It was fully 16 days after my first capture from the barrage, before i could wet a line there again. The absence was enforced by the broken down car, followed by a week away for my birthday. However, I still found time to visit the lake and out a bit of bait into the spot to try and keep it as a regular feeding zone for the carp - this time solely with boilies simply due to convenience.

After one of these visits on monday, when the conditions were perfect and I was really kicking myself for not getting organised in time to take the rods along, I arrived on tuesday evening at about 6pm. By half past i was getting the rods re-rigged with fresh hooks after my exploits elsewhere led me to question the use of a barbless curved shank hook (see here for more info), and by 7pm I was finally cast out and baited up with a few boilies and around 15 spods of pellet and hemp mix.

It wasn’t until around 9pm that I began to get a few knocks on the left hand rod, followed by a few on the middle rod and then a few on the right hand rod - clearly the fish were arriving in the swim from one direction. A stuttery, up and down take on the left rod yeilded a bream and gave me chance to remember how to slip a barbed hook out correctly (I haven’t used the things for years).

As the sun began to set, I was trying to work out just how long it would take to get the carp going again in this swim - was I looking at another fortnight of prebaiting? The answer came a few minutes later when the right hand rod let out a few bleeps, drawing my new bobbin up to the blank. I lurched forward to the rod, heart in mouth and before i could reach it the clutch began to scream. I lifted into a heavy fish that immediately buckled the 3.25lb rod and powered out into the lake. I was helpless as the small knot of elastic that marked my spot went through the rings at a rate of knots, then down towards the water and beyond. That first run reduced my knees to jelly and must have stripped 30 yards of line from the reel.

The rest of the fight was equally powerful, as I slowly worked the fish closer and closer in, till eventually I could see it in the gin clear water about 15ft out from the bank. It continued to lunge and surge for freedom, and no matter how many times I turned it’s head, it was determined to keep fighting. I could see it was another long fish, although not as broad the first, and was proved right when it eventually succumbed and was lifted from the water by my aching arms.

This time, there were no issues with the camera, and I was delighted to weigh her in at 17lbs 14ozs and snap off a few shots on the digital. By now it was almost complete darkness, and in the fading light I could barely make her out as she swam back with a fitting splash of the tail that left me soaked! I was over the moon to have gotten back on the fish so quickly, in fact everything about this capture made me pleased as punch: no mouth damage, a cracking fight and another stunning ‘wild’ carp in the bag.

With fishing only allowed until 30 minutes after sunset, I quickly wound in the other two rods to find a bream attached to each - the fish had really moved in on me in the last hour. Once again the walk back to the car was nowhere near as much of a struggle as it should have been, such was the adrenaline still pumping. I can’t see me fishing another lake again, I’m enjoying this so much!

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