a whole week off and no idea what to do with it!. I decided to spend Monday night on a local big fish water, I knew I was up against it but I had to do something. Needless to say I blanked on Monday night, I did see half a dozen carp show themselves but they were rolling in a safe area well out of casting range, which is not unusual on this particular carp water. Having done Monday night for nothing I decided to give the carp fishing a miss for a few days, I bummed around the house wondering where I could go for a bend in the rod and the chance of a decent carp. A friend of mine invited me to do a night on another Cheshire carp water on Thursday night and with nothing else on the horizon until Friday night I accepted. I arrived at the lake late Thursday evening, my mate was already installed in what was regarded as a hot peg, he’d actually waited a couple of hours for a bream angler to vacate the peg and judging by the carp rolling in his swim he did the right thing waiting!. As this was a bit of a social session I opted to set up in the peg next door, not a brilliant choice but this session wasn’t really about catching for me, I’d never fished this carp water before so it was more of a recce trip to see if it was worth while spending some time fishing there, I'd heard good things about the carp in this water and I just wanted a first hand look for myself. I fished through the night with no bivvy or bedchair, just me sat on my JRC Cocoon Recliner quietly listening for fish crashing and trying to get a feel for the lake. The lake itself was deep, the margins were deep too and it was here I’d decided to place my hookbaits. A light sprinkling of boilies over each rod was all I used, just enough to fish for them one carp at a time. Odd carp crashed but the night was quiet, I was actually asleep on my chair when just before 4am my middle Delkim burst into life, straight away I was flat rodded by one very angry carp!. I applied some heavy side strain in order to keep the carp away from some overhanging trees off to my right, the steady pressure eventually began to work and I slowly edged the fish away from the trees and into open water. Everything was far from straight forward though, this carp was mental and it just didn’t want to give up, the fish circled in front of me and made repeatedly long runs into the deep open water before I managed to get it close to the bank. Once close in it managed to pick up one of my other lines despite me using a backlead. The whole fight lasted perhaps 20 minutes before I finally managed to bundle the fish into the net, by this time my mate was with me having heard the carp splashing on the surface. We peeled back the Landing Net mesh to reveal one stunning looking carp!, a ghost like common that ended up turning the scales past that magic 20lb mark, the carp weighed 20lb 12oz and was just mint. 20lb 12oz, A cracking looking carp !!! I couldn’t believe how long the fish was, or how big it’s tail was, it was a real bullet shaped fish and it was easy to see why it had given such a good fight in the deep water. A truly stunning carp!. Naturally we got the Pictures over and done with quickly and returned the fish to the water, the rest of the session passed uneventfully for me, I was hoping for another carp through the early morning period but all I got was a cricked neck and a stiff back after falling asleep on my chair again!. I can’t explain how happy I was to have caught that carp, I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall chasing big north west carp and failing miserably this year, my supposed horseshoe session had to be cancelled and yet I found myself sitting on my chair beside a Cheshire lake at stupid o clock in the morning grinning like a Cheshire cat. Carp fishing does that too you, you slowly grind yourself into the ground loosing confidence and wondering why you even bother going then the next thing your on cloud nine and chomping at the bit to catch another!. Roll on the next session and another carp as nice as this one.
Mark.