Carp fishing! Love it or hate it? – Robert Leech
For me there’s something special about the habits and behaviour of this magical fish. There aren’t many better feelings to me than knowing you’ve just outwitted one of the water’s trickiest to catch residents! But with all this comes the other side of the sport. The dickheads, the know all’s, the wannabe’s and of course, the guys that are more interested in what you’re doing rather than actually getting on themselves!
From all this, myself and good friend Justin decided to we were going to try something different; the River Cam and the Fen drains. A Cambridge (CFPAS) permit was purchased for the great price of £37 and dates were arranged for the first trip, July 9th through 13th.
A 150 mile round trip to Justin’s place in Stives then another 25 miles to our first destination; some of the small drains that run into the Ouze, a quick look at two lakes on the ticket and then finally, a look at the River Cam. We knew through research that a certain stretch of the Cam had produced carp to the mid 30’s and locals reckoned there were bigger. Thursday and Friday were spent mostly hunting down this particular stretch of river. When we found it, although no carp were spotted, 6 kilos of bait was used to prep a couple of spots and it was decided that we would fish the two pools then return on Sunday and investigate.
We opted to fish the first night on the smaller pool hopefully for a bend in the rod. 16 acres, 120 carp so we were told into low 30’s and the larger 25 acres, 40 carp on the second night. We scouted the pool and opted to fish together in a double swim where we had seen at least 15 carp into the low 20’s passing over a gravel bar 30 yards in front. I managed 2 Common’s of mid double and Justin a small Common and one lost. Although it was good fun and the fish were stunners, we concluded that they just weren’t enough to drive us. The second night we chose to tuck ourselves away in the corner of the larger, lower stocked lake, Dickerson Pit. We spent some hours locating feeding carp and where we found them wasn’t what you would call ideal. Snaggy, silty, poky and overgrown, hardly enough room to even get a hook bait out! After waiting for the carp to move back out of the swim, one rod each were placed where we had seen the carp feeding 20 minutes previously. At regular 30 minute intervals, two large carp would visit the two spots, drop down, investigate and then leave again (only a matter of time!) On the 4th visit a bloody Ruddy duck wandered into my swim and wiped me out! By that time it was complete darkness and there was no way I was getting my hook bait back in place so we decided at 11pm to pack down and leave for Justin’s place after a quick stop at the local kebab 
house. Over a large chicken kebab loaded with chilli and half a bottle of bourbon, we reflected and discussed our plan for the next day.
Sunday 12th, 5:30pm, we arrived at the car park alongside the River Cam. On the walk to the bridge where we had baited, I spotted a carp on the far margin spooked by a passing boat, about 100 yards from where I was intending! The bank traffic was awful! Walkers, cyclists, joggers, dogs. It was non-stop and the river wasn’t much better, boat after boat but we had anticipated late evening fishing anyway. 30 minutes passed and I spotted 4 carp. 2 were very good fish, definitely high 20’s and we couldn’t resist any longer so a near margin rod was placed where we had pre-baited. 10 minutes in and a large Mirror rolled over Justin’s area. We were beginning to anticipate a busy night.
A guy went by on a scooter and stopped at the other side of the bridge, turned back and then pulled alongside and asked if we had any Rizla’s. We told him we were non-smokers so he left. 20 minutes passed and more fish were showing. The guy returned and asked if we knew where the nearest shop was so we sent him off to the Costcutter down the road. Time passed and he returned again telling us about a couple of Polish guys catching a small carp further down the bank. After a 10 minute conversation my rod pulled tight so I jumped up to investigate. Floating weed! At that point I was busy and Justin was paying a little too much attention to what I was doing. The guy on the scooter said goodbye and pulled away. He slowed down at Justin’s rods, picked one up and sped off. It happened so quickly we couldn’t react quickly enough. Justin took chase whilst I packed everything away and tooled myself up in case of a return. He of course didn’t come back but when Justin returned he explained that he’d chased him straight to a caravan site that we didn’t even realise was there, so turned back. What followed was “What if’s!”
What if he’d gone for the second rod? We’d have caught him! What would we have done if we’d caught him? Sure you can all guess! He wouldn’t have walked away anyhow, his bike would’ve become a new River Cam snag and so on! This guy was a pro and he worked us good, he knew how to get our attention, returning twice with a different approach, each time waiting for the right time to strike. We loaded up and headed back to the car. I’m not sure how to end my story because the rest is quite boring! I drove the 180 odd miles home, blood boiling and unable to sleep that night. I was so angry at myself for allowing it to happen. Unlike Justin, I spent a lot of time on the rivers and canals in my younger years and your attitude should be, “If you don’t know ‘em, don’t trust ‘em!” I was actually tooled up with a bar in front of me and a bat behind me, it just happened too fast for a reaction. Or the guy spotted them and was waiting for me to be occupied.
This river has so much potential to be prolific but this massive problem will probably never allow it to reach it. I suppose all I can say guys is, if you do decide to do something different, make sure you do your research and don’t trust anyone! What I can tell you is that I’ll be making one more trip to the River Cam. I don’t think I can let the chance to catch one of the large Mirror’s I’ve seen go. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll bump into the biker thief one more time!
Until next time, tight lines and be lucky!