Author: <span>Thirdageangler</span>

Although the title is winter break I have actually been fishing a bit recently in the river but haven’t caught anything remarkable, just a few roach and plenty of minnows. The river is closed now so it will be off to the club’s still waters when the weather brightens up a bit. Interestingly enough the club’s Facebook page is showing carp being caught now so I might well get my carp rods out, which brings me neatly to the subject of this week’s blog – luggage.

When I first started fishing again I used an old ex-army knapsack and my Shakespeare tackle box. When I walked down to the canal I put everything on an old sack barrow and was quite comfortable pulling it. When I moved on to my first lake the swims were near to the car park and I managed to get my gear to the bank without too much trouble. Then I saw people catching carp and thought that I would have a go by having a carp rod out and float fishing at the same time. This worked well until I went to a new lake where all the swims near the car park were taken and I had to walk a hundred yards to a vacant swim, twice as I couldn’t carry everything at once. I wasn’t happy with having to do this both as a waste of time and effort and because it meant leaving some of my gear unattended on the bank. I was also visiting other club lakes to look round and several of them had long walks from the car park so if I was going to fish them I needed to be able to carry my gear.

At this time I still wasn’t sure if I was going to keep up with fishing and so didn’t want to spend too much money. I briefly considered a carp barrow and dismissed the idea. I looked at rucksacks from angling suppliers and they were not cheap and often not in stock. In the end I bought a NGT bag from eBay for £27.50. It was enormous so I could get everything in it and it seemed extremely well made and I was very happy with it until I started to use it. The problem was that I needed three hands, one for my rods, one for my chair and one for my bag. I thought I could get over this by using the shoulder strap and still have two hands free but it didn’t quite work out like that. The first problem was in lifting the bag up, it was really heavy! The next issue was that with the bag over my shoulder it was rather uncomfortable, swinging about and digging into my side, this was bearable for a few minutes but not on a longer walk but I soldiered on with it until my winter break when I had time to think about it.

I looked on YouTube, blogs and forums for ideas and found some good advice. The most important one being that you don’t have to take all your stuff with you each time you go fishing! Simple, I know but if you just take what you need then there is less to carry. This then led on to thinking that if you had less to carry you could have a smaller bag or rucksack. I practised this during my winter trips to the river by taking my rods already made up and an ordinary backpack and found that I really did have all that I needed. Soon I made up my mind, I needed a rucksack, not too small so that I could get everything in it, not too big so that I could lift it up and carry it! I searched the Internet and ended up buying another NGT product as I was impressed with the quality of their bag and it arrived yesterday, £34.50 including postage and at first sight it looks ideal. Of course as soon as it arrived I had to have a play with it, some things fitted in the pockets where I wanted them to go while other things didn’t. A bit of rearrangement and I think that I have a place for everything. Once again I am happy but only time will tell if I have made the right choice this time for my angling journey. Anyone want to buy a large holdall!

When I first thought about going fishing again I was pleasantly surprised with the gear that I still had and used it for a few weeks. Thanks to YouTube videos, angling forums and tackle websites I soon realised that I needed more tackle! Some of it I genuinely did need, like rods, reels and a landing net for carp fishing and other stuff was to replace old gear or because I was persuaded that I needed it!

Anyway, where to buy? I am lucky enough to live in a town which still has an independent tackle shop but the problem was that half the time it was closed because of lockdown and anyway I wasn’t going into shops as we were shielding because of my wife’s health, which left the Internet, namely Amazon, eBay and specialist shops. The trouble with the tackle shops is that lots things were out of stock. Thousands of new or returning anglers, the effect of Covid, a shortage of shipping containers, BREXIT etc. etc. meant that I would look for something, find it and then see that it wasn’t available. This led me to eBay where there is always a lot of fishing tackle for sale but as always you have to trust the seller’s description. This is usually accurate with new stuff but for auctions it can vary. Take floats for instance, I bought several job lots of floats for reasonable prices, much less than if I had bought them individually in the shop. The trouble is that I will never use most of them, just like the person who sold them to me I expect! When I have weeded out the bent, broken and useless ones I would have saved money by just buying a few new ones that I needed! I bought several other job lots of tackle which always included things I didn’t want so I will be selling them on eBay once the new season starts!

