Trip 38 Carp Fishing- 2018

After a very hard week at work, as a house husband/gardener, I was due a trip out. It’s a tough life but someone has to do it!

I was surprised to see so many people on the lake again. The top carpark was full and the tower car park had a few cars in it. I stopped for a walkabout. I found a couple of swims I fancied and one free on the island. I headed over that way for a look and discovered Ian, my friend, on the daisy field swim. Now that’s what the Doctor ordered! A good social with a few glasses after a hard week. I popped down and checked if he didn’t mind if I doubled up and he was fine with that. There is probably some 10 acres in front of this swim.

I set up on the left of the swim and put my baits into the same bay area, as I had done before.

One rod was more in open water than the last time and on a hump, we found with the Deeper.

The rod in the bay was also fished on a likely spot.

But more in the middle of a large gully with a small bit of weed. Both areas had about 10 spombs of a ground bait mixture made up of different size pellets & types from Spotted Fin, plus a bag of their particle mix.

And I was making up bags with a handful of Catalyst boilies in each one,

with a 15mm Catalyst wafter tied up with their Chod filament Ronnie Rig style. I find this works very well for me on this lake.

I was finally all set up after some 2 hrs after I had arrived. A nice glass of wine and a long chat was very much needed. It was nearly midnight catching up with life. This is the fun of socials.

Around 3 am, my left-hand rod was away and after the normal battle you get on here (I thought to myself), it felt a bit bigger the fish I have been catching at the moment on here and sure it was.

At 5oz over 20lbs, I was very happy.

With a new bag makeup, I was time to get my head down, I dropped off listening to the dawn chorus, on a very misty morning.

The day passed with no action and the temperature rose nicely. This was until mid-afternoon when the rain arrived and a nice cool breeze picked up. Just what the dr ordered.

As the sunset over the lake, there were a few fish about and we were feeling very confident. The first and last take came around 4am to Ian’s right-hand was off. It was a very unhappy Airfield Lake common, just under 10lbs. This was nice for him and as the fish had started to spawn again (sometime during the night). This was a complete surprise to everyone fishing. They first started in early May (as normal) and had done it a couple of time since. There had been no signs for the past couple of weeks.