After my capture of Kiss Scale I was once again away on other waters for a while making videos and writing articles, so upon my arrival at the Match Lake some weeks later I was shocked to discover the lake was literally sewn up with weed. At this point I thought it was time for a bit of underwater gardening and spod work. Back to the bait and wait scenario so I decided to do this in a swim nobody really fished called The Gate swim, which is probably the furthest distance from the car park, located next to the borders of the Copse Lake and the Nursery Lake.

After spending a lot of time watching the carp milling just out in front of this swim in the dense weed, I decided to create three spots. Firstly, I created two ... (read more...)

On my next 48 hours session down the Match Lake, when I arrived I decided on a swim called The Beach as I saw a few fish grouped up in between the two islands in front of the swim. At this stage the weed was starting to really take a hold. I stuck to my guns and fished all three rods, again with Chods, in the same channel as I did from the parties, only from a different angle and two of the rods positioned tighter to the islands.

The weather that night took a turn for the worse and it was proper stormy and wet. Nothing came out that night, ... (read more...)

On return the following weekend I managed to get back into the bay again, as I thought this would be a good starting point as I had observed that there were a few fish drifting around in the upper layers close by. I placed the rods on the same spots with the same tactics, only this time introducing the bait before casting out.

After the sun had set I sat intently watching for movement, but all the shows I saw were much further out, more towards the main body down towards the ‘Party Swims’ and a move simply wasn’t on the cards as the swims all along there were already inhabited by fellow anglers.

Two hours later I had a belting take on the right hand rod by the snag, and after ... (read more...)

With a slow start last year due to dreadful winter conditions, I didn’t manage to get the carp rods out of hibernation until late February, and when I did I fished at a local club water just 10 minutes down the road.

My visits were mainly afternoon sessions when the weather was a little milder in hope of a late afternoon bite. I mainly fished a 7” combi- rig comprising a size 10 Covert Mugga, 15lb Trickster and 16lb Mirage. This was  fished rotary style on a short 45lb Brown Heavy Plummet leader, with a whittled down bright pop up and a tiny bag dropped in my known winter lay ups which were all short range. My trips were going well, with the capture of several reasonable fish under my belt as the weather was ... (read more...)

Now it is winter and the waters we visit are getting colder and colder, the carp are also less likely to be feeding or paying a visit to our unhooking mats. After enjoying the Christmas festivities with the family, I returned to the waterside for a short 48 hour session, hoping to catch a last Carp before heralding in the New Year. The day before had been bright, with nice sunshine and a reasonable daytime temperature peaking up to 8 degrees so I decided to return to a 11 acre water near my house. This lake is particularly technical, but with the possibility of catching some carp. Arriving there at 5 in the afternoon left me short of time to get everything set up during the daylight. Once all the kit was ready and in place, I took a few moments to think about my method, to get the ... (read more...)

The Horse is a fish I had been after for a few seasons now and it was really starting to get to me so I decided to fish November just for that one fish!

After a bit of information digging from mates that had caught it before, it became clear that there was one area of the lake that it seemed to like. This area had a nice set of snags to the right of the swim that also had good form at this time of year so this was going to be the plan for the coming month.

The spot I was going to fish was just down the right hand margin and I decided to only fish with the one rod and concentrate all my bait on the one spot. I had recently changed over from my summer bait to my chosen winter bait which ... (read more...)

As we’re now firmly headed into autumn, and the winter is fast approaching I’ve once again started using my old faithful balanced pop up rig that has served me so well in previous years. This rig is a real gem from this time of year onwards, as the water temperatures drop off and I have found that it will often out-fish any other rig during this time. Like most great methods it’s very simple; and this highly effective rig allows you to fish a pop up extremely close to the lake bed, whilst still ensuring that the hook bait stands proud enough to visible and give off that vital ‘eat me’ signal.

(read more...)

This season I’ve been putting all my time and effort in to a syndicate lake in the Avon valley near Ringwood, a lake known as the Roach Pit and run by CEMEX Angling. This lake is a 20 acre gravel pit with an amazing stock of big stunning carp, containing between 60 and 70 fish with 2 of those being around the 50lb mark!

The Roach Pit is a very weedy and pressured lake that is fished by some very good anglers, consequently carp are by no means easy to catch, as over the years they have seen just about every rig and baiting situation there is, so I had to think long and hard about how I was going to tackle this tricky venue....

The first thing that came to mind was rigs - and after ... (read more...)