While I was getting ready to write this week’s Blog I had a look at my purchase history on eBay and gave myself a shock! I hadn’t realised just how much tackle I had bought! Fortunately, neither does the Missus! 

I won’t go into detail about everything I bought on eBay and will just pick out a few things. When I was looking at carp reels I found a Yumoshi reel direct from China at a price of £11.91. I thought I would take a chance at that price and was amazed by the quality when it arrived. Of course by then I had another reel delivered and was using that so it is still in the box!

I have bought quivertips, leads, feeders and rod bags, all used and perfectly good. I was particularly pleased with my three rod bag for £20 which looked unused and had even been sprayed with Febreze or something before it was dispatched, it smelled lovely!

My best deal though was a couple of Sonik DominatorX 12 ft carp rods. Posting rods can be tricky and expensive so they often go for reasonable money. I spotted the DominatorXs for sale in my town and put in a cheeky bid and was surprised to find that I had won! I got in touch with the seller who was happy for me to come and collect them as it saved him packing and posting them. When I got there I was led out to his garage where he kept all his gear neatly in top quality luggage, I passed over the cash, he passed over the rods and I was away. When I got home I looked at the rods and they were immaculate! I paid £37.89 for the pair, they are selling for £79.99 each! What a bargain!

Anyway, I can ramble on for ages about what I bought but that would get boring so I will leave it there. Suffice it to say that sometimes you get a bargain on eBay and sometimes you get stung so be careful!

I don’t know whether it is my age or it happens to everyone but I have lost a bit of gear since I started fishing again. There are the obvious things like hooking a branch when you might lose your hook length or if you are unlucky, the float as well. Another thing that comes into this category are swim feeders and method feeders, either because I have cast into bushes again or snagged up under the water. Of course I try everything to free them, jerking the rod, going left and right, high and low and sometimes it works but if not it just ends up with a hard pull and being lucky or not!

Then there are the things that you don’t expect to lose. The first was my disgorger, metal and has been with me for ever and when I went to use it, it wasn’t there. Luckily I also have a pair of small forceps and so was able to get hooks out during that session. The next thing was my phone, which I have related in an earlier blog and which I got back after a few minutes searching thanks to another angler phoning my number so I could hear it. Then there was a bank stick, I must have just left it sticking in the bank when I came home but the thing that puzzled and annoyed me most was my carp landing mat.

My club has a rule about having a landing mat of a certain size and I was able to get one off Amazon but it wasn’t cheap. It was a soft one, quite fluffy and probably filled with polystyrene balls or something to puff it out. Anyway, I had only used it a couple of times when I went to my usual lake. Now this lake is next to a farm yard, quite private and no-one about and I settled down in my usual swim. It was actually a windy day and I was getting cold and blown about and as I wasn’t having much luck I decided to move to the other side of the lake to try and find some shelter and some fish. I took a couple of trips round the lake and settled down for the rest of the session. When it was time to go home I packed up my gear and noticed that the mat was missing. I thought that it was strange but perhaps I had left it behind at the old swim so took my gear back to the car and had a look, nothing! So, back to the second swim and a good look around and it wasn’t there. I was on my own by now so there was no-one to ask so I walked round the lake but didn’t find it.

Now as far as I can work it out there were two possibilities, either I had left it behind at my old swim and someone had taken it or that I had moved it to my new swim and it had gone from there. I thought that I had put it up the bank behind me with my bag and other gear and it was next to a large field which had recently been farrowed and was quite smooth. While I was sheltered by bushes the field was exposed to the wind and blowing straight across and I think that it picked up my mat and blew it away. I thought about walking across the field to look but as I said it was big, actually it was enormous just like the American prairies and I didn’t fancy the walk of at least half a mile to the other side looking for something which might not even be there so I went home instead. Needless to say I have been more careful with its replacement and always peg it down or put something heavy on it if there is the slightest breeze!

