It was about a month into my first season on my new syndicate when I had become aware of a few certain fish that reside in the lake,these were The Vein,The Korda Fish,Enoch and the Long fish!

These carp soon became targets of mine you could say,or ones that I would dearly like to catch.Apart from stalking in the margins you can never really tell which fish will take your hook bait, but over the next 8 months i was really hopeing that one of these carp would slip up and allow me to have my picture taken with it.

As with most other anglers my fishing mainly takes place at weekends or quick overnighters inbetween work,but my next session was to be a 5 night stint as I decided to take some holiday.

I decided not to fish the Friday and Saturday night but opted to start my session on the Sunday,this I felt would give me a better choice of swim as all the regulars down for the weekend would be packing up and heading for home.

After a few laps of the lake I settled for peg 2 which was located on the other side of the complex,as I had seen quite a lot of activity is was a no brainer really.the week previous and indeed the weekend just gone had been very hard fishing for a lot of anglers with pretty much everyone blanking apart from the odd carp coming out.so I was really hopeing to get off the mark quick especially as it was not fishing well.

Around 6am my right hand Neville let out a few bleeps and I was in,the fish was solid in weed as soon as I hit in to it.It wasn’t the greatest of fights ive ever had but after about 5 minutes I had it in the net along with the biggest ball of weed ive ever seen,for a minute I was actually I sure there was a carp under it all but there was.

So I was off the mark with a common of 16lb,it wasn’t the biggest of carp I’ll ever catch but due to the way the lake had been fishing I was pretty happy to have one straight away.

Now I’ve never been one for sitting it out in one swim,even though I had caught I just wasn’t feeling it in the swim.

It’s a hard one to try and explain but sometimes you just get a feeling that you should move.

So around 9am I was off walking around the complex again in search of carp.

After finding a good group of fish it was time to pack down everything and set off to the other side of the lake to my new swim.I decided to have a quick lead around a find my spots quickly,rods were then clipped and were to be left on the bank for the rest of the day.

I decided to give them a free feed for the day and hopefully let them build up there confidence as my lines were out of the water.

So I decided to get the rods out about 5pm,all spots were located in the silt surrounded by weed so I would be fishing locked up.This would enable me to have a chance of landing them should I get a take.

And again like the previous night I was fishing little snowmans over a kilo of Nutcracker.

Around 6ish the following morning my  left hand Neville let out a series of bleeps and the bobbin pulled up tight.

After a fight of about 10 minutes due to the carp weeding me up a few times I slipped the net under a chunky looking carp…Result!

The mirror looked 30lb all day long by after getting her on the scales she went 28.8,but to be honest I was happy just catching.

A couple of friends came down and did the honours with the camera for me,it was then just a case of sending her back to her watery home and getting the kettle on.

I went for another walk around that afternoon and was going to move into another swim but opted to stay due to the fact I had seen a good number of carp still in the area.

In hindsight I should of moved as it was a very quite night with no activity what so ever,a friend of mine did coming running round about 7ish asking me to do some picture of a mint 30lb common which I was more than happy to do and to be honest I was made up for him as he was on a few nights of blanking.

After doing the pictures of his common I hung around the area of the lake where he was fishing and I saw a few carp crash out and quite a bit of fizzing,that was good enough for me so it was time to pack down my gear and move swims yet again.

I had literally just set up the Bivvy again and the heavens opened,I was in no rush to get the rods out so I decided to get some bait in again and rest the spots I was going to fish.

As with the previous few nights I baited up each spot with a kilo of nutcracker in chops and boiles,I do this as I sometimes like to use whittled down hook baits,and half hook baits to match my freebies.

So having a few hours to kill I did a few laps of the lake stopping off to chat to a few other anglers.

It was a pretty quiet night to be honest,apart from a couple of liners the carp were not very active.

Around 6am I was just sorting myself out a brew when my middle Neville let out a few bleeps and the bobbin pulled up right.

The advantages of fishing locked up means the carp has no where to go apart from left or right which was the case as I noticed the Line moving quickly right.The carp put up a good account for itself this was helped by the fact it weeded me up about 3 times but eventually after about 10 minutes I slipped the net under her.

I had a quick look in the net and was very happy with what looked like a low 30,I quickly got on the phone to a mate who said he would pop down to  help to photos of I had a good one.

He turned up about 10 minutes later which was good as I didn’t really want to keep the fish hanging around in the net to long.

She went 38lb exactly on the Scales and was confirmed as a fish called The Long fish,I was completely made up.

A couple of the lads did Photos for me and then I sent her back home….what a morning!!

That was to be the last fish of my trip as it was time to go home,I was very happy with what I had caught that week due to the conditions and the fact most others were blanking but a piece of me thought that I could of still done better.But that’s carp fishing I guess,i always question wether I could of fished better or should of have approached the session on a different way.

This I guess is something I can work on when I next return to my syndicate,hopefully one of the 40s won’t be to far away.

Tight lines

Dan