Rest easy, this is not another abandoned blog! However with work commitments I’ve found little time to update the site with my exploits, but here’s my attempt to recap the past 6 weeks or so…

Since that big floater-caught Mirror from Rouge I’ve managed 3 more short night sessions on the lake and banked another 6 fish. The biggest, funnily enough was the same 34lb mirror, caught in the same spot using the same method! Alongside that stunning fish I’ve had 2 very nice commons and some lovely looking mirror Carp. Here are the photos:

In addition, and far more excitingly, i’ve been putting in some time on a local public water. To date i’ve racked up about 8 short night sessions and banked around 10 fish to 18lbs 4oz. This might not seem all that impressive, but let me tell you a little about the water, and hopefully you’ll understand why I’m absolutely buzzing at the prospect of getting down there again!

At 26 acres, and with an unknown population of Carp, locating the fish wasn’t going to be easy however i managed to find a huge group feeding heavily in silt on my very first walk around the venue. You might think this was a result, but unfortunately that feeding ground was in the large ‘No Fishing’ area that covers approximately 50% of the lake. Still, it was encouraging to find a few fish, and it spurred me on to stay and put in my frst night session.

The lake is stocked with trout each year for the local anglers at the start of the season, and then seemingly abandoned from june onwards,so aside from the swimmers on the ‘beach bank’ i have the place pretty much to myself. What isn’t so great is that there are only really 3 areas accessible to fishermen, and i didn’t fancy any of these. Thankfully my light brolly setup meant i was able to forge a fourth spot tucked tightly in between the bushes and the water’s edge.

From this spot i can access the water closest to the ‘no fishing’ area. There is an old river bed running halfway out across the lake which is where i decided to concentrate my baits, reasoning that it would be a likely route for any fish that decided to leave the safety of the reserve. Either side of the river bed is a gentle stump-filled gravelly slope. Hardly ideal for fishing, and bringing about the need to strip off and wade in to knee-depth to land any fish, but no-one said it would be easy taking on a water like this!

My first night i blanked, without a single beep. Not a great start, but i hadn’t expected it to be easy. My second night two days later, brought some hope as i had a small liner/drop-back at dusk - this boosted my confidence no end, even if was probably just a bream! That night i was woken by a screaming take from a fish that fought hard all the way to the net. All the time it was coming in my heart was pounding with excitement and when i finally slipped a net under it i couldnt’ help but let out a whoop! It weighed 18lbs 4oz and looked every bit as big as a future thirty pounder to me

That was it for me, having seen the potential i well and truly had ‘the bug’! I returned a couple more times that week and a few more times after that. On these sessions i continued to fish the same spot and kept a lot of bait going in (by my standards anyway) averaging a kilo of boilies and a couple of kgs of pellets and particles per session. I was hoping to build a feeding area and draw in some of the larger fish i now felt sure were present.

Over the course of these sessions i banked a string of small fish around the 5lb mark, including the most stunning specimen i’ve ever seen - check this linear out!

On my last session before taking a break to return to the UK, i managed one more ‘real’ carp at 16lbs 10oz - again, you can see the potential for huge growth in this fish.

So that’s me up to date. I’ll be putting in another month on this water before taking a break somewhere else, and then returning to fish it through the winter. I’d like to wait until my first ‘campaign’ on there finishes before writing my experiences up in more detail, so forgive my brevity here.

I hope those reading this are out catching and having a great summer. Cheers!

Stumble it!