UK Carp & Coarse Fishing

I’m back out on the syndicate water for a couple of nights. After looking back through my old diaries, I decided it’s just not worth heading to Airfield Lake yet—I’ve only ever had one March carp from there, so the odds aren’t exactly in my favour.

I arrived to find the lake completely empty. While that might sound ideal, it can actually make things harder—too much choice can cloud your judgement. The wind was pushing in much the same direction as last week, and after a message from another syndicate member about showing fish, my thinking naturally leaned towards similar areas again.

I always use the drive down to go over everything I’ve learned in the previous week. By the time I arrive, I’ve usually got a top three in mind. I’ll then spend time in each area, watching, listening, and letting the lake guide the final decision.

This time, I settled on a swim known as “Duck.” It offers a few good options, including a small bay to the right that was taking the full force of the wind—always worth a look at this time of year.

I got the Frontier up, sorted the gear, and started working the swim. After checking the Deeper Maps+ app and plumbing around with the marker rod, I found exactly what I was looking for. A decent area was primed with a good hit of mixed Spomb ingredients, while the bay to my right was fished more subtly—just four pouchfuls of EnerGize boilies with the catapult.

The plan was simple: keep the feed going in the main area and rotate hookbaits over the next 48 hours to see what they really wanted.

By 14:45, I had a tench on the left-hand rod. Not what I was after, but it showed something was happening on the spot. Encouragingly, I’d already seen a few carp show out there during the afternoon.

Through the night, the lake came alive. Carp were clearly active, with fish crashing out in the darkness—but frustratingly, all I had to show for it were a bream and another tench. Still, the signs were there, and that’s often half the battle.

By midday the following day, it was time to freshen things up. Both rods were recast, the swim topped up, and I took a walk around the lake. By 12:30, the sun had finally broken through—perfect timing, especially with an eye on that margin spot.

As the final evening drew in around 17:00, the lake fell flat calm. Not ideal. A few bream started showing, which is never a great sign for the night ahead. There had been the odd carp show out in open water earlier in the afternoon, but nothing convincing close in. With a cold night ahead, it felt like it could go either way. Still, I couldn’t have been happier with how everything was positioned—I’d done all I could.

The night itself was eerily quiet. No shows, no liners, nothing. Complete silence… until 5:00am.

A drop-back on one of the rods had me out of the bivvy in seconds. At first, it felt like another bream, just plodding along—but as it came under the rod tip, everything changed. The fish powered off, kiting hard left towards the snags, and for a moment it was touch and go.

Thankfully, steady pressure did the job.

A 21lb 8oz common carp lay in the net.

A proper result—and well worth the wait.

The bite came on an EnerGize hookbait combination: a 15mm corkball wafter topped with a 12mm pop-up, fished on a Ronnie-style hinged stiff rig.

With four hours still left, the rod was quickly reset with a fresh snowman presentation and flicked back onto the spot. You just never know…iit was soon home time

Until next time

Richard