Braxted Front Lake 'Time Changing'

The morning that my alarm clock went off to wake me for my first session on Braxted front lake I was up like a shot. I proceeded to throw two coffees down my neck, packed the car and drove way over the legal speed limit to get to the waters edge. I had walked around both front and back lakes before my sessions on the reservoir, I instantly connected to the atmosphere of the waters and was eager to wet a line. Both front and back are not easy but the rewards are in there if you are determined enough.

New Memories

I have read a fair amount about the Braxted complex and the general consensus is that 'it's not what it use to be'. I think we can safely say this about pretty much all the lakes out there now. The world is constantly changing and time is something that we can't stop, however hard we try, the clock just keeps on ticking, there is never enough time when you are on the bank, at work the days drag, at the water they evaporate frustratingly.
  
Time eventually ends up taking us all, desires, clarity, the people we love and of course the carp that we've grown to admire. History fish are few and far between now and I know a lot of anglers out there want to catch something that really means something and represents an element far greater than just its size. The saving grace though is that there is a future and with a future develops a past and all waters will grow to hold something special once again. 

I find the older you get the more time you can spend chasing the feelings from the past, the first time you cast a line, that magical moment you lay your eyes on your first stretch of water, catching your first monster. I have come to realise that you will never be able to replicate any of the emotions you felt at those points in your life, memories change and get filed in the mind under 'experience', they season with age. We must learn to welcome time and not resent it for the way it has changed the things we once loved. For me Braxted is new, I am yet to experience it in its summer skin or stripped of its life in the depths of winter. I have a clean slate and that is something that excites me, I have nothing to compare it to, its 'hey day' may of passed but for me it's yet to come.

A Clean Slate

When I arrived at the water it was pretty quiet, no one was carp fishing, there were a few pleasure anglers transfixed on their wagglers and quiver tips. It was very warm, I had a scout about to see if I could see any carpy activity. There were no obvious signs so I decided I was going to fish the left side bank and fish underneath the rod tips. The margins had lots of reeds, overhanging trees and small clumps of grass, I thought the fish must get up tight to all of these features. For this to work I was going to have to be very quiet, something that is now a solid rule within my angling. 

The first thing that stood out for me was how clear both the water and the bottom of the lake was. With polaroids I could see right down in the margin and the lake bed looked very clean, apart from on the really shallow shelf beneath my feet. I was going to have to take this in to account when choosing my rig components. I have mentioned it a lot in my previous blog posts that I think camouflage is very important regarding your end tackle. I know that a lot of people don't think it makes a great deal of difference, I do, subtly disguised rigs could be the difference between that monster carp sensing danger or accepting the bait. All my rigs have to look right and function correctly prior to casting out.

Subtle End Tackle Choices

My components included a short length of Carp Craze translucent green tubing paired with one of their dark green tail rubbers. My lead of choice was a Carpy Chris Weed Inline 2.5oz and my hook-link was 15IB Jelly-wire. I used my rig pens to dull down the hook-link so it was literally undetectable on the lake bed. My bait of choice on both rods was Tigernut & Maple, both rods were fishing bottom baits. Because this is my first session I have no previous clues as to how the carp respond to bait so I decided to pile it in over both rods. The more sessions I do I will start to make notes on what is working for me.  

Simple Camo Rig Presentation

I find it takes me a good 6/7 sessions on any water to start painting a workable picture of the way the lake works. I have never seen the point in regularly going to a lake and doing the same thing or sticking to the same swims, you learn nothing by doing this. Through a process of elimination you should start to be able to gauge what works and what doesn't. 

All in all it's about how systematical you are with your fishing. Once I find a few ways in to a water, the first thing I will change is the bait. I learn a lot from bait rotation, after a few months of chopping and changing you start to get a feel for the baits that work the best on certain waters. It can be argued that swapping baits around doesn't allow you to establish any regular food source, but that's my intention, I want to keep the carp guessing. 

