Well firstly I would like to wish you all a very happy new year and let’s hope for a good year of carp fishing for us all.
The last few months as I previously mentioned have been mega busy for me what with the festive period, moving house and my car deciding not to play ball anymore. But as we now have moved on into the year that is 2013 and I have everything nearly done in the house I think it’s about time I get out on the bank. I’m going to use this post to set myself some targets for the year regarding my fishing then hopefully come this time next year I can look back at this post and think I have had a good year.
I think my first target will be something every working angler would put near to the top of their list. I would like to try and get out a bit more over the year (easier said than done I know) One of my main targets this year Is to concentrate on a couple of my club waters. I ignored the lakes for the best part of last year and I really don’t know why I did. I love fishing a certain water on my club but thinking back I only fished it twice last year. So here is my target for this year for my club waters I want to have had the lake record from the lake known as the park by this time next year.
My next target is one that I always set myself every year and that is to resist the lure of buying a bait boat!!!! Now I don’t like bait boats and you will agree or disagree with me when I say I think it’s cheating. But on the other hand there has been many occasion I have been on a lake and seen carp showing underneath a lovely over hanging tree at range and thought if only I had a bait boat! But never the less as much I can see the practicalities of a bait boat I still can’t bring my self to get one.

Another target I would like to set myself is just to generally improve my fishing technique I think this is something you should always set yourself as the saying goes “everyday is a school day”. One simple practice I would like to start doing this year is to detail all my catches. I want to start recording the time, lake temperature, wind direction, atmospheric pressure and so on. This might seem a bit OCD but I generally think that if you want to learn how to fish a certain lake after doing this for year or so hopefully you would start to see a correlation on conditions and times of when you are catching. Then giving you a good idea of when to fish and what tactics
to use. But having said that I still think carp fishing is still a lot about luck; you could have all this data that you have been collecting and think today is the day conditions are perfect you have plenty of the bait that you have been catching on 24 hours have passed by and not even a bleep. This is partly why I think I have been hooked and will carry on being hooked on carp fishing purely because you can feel prepared for your fishing session have everything that you deem is perfect for the conditions and lake you are fishing but plain and simply once that rig and bait are in the water it is down to the carp gods. You don’t know exactly what is going on down on the lake bed unless you are Danny Fairbrass and Ali Hamidi and use a underwater camera for two weeks, which I think would give me a heart attack after a couple of days watching my rig like that!

I must say a quick mention about the Korda underwater 7 DVD I thought the filming was great and it was quite informative i especially was pleased with that once they caught they showed you the correct way to transfer a carp from the water to the bank. On too many occasions I’ve cringed seeing a lump being taken out the water and seeing its fins poking through the netting! Just one last thing about the DVD as much as it was informative I found it increasingly frustrating watching the fish picking up the bait on countless occasions and not resulting in a catch. Once I finished watching the DVD it was doing my head in thinking of ways to create the perfect rig to stop this!!
So back to my goals/targets for the year.
I really want to be able to master the art of self takes. I have been looking at different tech for my camera to aid me with this also been looking at different cameras with either wink mode. Still deciding what path to follow with this one but will endeavour to keep you informed with how I am getting on with this with hopefully shots taken by me of me with lovely specimen carp of the course of the next year.
I finally would like to carry on writing this blog and be strict in writing as often as I can. I started this as a hobby and its still a hobby writing about something I love to do.

Well that is it for this year I have laid out my plans for the year ahead. I would be interested to hear any goals and targets that you have set yourselves
for this year. Let me know on twitter @leescarpblog