Carp Fishing - More Spring Carping

After last weeks disaster I was hoping for a bit more luck this week. I wanted to get back to my new Shropshire carp water I’d tried to make a start on last week but the controlling fishing club had work parties planned for Sunday and one of the clubs rules was only members doing the work party could fish the night before. This meant there would be a lot of anglers fishing the Saturday then packing up to do the work on Sunday morning so I opted to have a wander round a few Cheshire carp lakes instead. The plan was to visit a list of Cheshire carp lakes, have a walk round to see if I could locate any carp then drop on them with a couple of single hookbaits or pva bags if I could.

The first lake I went to looked grim, there had been a few work parties since I last fished there and although the place looked nice it didn’t appeal to me. I had a walk up to the shallows to see if I could find some carp but I couldn’t see any. A chat with one of the anglers fishing revealed the snags end of the lake had done a few fish in the night but it was stitched up so I moved onto another water.

The second lake had space but again I had difficulty pinning down any carp, it was cold and the fish just didn’t show at all. Having completed two laps of the second lake I figured I best head to a runs water as time was moving on and I hadn’t found anywhere to fish yet.

I arrived at my clubs runs water and spent some time looking round, it was busy and nobody had caught any carp, it was cold too so I checked off the back of the wind first. The carp weren’t there so I carried on round the lake until I came to the shallows, there was a light northerly wind blowing up the shallows but despite this it was obvious there was a good number of carp in the area, I saw a couple of fish crash and when the wind dropped a little I could see carp cruising and bubbling close to an island.

I couldn’t reach the carp as the swims in the area where all taken so I had to do a very long walk round the far side of the lake, I figured the carp wouldn’t stay on the shallows and that I might get a chance to ambush a fish or two as they left the area. I’d just done the longest walk on the lake when 3 anglers opposite packed up. The swims they were occupying where fliers and full of carp, unfortunately for them they couldn’t reach the fish that were obviously present in their swim. I had no choice so I packed my gear away in record time and headed round to the swim they’d vacated. It was a long slog with all my gear but I knew I was in with a chance of a run or two now I’d got myself on the fish.

I quickly unpacked my gear again and went about getting a couple of baits in the water. The good thing about my carp rigs is that I can put just about any bait on them because I tie my baits on, once the hair is tied, any bait I put on, the gap between the bait and the bend of the hook is the same. Being a runs water I opted to fish kevin nash monster pursuit pellet hookbaits with a small pva mesh bags of mixed pellets from gp pellets of middlewich. I made a few pva mesh bags of pellets, one for each rod and a couple of spares just in case.

My usual carp rig with a kevin nash monster pursuit boilie pellet attached


I gave the first rod some stick on the cast and my pellet hookbait and pva mesh bag flew out to the island and landed perfectly. Once I’d pinned the line with a backlead I set about doing the second rod. I got as far as putting the hook through the pva mesh bag on the second rod when the spool started ticking away on the rod I’d just cast out!.

I dropped everything and hit the rod, sure enough it whooped over and I began battle with my first carp of the day. The fish was on a long line and it came in slowly but surely, I had no problems under the rod tip and eventually I slipped the net under a nice mirror carp. Being a runs water the fish aren’t particularly big and having unhooked this one I weighed it just in case it made double figures as it looked close. The carp did indeed make the 10lb mark but only just and I settled on a weight of 10lb 2oz. I took a quick picture on the unhooking mat then returned the fish. Being a small one I didn’t see much point in getting the tripod out so I went for the quick option and returned the fish straight away.

10lb 2oz on a kevin nash monster pursuit boilie pellet


With a double under my belt I was happy, I recast the rod and got the second rod into position then sat back in the sunshine. The carp were still showing and I thought I might be in with a shout of catching another one. I’d been sat down for around 20 minutes when I had a short lift on the left hand rod. This was the recast that had already done me a fish. I watched the monkey climber but nothing happened so I decided to give it 10 minutes then recast in case the carp had done me over. Being a hard fished water, rod top knocks and short lifts like these are quite common and I’ll usually give it a short time then recast just in case the fish have sussed the rig. 5 minutes later I had a single bleep on the delkim, I looked at the monkey climber again and just another couple of seconds later the rod tip flew round and the delkim went into full warble mode!. I was on the rod straight away and another slow fight unfolded as the fish grudgingly came in from around the 80 yard mark. Again I had no problems close in and I slipped the net under another mirror carp that turned out to be a few pound smaller than the last one at 8lbs.

Two fish in half an hour seemed to kill my swim and I noticed the fish start to move away from the area, I stayed another couple of hours in the hope of picking up a straggler that might still be around but no more runs were forthcoming. I wound the rods in and went for a walk to see if there was another area of the lake worth targeting for the short time I had left. As I walked through the trees to look at the rest of the lake I noticed the storm clouds building in the distance. With only an hour or two of daylight left by this time I decided to call it a day before I got a soaking. This turned out to be a very good move as it rained heavily all the way home. On the whole I was happy, I’d had to work hard for my two small carp but I guess that’s part and parcel of being a north west carp angler these days.

Tight Lines
Mark.