No Visible End Tackle

Before placing my rigs I had a little lead around, I could feel from the drop that there were at least three shelves that slowly sloped down. These were very close in so I decided I would fish on the shallow shelf and one in the slightly deeper water. To my surprise as I was getting set to cast out, three really big commons came swimming past right underneath my nose, I could of literally touched their backs. This was a very good sign, I got both rods out with the least amount of disturbance, topped both spots up with a good few handfuls of bait, set the bobbins and sat back quietly to wait in anticipation.

 View From The Swim

As the afternoon progressed the sun really started to beat down and I was feeling so hot, fish were showing just under the surface out in front of me. I was hoping that I could pick at least one of them off if a few were making their way along the marginal areas. Because it was all new to me I really was blind to any apparent system that the lake might have. I find in these moments it's all intuitive, I have to lock on to my confidence and understand that I am fishing the best that I can under the circumstances.

Sure enough just as afternoon was turning to evening, a few bleeps occurred on my left rod. It stuttered and then it was away, I connected to a fish that felt solid, the rod arched around and the clutch was singing. I kept the pressure on, a long common appeared determined to shake me off, a little more pressure to maintain control..... just a little more and then....., Bingo! she was in the net. What a result and it looked like it could go twenty, it might have even been one of the three carp that I spotted under my nose earlier. Scales sunk to 22IB 5oz, I was so pleased especially as it was caught so close in. I got a few trophy shots and gently slipped her home.

First Braxted Common 22IB 5oz

I was very pleased to of grabbed one especially on my first trip, I have got a lot to learn about the water but this was a solid starting point. The approached worked but there's no guarantees it will work the same again. I think because it was a hot day the carp were obviously milling around in the shallows. At some point I want to get a marker rod out and suss the bottom out, I will opt on doing this when there aren't so many other anglers around.

I only plan on fishing the water blind once. Understanding the typography of the bottom will open up a load more options for me on future sessions. I plan to start to map out my favored swims and then I can start to stitch it all together. On all the waters I fish, the ultimate goal is clarity, with clarity comes consistency and with consistency comes a very good chance of bagging a real beauty. 

The Cut 'Acres Wild'

Nestled deep within the Medway valley sunken into the landscape rests a water called The Cut. It is overgrown with no swims and at first glance you'd think that you were looking at a stretch of wild river. I know that it contains some carp but there's no real record of how many there are or how big they go. There's been some rumours of a few big commons lurking, to be honest neither of these points matter to me when approaching a water like this. The Cut is like an unanswered question and it's a question that I am determined to answer. This blog is going to account for a series of short sessions most being on consecutive days. I won't go into huge detail, taking into account my last few blogs have been long and pretty heavy going.

The Cut

In the past I have done my time here but I never really got into the groove, I wouldn't class it as easy fishing, I have managed a few fish out and both were lovely and dark, scraping double figures. It's a very strange water, it's clear, weedy and very shallow in places, I have found that the fish very rarely give themselves away and it's easy to think that no carp are present. It took me a long time to unlock but every minute I've spent on its banks has been an utter pleasure. It's as if time just evaporates into the ether and the outside world is decades away. 

At first presentation was a bit of an issue due to the amount of naturals that the water provides, I found that steering away from modern baits and going back to basics proved successful. Fishing peperami topped off with buoyant corn seemed to attract the carp. Any time I fished boilies I would get inundated with tench and bream. 

This got me thinking on how I could mimic peperami by using a boilie, to achieve the same presentation I opted on using a salmon marine hooker pellet heavily glugged in Garlic Sausage flavouring. The hooker pellets are a dumbbell shape and if you trim them down you can get almost the same aesthetic as peperami. 

Hooker Pellet vs Peperami

I replaced the buoyant corn with half of a yellow Avid zig dumbbell, these are super buoyant and allow the bait to sit nicely up on the bottom. It's similar to a KD presentation but without the KD whipping. I call it 'The Savoury Rig' and it has accounted for a fair few carp in recent years. The secret to the rig is to get it balancing perfectly so the bait is hovering and the hook sits flat, this allows it to sit nicely perched on any debris and goes into the carps mouth very easily allowing the hook to catch hold.

