I woke up around 6am and loaded the rods and my lunch into the car and headed the short distance to the lake, I was still smiling thinking about the last session and confidence was sky high.

On arrival I quickly scanned the lake from the car park and slugged the gear all over my shoulder and trekked towards the area of the lake I was wanting to fish, conditions were good, it was warm with a slight southwesterly, overcast and pressure had been low and steady for the previous day or two.

Now at the lake rules dictate when you can begin fishing and normally it’s 30 minutes before sun rise, I arrived and saw 3 guys already fishing and sitting under their umbrellas in the swim I caught the fully and the big mirror from.

As I said I was still sky high after the last session so instead of kicking up a fuss about the rules, I wished them a good session and walked back 50 metres up the gravel track towards the car park and stood in a very open swim that I had previously looked at before but had not fished.

Fish did like to show in the open water from this swim but at a good 300+ Yards out and as much as we all want too, I knew hitting those distances was not a possibility.

A quick lead around with the marker revealed not much, like before the lake really is featureless with a soft silt bottom but on the 7th or so cast I had one thump from a bit of gravel, that was enough for me and I didn’t fancy my chances of finding anything else so I rose the float the 16ft to the surface and noted down my sight direction markers on the opposite bank.

After slipping a lead on a rod I launched a 3.5oz lead to the marker, clipped up accordingly and measured out my spot with the aid of the marker sticks distanced 12ft apart. The spot was just over 28 wraps, so before I put anything else together i nicked a quick PVA bag of crushed boilies on the hook trapping the hair in place to prevent tangles. ( I either thread the hooklink through the PVA bag or nick it on trapping the hair, as long as you are careful both will work fine, fishing to snags on gravel/weed/choddy bottom is when I will prefer to thread the hooklink through and push the hook inside. This prevents damaging the hook on the bottom or the hook being masked by weed or chod, and their is nothing worse than reeling in after a day in prime spots, perfect conditions realising you had a blunt hook or something masking it. )

I was fishing a simple snowman rig with a size 4 Sharp Tackle krank hook, 8-9 inches of supple hooklink tied to a quick link and covered by an anti tangle sleeve.

I spent 5 minutes in the margin making sure the snowman was critically balanced and just ever so gently sunk to the bottom after the lead hit.

This was fished with a 12 mm orange citrus pop up and a krill 20mm bottom bait. First cast was on the money but the spot is well into the boat lanes so after making sure the line hadn’t bowed in the wind I left the tip submerged for 5-10 minutes letting the line sink slowly rather than risking moving the lead by tightening at my end.

After that it was just a case of putting the rod on the pod and I was fishing.

My second (middle rod) was going to be fishing on the same spot just to the right of the previous rod, this meant standing where I cast the first rod, checking the horizon marker then picking something on the horizon slightly to the right to mark the new direction for this rod. although this one was to be fished with a bright single pink citrus pop up tied to a mini rig ring with dental floss and 9 inches of fluorocarbon hooklink, the fluorocarbon is what I would normally use for long distance as it doesn’t tangle, although I wasn’t fishing long distance I knew the rig would still be good in the situation so it was clipped up and sent on its way.

It was just starting to get light so I quickly set up the brolly and placed everything inside.

Before I got to my right hand rod I set up the spomb and got ready to put some mix out, the weather was hot and the fish were still up for feeding so big beds of bait is what I gave them, I arrived with 2 kilos of allinpartikels hemp for my base.

 I added to this ;

      4 tins of tuna

      2 tins of sweet corn

      1 kilo of allinpartikels Maise

      1 kilo of tigers

      1 kilo of mixed crushed, chopped and whole boilies.

That was half the mix I had so if need be I could whack up another fresh load.

After that I added some red fish meal ground bait and some krill liquid to stodge it up.

Again really simple I got the distance, some people like to add or minus a couple of feet for the bait in terms of distance compared to the rig or not. The wind wasn’t that bad yet as it was still early so I added a couple of feet.

It doesn’t matter that much as in 16ft of water the particle is not going to end up where you think it will, there is multiple factors depending on which way the bait will drift through the layers, as long as it was in the vicinity you’re going to have a little bit of bait by your rig. As it’s not a small lake I just wanted to bring fish into the area so even if the mix drifted a bit the smell would still bring them in to find the rigs neatly presented.

I spombed 10 over each rod.

Just as I sat the spomb rod against my umbrella the left hand rod screamed off so I quickly jumped across the track dodging the dog walkers and joggers and lifted into a powerful fish, my only worry was to keep the fish to my right as a few snags were to my left in the way of boating bouys, this wasn’t a problem as the fish kited right and straight out the way of the other rod, it’s always good to have a plan in your head for once you get that take! It was a long intense fight it didn’t feel huge but it wasn’t a nuisance fish! At one point about midway through the fight we hit a stale mate and the fish just kept getting to this spot and taking yards and yards of line, it’s at this point the knees are clanging together and images of big scaley carp like the last once pop through your head! Especially on a lake where the stock is not known or photographed! I was a little surprised to see a common pop up to the surface by the net, a real character though.

The scales went 24.5lb and after being cast out 20 minutes it was more than welcome!

Rod back on the spot and now I had time to tie up my third (right hand rod)

This rod had the exact same rig and bait as the middle rod although this rod had 14-16ft leader of armakord for my long distance fishing, so no clipping up needed not forgetting to wear my finger stall, just a quick glug and despatched as far as I could with the cross wind out in front, this rod was going to be a roaming rod so every two hours of inactivity would see me move it and roam it around, if I had a fish I would put the rod back where I had the fish.

Just as my rod was on the deck and tip submerged for sinking the line my middle rod screamed off, so again like the last fight my main aim was to steer clear of the marker bouys, but like the last fish this one kited right aswell I just had to hope it wouldn’t wipe out my right hand rod and hope the line had sank!

Thankfully It had sank and after a very similar fight to the last fight just less dogged a lovely mirror kissed the spreader block.

This one went 24 on the scales and already my session was beginning to look and feel great!

Rods back on the spot it was time to get some bait back on the two rods so I began spombing again.. 5 spombs on each rod this time.

By this point I was happy that I had found a spot that the fish felt fairly safe feeding on so I was confident for more bites.

I was under the umbrella tying up some fresh bags when my left hand bobbin slowly rose to the blank and just sat their before it had time to do anything I had lifted into a very heavy slow moving fish
This was the one” I thought to myself the fight really had me nervous.. It was a textbook big fish fight! If I hadn’t been holding the rod I would’ve been chewing my fingers, it felt really  heavy.. All I could do was play it softly and hope the carp gods were shining down on me. After around 25 minutes of arm aching to’ing and fro’ing myself and the 20+ people that were watching saw a mammoth head come up! Between all the “ooh la la’s” and “oh, la vache!” I secured the fish in the net and kind of sat back and let it all sink in what had just happened. 

In a short space of time on the lake and only 2 day sessions a week had seen me in less than 2 months land a huge tally of fish and whatever I was doing the locals weren’t doing. The lake and the fish had been kind to me and it was about to get a whole lot better.I rang a friend and he agreed to come down and do photos.
Unfortunately my camera wasn’t on auto settings and the photos came out grainy and discoloured but nothing could take away the feeling of elation and success of having a public water 48.1lb mirror