No photos this week as I found it hard to take pictures of things that I haven’t got!

Although I didn’t know it the trip to the river in last week’s blog was the last one for a couple of months. Here in South East England it rained, and when I say it rained I mean it poured! Rivers were flooded, ponds and lakes overflowed and the ground became saturated. Think First World War trenches and you will get the picture! Then it snowed!

So it was a while before I ventured out on the bank again which gave me time to reflect on my third age angling career so far. I suppose I had been lucky, I managed to catch fish every time even if they were tiny and I had caught some nice carp, tench and a decent perch. I had certainly done well enough to encourage me to keep going and to try to get better and improve my knowlege and equipment. One way to do this was to change my reels. For float and light ledgering I had been using a couple of old ones. Probably cheap when I got them I can’t remember when I bought them or even how I acquired them but they must have been thirty years old if they were a day. I had some gift tokens from a large internet angling supplier (no sponsorship here but they ship directly to you!) for Christmas and decided to go for new reels. What to choose? I read the reviews, got more confused and eventually decided to do what I usually do when buying stuff and go for the budget end of reputable manufacturers rather than flashy stuff from firms that I have never heard from and chose a couple of Shimano reels, the FG2500 at £29.99 and the FX3000 at £19.99. I thought the FX2500 would go with the float rod and the 3000 with the ledger rod.

I have only used them a couple of times but what a difference they make! My 10ft Maver rod, which I had been a bit disappointed with is transformed! I can now trot a float down the river with the best of them! With the bail arm open the line just flows off the reel and follows the float downstream just like you see on the YouTube videos and something the old reels wouldn’t do. When I went to the lake I found that I could cast much further too. These reels have totally changed my angling experience and yes, I do appreciate that they are at the cheap end of the spectrum and if I had spent more they would be even better but hey, one step at a time! The only thing I can’t comment on yet is what they are like when you have hooked a decent fish as I haven’t managed that yet! With luck I soon will!

I think the most important thing however has not been the gear but the actual getting out of the house and getting out into the countryside for a while. My wife is vulnerable to the Covid 19 virus and so we have been shielding for almost a year now. Fishing has given me an interest that I can pursue without getting too close to other people and certainly helped my mental health. Even when not catching there is plenty to see, swans, yes always swans! Herons, cormorants, ducks and on a lucky day a kingfisher. Smaller birds come and visit and I have seen different kinds of tits in the trees and bushes and there is always the robin looking enviously at the bait box! There are also different sounds, I have heard children playing during their school lunchtime even though the school is about a mile away, bird song, some of which I can identify, the whooping of the swan’s wings as they fly overhead and the tractor ploughing the fields. Then there is the constant background noise of traffic, it seems that wherever I am on the club’s waters it is difficult to get away from the hum of the motor car. Still, mustn’t grumble, that’s how I got to the bank!

These are some of my thoughts on how my first year has gone so far. I will try to put some  more in order for next week but as the sun has come out at last I might just go fishing instead!

When I was growing up I always fished in rivers and I suppose that I still think that this is proper angling, going after wild fish that don’t live in a managed environment. I had tried the local river in the summer but access was difficult and I had been waiting for the nettles to die down along the banks. In the meantime I found a swim only a short walk from the road and with no nettles or grass as it was sheltered under trees. These made it a bit difficult to fish so shorter rods and underarm casting were needed but as it was only a small river or large stream this wasn’t a problem.

On my first visit I didn’t know what to expect, the water level was fairly low and the water itself quite clear so I could see the bottom in places. I did my usual thing of putting out a feeder rod and actively fishing the float rod but wasn’t getting any bites with the feeder so concentrated on the float. I had a good day trotting the float and catching every few minutes. There was a variety of fish there including a gudgeon and some roach and chublets, not forgetting minnows! These became a bit of a nuisance and I changed hook to a larger size to try and avoid them but no luck, they continued to swallow the bait and hook kamikaze style and could be difficult to unhook. Nevertheless I had a good day and decided to go return another day.