The Savoury Rig

You will see in the above image that I use a long hair, fixed just under the bait are two Atomic tungsten sinkers with a small piece of tungsten putty moulded around them. I have found this rig to work very well using a stiff material for my hook-link, I currently use Krystons SYNX for my stiff rig setups, I highly recommend it, it steams nice and straight, sinks like a brick and is very abrasion resistant.

View From Above

On my first session I arrived at the water for 2pm, by this time the sun was cooling off and I had time to get my baits on the right spots before bite time. I had chosen to fish a very narrow stretch of water. To me I call these kind of swims "Passing Traffic" spots. This is where you are fishing an area where you feel the carp will be patrolling back and forth to get to other areas of the lake. I had a lovely set of reeds to go at and a fair amount of surface weed, my plan was to get tight to the reeds and fish under the weed. Because I was so confident in my bait and presentation I decided to stick with fishing singles.

View From The Swim

As expected things were slow, I got a few liners but there really weren't any signs of carp in the vicinity, then again there never really is. I think about an hour went by before my right hand rod took off, it was a spirited fight and through the crystal clear water I could see a lovely dark mirror racing around. I soon netted her, scales sunk to 14IB, it was so perfect looking without a mark on her. It was by far one of the best looking carp I'd caught in terms of its proportions.

A Perfect 14IB Mirror

I got the rod back, I knew it was a long shot if I was going to have another, as expected the session evaporated away with no more action. I packed up just before dark with the plan on coming back the next day.

Session Two

Just like the day before, I arrived mid afternoon and decided to fish the same swim. I knew both spots were good for a bite, this time I put a light scattering of bait over both rods to see if I could tempt more than one carp. My first take came really quickly, this was off my right hand rod, it tore away and the fish was taking some serious line. I was desperately trying to keep it away from both the weed and the snags. I didn't bother weighing her, she was long and lean, maybe touching double figures.

A Dark & Lean Cut Common

I slipped her back, because the take had come so fast I felt confident that I could nick another before leaving. The rod went straight back on the spot with a few baits scattered. The next bite came off my left hand rod, the fish kited down the channel, with a bit of side strain I managed to lead her back, once again the fight was hard, she soon tired, it was another perfect looking mirror once again weighing in at 14IB.

A Fish Off Both Spots

After putting her back I gave it about an hour or so and then packed up, I was very pleased to nail two. My plan again was to come down the following day, because that zone of water was working for me I decided that I would stick to fishing it.

Session 3

Just like the previous session, rods were out by mid afternoon, because the conditions have remained consistent throughout the week I really didn't see the point in changing anything to do with my approach. The rods were quickly out on the usual spots, this time around I went back to fishing singles. 

The baits had been in the water for about an hour before I got my first take. It was the right hand rod, this one was fished especially close to the reeds. It was another great fight and at the end of it I was surprised to be sliding the net under another sizable mirror, it was spotless and didn't even look like it had been caught before.

14IB Of Uncaught Mirror Carp

Once back the rod was straight out, again I managed to get it really tight to the reeds. Time ticked by and all had gone quiet, again it was a good hour before my right rod suddenly sparked into life. This fish gave me a run for my money, I soon slipped the net under what can only be described as a bar of gold. 

A Bar Of Solid Gold

Even though this common was probably the smallest I'd had from the cut, I thought it was a pretty special fish, it was long and slim and I think one day it's destine to become one of the kings of the lake.

A Future King Of The Lake

This common signaled the end of another good session, I was planning on coming back one more time. I wanted to do a short burst of sessions on The Cut because I was wanting to continue with my main focus, that being the Chelmsford waters. I have to say that my hunger has somewhat labored regarding Kingfishers lakes. 

I really want some new challenges and I love what Chelmsford have on offer, I am finding that I really am connecting to the atmosphere of their lakes and they're stretching me in terms as an angler. I will always fish KAPS lakes but I think I need to pull away for a while to help me gain perspective and nurture a new enthusiasm. I find myself blowing hot and cold on some of my waters, hence why I fish so many at once, I need to keep thinking, changing and moving, me and my mind don't like being absent of a focus, complacency is something that I can't bear.

