For those of you who know your history the 6th September 1997 might just ring a bell?. It was the day Princess Diana was laid to rest. At the time, the TV and Radio was a nightmare, it seemed that the media were doing their level best to depress anyone and everyone!. I’m not a big fan of the royals and although what happened was a tragedy, it had little or no bearing on my life and I’d had enough of the continuous misery being churned out by our media on a daily basis. There was only one thing to do on the day of Princess Di’s funeral and that was get up early and go carp fishing, at least on the bank I was free from having this event rammed down my throat!.
I was up a couple of hours before first light making a Flask
My plan was to fish the first part of the day on what is now one of the most talked about carp waters in the north west, capesthorne top pool, back in 1997 there was no night fishing allowed and the water was a shadow of the venue it is today. The top pool did have a tendency to produce fish from first light onwards until mid morning back then and the second part of my plan was to move onto capesthorne main lake during the afternoon as the main lake was a known late afternoon/evening carp water.
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I’ve always been a short session carp angler and being days only the capesthorne waters were ideal for me, my fishing gear was stripped out to the minimum and this made the walk across the field to the top pool quite bearable, I walked through the small gate and dropped my gear in the boathouse peg so I could have a look around, it was starting to crack light and with nobody around I had the lake to myself, all I needed was a fish to roll and give me a clue and I could drop onto the area and be in with a chance of catching.
I was using Tiger Nuts
Right on cue a carp head and shouldered beyond the main pads to the right of the boat house so I grabbed my gear and moved down a couple of pegs and into the bay (peg 12). I cast a couple of single tiger nut D-rigs to were the carp had rolled and sat back to see what happened. I didn’t have to wait long, just 5 minutes after casting in the right hand rod pulled down and signalled a run. I was on it straight away, the fish took a bit of line but once it got bogged down in the weed the fight changed and the fish became quite subdued. I slowly pumped the carp and the accompanying weed back towards the net, apart from a nervous moment close in when the fish tried to make the branches of a fallen tree, I had no problems and I slipped the net under my prize after a fight that lasted about 5 minutes.
I peeled back the Landing Net
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I’d had a quick result, it was 7.30am when I’d caught crinkle tail and I fished on through dawn and through the morning with no further action. I had hoped to bank another fish having got crinkle at the start of my session but it wasn’t to be and early in the afternoon I gathered my gear together and moved onto the main lake for the rest of the day.
Capesthorne main lake was fishing quite hard and being Saturday afternoon I was up against it, I stood on the bridge looking for carp and wondering what to do, this was a position I’ve been in many times before and after spending an hour looking round I decided to drop onto the famous ornamental eagle peg in the garden pool. I knew from hours of watching capesthorne carp that they would move up from the shallows late afternoon and that I might stand a chance in the eagle. I knew the swim and I knew the margins in front of it were a prime area for carp moving through in the evenings. I fished a few benches to the left of the eagle so as not to disturb the area, I dropped both D rigs in the margins and sat back to watch the water, if I saw fish move elsewhere I could always move on them if necessary, otherwise I was sitting and waiting for the carp to come to me.
I was enjoying the day and with no radio on I was still free from the historical event that was unfolding in the real world. It was 6.50pm when my attention was caught by a single bleep from one of my Delkims
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A new pb common from the top pool and a nice mirror from the main lake later on was a great result and I was rightfully pleased with the day I’d just had, in fact I may have been the only person who was grinning from ear to ear on that famous day!.
Tight Lines
Mark.
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