The Final Session

The conditions on my final session were very different to the previous ones and it had been at least three days since I was last down. It was a lot cooler, overcast and breezy. From past experience the fish don't seem to respond very well in these specific conditions. I decided I was going to fish a different stretch of water that was a little more shielded from the elements. 

View From The Swim

I picked a spot that I've always liked the look of, there was a bottle neck that looked like the perfect ambush point and a tasty looking margin to my right. Things happened very quickly once the baits were on the spots and the left hand rod literally went off minutes after setting the bobbins. As the take occurred the water exploded and a huge patch of silt and bubbles covered the area from where my bait had been placed. 

As I lent into the fish there was nothing, no fight at all, at first I thought it was a bream. As the rig came back through the water I could see a huge pile of weed on my line and hidden underneath I could see a carp, I literally just netted it straight away. As I began to clear the weed I was shocked to find a nice fat mirror buried underneath and it was a fair size. It went 18IB 5oz on the scales, I was pretty shocked to say the least.

18IB 5oz Of Perfection

This fish encapsulated what these kinds of waters represent, it was perfect in every way with no one signs of damage, fin perfect, the mouth was huge and most of all it was a real surprise. If there's an 18IBer swimming around maybe the old tales of big commons aren't so far from the truth. At some point in the future I will head back down, but for now the itch that the cut was giving me has been temporarily scratched.

Into The Wild & 'The Modern Decline Of Learning'

"Wild - A Natural State Or Uncultivated, Uninhabited Regions"

In this blog post I would like to share my views on how I feel the modern carp scene and modern technology is effecting "us" the angler in terms of mastering our art, angling is an art after all. Along with this I would like to share with you my views on the wild waters. There's something about fishing a place that's very much undisturbed that stokes the angling fire, no preconceived ideas just the mysterious prospect of unearthing a hidden jewel. There are no comparisons between waters that are wild and those that have been made by man, commercialised and modernised. 

"This Entry Isn't A Moan, it's an observation and in no way am I knocking the angling press and the tackle firms, as we know developments within the industry has been pretty incredible over recent years and there are a lot of hard working people that make the carp fishing scene what it is, I am just trying to hold on to the romance of it all"

Existing in a world where every action is scrutinised and observed, where we have constraints in the system both mentally and physically, I have this continuous desire to find a place that's wild, untouched. A place so removed from the 'everyday', where you can simply get lost in the feeling of 'being'. The worlds population is contorting, the heaving of the masses are pushing and pulling and all too often do I get the sense of drowning amid the rush of it all. Angling use to be an escape but now I feel the modern carp scene falls into the description above, it's all become so commercial, so overrun with the crowds I feel it has lost its way and the industry is systematically tearing us away from the essence of what angling really is.

I have touched on this point before, it's all so focused on everything that is external, we are amidst the "Look At Me" generation, the "My Dad's Bigger Than Yours" outlook, Who's caught the biggest fish, who's got the best tackle, who can cast the furthest, this perplexing need to be a field-tester or consultant, the list goes on and to me "the ego" is well and truly to blame, fuelled by the mags and DVD's. Carp Angling is now sold to us in such a way that it's stifling and with the rise of social networks the problem has magnified somewhat. Don't get me wrong, if all the above makes you happy and is exactly what you want from your angling then 'fair play' to you. The sport is there for all of us and we all have the right to take from it what we feel we need.

Now with the Internet there is so much information at our finger tips, this is all well and good for learning 'the theory' but I feel the practical side of 'thinking and doing' has taken a back seat. When I first started carp angling I had nothing to really go on, if I wanted to know about a water I would go and put the hours in and still do to this day, very rarely will I look for information on my chosen venue prior to going. I'll admit that a little local knowledge can be helpful but I certainly don't change my approach in accordance to what I have been told. 

Nowadays through media such as youtube, you can pretty much get all the information that you need before stepping foot on the bank, but why be a carbon copy of someone else?. This seems a shame to me because the process of your natural learning can suffer. The only way you truly learn is by doing, to mould a true opinion about something, after learning the basics, you have to climb the path by yourself from the ground upwards. Is technology making us lazy? I personally think it is. And is technology depriving you of personal experiences? Are you just mimicking what you watch and read?

A Possible Anaesthetic To The Brain

I can equate this to university graduates that can recite every Shakespeare poem off by heart or rattle off someone else's viewpoints on a specific subject. To me these people are just mixed up fragments of someone else's efforts and opinions. To truly understand Shakespeare you must be able to connect emotionally with what is being said, having maybe walked in similar shoes. Try to feel deep within your heart what love truly is, what pain really contains, the only way you can do this is if you've experienced those emotions first hand, you don't learn by regurgitating, you don't learn about love by reading a book about it. Both love and pain are two emotions that can walk hand in hand when chasing that dream fish. 

The only way you can have your own honest opinion on anything 'including carp lakes' is if you've embarked on the journey unaided and grown through your own personal experiences that you have learnt along the way. Surly it's more satisfying going to a new water and finding your own way into it rather than mimicking someone else's approach. Within my blogs I share my views, opinions, tactics and approaches but by no means are they "the law". This blog is simply allowing you to hitch a ride on my journey, take from it what you will but whatever you do take please include a bit of yourself within it. 

My point is, before you next jump on youtube or other social media sites to find out other peoples views and approaches on a specific carp water or venue, take time to understand everything you might be depriving yourself of by not getting out there and experiencing it first hand for yourself. There's nothing like bagging a beauty when you know the journey was walked by you and you alone.

The Wild

If you have come into carp fishing via modern doorways the subject of 'the wild' might be uncharted territory for you, those of you that grew up watching 'A Passion For Angling', using fairy liquid bottle tops as bobbins will get where I am coming from with this. The wild doesn't contain named fish, going swims, shower blocks and puddles over stocked with large pressured carp. For all we know the wild contains nothing at all and that's the beauty of it.

Through the recent angling years it has be somewhat obscured, it's very rarely written about. When you cast into such waters you aren't battling to beat a PB, you are very simply trying to unearth the unknown. The beauty of the wild is that it can be perched right under our noses, unrecognised or hidden deep within the valleys, yet to be christened with a line. The best part of it is there's no documented way into any of these waters, it's all based on your own judgement. To follow through on your judgements you must first feel confident in your own views and opinions, these are built up through your own experiences, this can be a struggle when your only source of material is feeding you with mixed messages. There is no wonder rig or magic bait, the only thing that is real to me is watercraft and you learn this by "doing". I look upon it as a sense and like all senses they have to be developed with independent thinking. 

The Untouched

There is one water that I can associate with all the above and I plan to share with you my exploits within my next blog entry. It's not totally untouched but at the moment it is as wilder water as I can get close enough to. It's been left, very rarely fished, overgrown and buried deep within the Medway valley. It's not clear exactly how many carp are hidden in it's depths but I have managed to bring a few to the bank, they may not be the biggest fish I have caught but each one of them represents something that I am eager to explore further. The sessions I will be accounting for are a series of two hour stints from late afternoon to early evening, this time of day seemed to be the most productive. I am looking forward to sharing my journey with you.

Pure

Wicks Mere 'New Ways Of Thinking'

This blog is a condensed account of my thoughts feelings and approaches that I adopted on Wicks Mere, it's been a humbling and enlightening journey.

Little did I know that from the first moment I laid my eyes on Wick Mere a new obsession was in its infancy. The minute I took the long walk from the car park down to the waters edge I wanted to unearth it's mysteries and get acquainted with the carpy residents that resided in its vast depths. I was eager to get my head around the place as fast as possible, in many ways that was my mistake, trying to rush the process of learning.

"Some of my views within this post might be somewhat abstract but please bear with me because it should all make sense in the end."

As I have stated in the past, I don't do night fishing anymore, overall my fishing and catch rate has improved because of this. I have learnt that it's not how much time you put in but more about how you use the time that you have available to you. I work and have a family life, I don't want to be camping out for days on end. I find the night fishing approach 'can' harbour a very one dimensional way of angling, basically... you put your bait out and sit on it for three days, this isn't what carp fishing is all about for me, it was once but not anymore.

Afternoon On The Mere

The older I have got there is one aspect of existence that has become very clear to me, that being 'the process'. What I mean by this is, the same building blocks are needed to be fixed into place to get the desired end result, this is relevant in whatever activity you have chosen to do.

My example of this would be the almost perfect symmetry between 'the process' of tuning a drum and tuning yourself to a water. There is no set way to tune a drum, they're all different just like lakes, each drum has individual regions, regions are tuning areas where the drum will sing and resonate perfectly, each drum has a different number of tuning regions. Just like different waters, they all have different feeding areas and hot spots which will produce better than others, they all have holding areas and zones that the carp feel safe in, to me these spots equate to drum regions. Drum tuning is a sense, you know when you've found its sound, just like water-craft, it's intuitive, you start to know when you've begun to suss a water. Both drumming and angling are very different but the process of getting to the end result is the same.

I approached Wick like I was tuning a drum, I had to find its sound and understand it's regions/feeding zones. Because it's very different to anywhere I have fished before I was well aware that for the first month or so I would be operating way out of my comfort zone. I can equate this to tuning large drums, the larger the surface area the more sound there is to control, the only way I mastered this art was by doing it. In regards to the water, even if I blanked, as long as I'd gone away at the end of each day having learnt something, then I knew that I was putting those building blocks in place and eventually I would get the end result that I wanted. Can this process be rushed? No, I don't believe it can, if things are to grow correctly then they must grow naturally.

View From The Bowl End

My first few sessions were based around starting to understand the make up of the lake. I focused my efforts on the bowl end, this is the deeper part of the water. Lots of anglers always seemed to be up the other end of the lake so I thought avoiding the pressure could work in my favour. After having a lead around it was clear that the marginal drop offs were extreme, literally falling down to 10ft a rods length out. I instantly felt, considering the warm weather we have been having of late, that this part of the water could make for good winter fishing. The depths might be to vast to target in the warmer weather. 

Wick has a varied bottom, there's weed, clay, silt and gravel, out in front of me the gravel was at the very bottom of the marginal slope. Being a lover of margin fishing it felt like the perfect place to start. I would adopt my usual tactics, a few handfuls of bait, one rod fished on the slope, the other at the bottom on the gravel. I knew nothing of feeding times so I had to just sit it out blind, I knew my presentation was spot on for where I was fishing.

Rough Layout Of The Bowl End

On my first few sessions I received a few 'ghost runs' where there was nothing on the end of my line. I thought that it might be trailing fish. After speaking to some regulars, it was in fact trailing fish, apparently there are some savages bars towards the island and the woodland area and home to a lot of swan muscles so a lot of fish are lost and left trailing line. I clocked this information for future sessions, especially if I ended up fishing near the woods and island. If I was getting 'ghost runs' then it showed there were some fish in the area so I was hoping for a few pick ups, they never came. A good six sessions were spent moving swims around the bowl to try and get some kind of response from the carp.

During these sessions I religiously watched the water and after a few visits I started to see patterns emerging. The carp would start to show themselves from about 4 o'clock onwards, it appeared that a majority of them shoaled up. Nearly all the shows were up the other end of the lake around the island and along the margin of the wood land area. This now explains why most anglers were up that end of the lake. 

The woodland area use to be fish-able but hasn't been open for a few years now due to flooding. It was very clear to me that the carp knew this was a safe zone, there were only two swims on the lake that you could get a bait to them.

Wick Aerial View

The image above shows where I believe the safe zone to be, it also shows the two swims that allow you to get close to this area, it goes without saying that both swims are nearly always taken. After talking to the locals about the water, it started to become clear that the majority of the fish held up there. A lot of the guys that do nights would catch, this told me that the carp felt safer under the cover of darkness to venture out around the lake. 

I started to feel that during the day on most of the water available to you, you'd be fishing for a bite at a time, hoping to pick up the odd carp that has ventured away from the woodland zone. This was a somewhat frustrating prospect, if I wanted to stand a chance at catching during the day I would have to get myself in either of those two swims.

Symmetry 

My next bulk of sessions were focusing on both the margins and the open water. I was slowly moving up the lake and covering the majority of the swims. During this period I'd found plateaus, soft spots, drop offs, channels, you name it, I found it and fished to it. Lots of bait, minimal bait, pop ups, solid bags, stringers, every approach possible, including zigs. 

It was around this time that perseverance turned into obsession, I had to get carp out of this water and I sure as hell was going to find a way. Through all these sessions the anglers that were in the two main swims were catching, this solidified the theory that the carp are hauled up in the woodland area. It struck me that it didn't matter what my approach was if the fish weren't in front of me to catch, the result would continue to be nil. Because I don't have a night permit it was as clear as day that I had to get to where they were. I didn't have the luxury of catching them when they spread out at night.

Realistically I'd done around twelve sessions without landing a single carp and I'd used everything in my armoury. We've all been in this situation, the problem screamed 'location'. I decided to step away from the water for a few weeks and concentrate my efforts somewhere else with the plan on coming back to Wick with a fresh perspective.

The Break Through  

On arriving at the water, there were only a few cars in the car park, I thought I'd get loaded up and make my way straight round the wooded area to see if 'the going swim' was available. Much to my shock and surprise it was, I was buzzing and got myself setup as fast as I could. 

To get right up in the 'safe zone' I would need to cast in excess of about 100 yards, I felt this was doable. My chosen bait was a single Octospice pop up topped off with a small bit of yellow zig foam, I was going to fish it on a helicopter system. From the google-maps image I could see there was weed out where I wanted to fish. Through the winter I have perfected my helicopter rig, I use a very slow sinking pop up, I have found fishing a rotary setup with a balanced bait pretty much presents itself over anything. The other reason I opted for a helicopter system was because I was having to cast a long way and with the weight being on the end of the line, this would lend itself to casting well for distance. 

View From The Swim

The hook-link I like to use for my helicopter rigs is a coated braid stripped off at the point where I put the putty to counter balance the bait. The main points for doing this is, the stiffer materials are less prone to tangles plus the coating helps to kick the hook-bait away from the line/leader.

The Business End

The most important component to make this presentation fool poof was a lead free leader. Take note that this is included because I found out that the carp can cut you off on the bars - that proves the importance of the learning process, without that knowledge I probably would of fished the rig bare. For those of you out there that don't think it's safe to fish a helicopter rig in weed, I would like to point out that I replace the back bead with PVA cord, this alleviates the problem of the bead getting clogged up with weed and not being able to run free in the case of a crack off. 

Rig Marole Lead Free Leaders

It took me a few casts to get the rods exactly where I wanted them, I had to compress the carbon big time, in the end I was hitting the clip and both baits fell poetically underneath the branches. I opted for singles because I knew 100% that the carp would be mooching about. Hours passed and just like always fish started to show along the wooded margin, my baits were in perfect positions so I just had to wait, sitting comfortable with the knowledge that my presentation was correct.

Out of nowhere my left hand rod tore away, I paused for a second because I was almost in disbelief. Leaning into the fish I could feel that it was a lump, I kept the pressure on, easing it my way. I was a bag of nerves, I just hoped that the leader was going to do it's job and protect my business end from the carps usual "get out clause". After what seemed like a year the fish was starting to give up the ghost, I caught a glimpse of a lovely long, black common, weed was strung all up the leader and line, the fish was also caked in the stuff. The game was soon up and I slipped the net under my first Wick Mere carp. I was numb, totally blown away, I had done it, after a considerable amount of blanks I'd finally broken through. Scales sunk to 20IB exactly, what a feeling!!

My First Wick Mere Beauty

Side On

It goes without saying that I was over the moon, perseverance is an art, a driving force that you must work with. I've still got a long way to go though and this fish is just a small piece of 'the process'. I feel that my views on the carp activity are thorough enough and I am just going to keep on chipping away at the place. There is something about Wick, I can't quite put my finger on it but to me it is a very special water and I feel that it's going to take me on one hell of a journey, I look forward to sharing it with you. 

I Will Return