A couple of weeks later I tried again, it was now late November and the river was a bit higher but I could still see the bottom in places. I had another good day mostly catching roach and there didn’t seem to be as many minnows. Then the float dipped decisively and I was into a bigger fish, not enormous but bigger than anything I had caught that day. As it came to the surface I saw that it was a perch and was thrilled to get it into the landing net! The only perch that I had caught so far were tiddlers and this was a proper fish, it weighed in at 1lb 7 oz and was a personal best. Some quick photos and an admiring look and I lowered it back in the river and after a few moments it was away.

Things went quiet for a bit and after a while I decided to pack up. I had landed 24 fish in that session and some of them were more than tiddlers! I went back a couple of weeks later but by then it had been raining a lot and the river was in flood. I couldn’t find and cast to any back eddies or sheltered spots and only caught one fish with my first cast on the feeder rod. I thought that I was in for a great session after that fish but it was downhill all the way!

After that I kept my eye on the river levels on the Internet, I knew what was too high and as it continued to rain I didn’t get back there for a few months. In fact I had a bit of a break after Christmas as it was either pouring, snowing or frosty but it did give me chance to reflect a bit and sort out my gear, more of which in my next post.

I continued my tour of the club’s waters by visiting one of the more distant lakes, although it wasn’t very far away. I had been for a look round and found that the car park was about 200 yards from  the lake and I would have to carry my gear up a muddy track. After seeing guys with barrows I thought about getting one but thought it was a lot of money for a hobby that I was still not really sure about. I decided to adapt a sack barrow which I had in my shed by making a box to put the rods in and attaching it to the back of the barrow. It worked after a fashion and I slowly made my way to the lake and found one other guy fishing there. We had a chat and he wasn’t having much luck so I moved to the other end of the lake near an island and put out my carp rod and float rod and sat back.

I soon started catching fish, the usual small roach and then a carp jumped. Over the next hour several carp jumped and so I changed where I was casting and then tried surface fishing with bread. The trouble was that the lake was home to ducks, hundreds of them and on seeing my bread there was frantic competition for it! Not wanting to hook a duck I gave that up and tried a Zig rig fishing high up in the water. The carp continued to jump and I continued to catch small silverfish and then it started to rain. Having learnt my lesson I had brought my umbrella and so I put it up. It was fairly old and was just a basic umbrella but it kept the rain off me and much of my gear so I was happy.

The day carried on much the same, the carp kept jumping, I didn’t catch one and continued to catch the odd small roach and perch. It stopped raining just before home time and I struggled back to the car, falling over twice in the process. I had enjoyed the day but was a bit miffed that I could see fish but not catch them and also decided that I must do something about all my gear if I was going to fish here again. Taking carp rods and tackle and Silverfish rods and tackle only worked if I could park near the swim. To make matters worse a guy posted on the club’s Facebook page the next day about what a great session he had at the same lake, catching eight carp!

Well, it is Saturday and time to update my blog and I have just realised that I made a mistake last week by publishing my blog entry as a page, which no-one can see, so I have had to include it in posts so it now appears that I have posted two blog entries on the same day, which I have but I didn’t mean to! Anyway we are now at the end of October and I had an entertaining day’s fishing, thanks to Ben!

As the forecast wasn’t too bad for today compared to the rest of the week I took the opportunity to go fishing. I continued my plan of visiting all the Club waters and arrived at the venue to find a square irrigation reservoir surrounded by trees. Well, not quite surrounded as on one side they were cutting them down and all kinds of machines were at work making a racket and spoiling the peace and quiet!

I arrived at the same time as another guy who had all the gear, a trolley to put it on with matching bags and also his son, who was four years old. As a newbie I asked my fellow angler’s advice, socially distanced of courses and we ended up fishing in neighbouring swims. I soon found that Ben, for that was the lad’s name had a love of fishing and liked to help his dad, he was also a right chatterbox!

I soon began catching small roach on my float rod, which was tricky to handle as the swim was about ten feet deep or more. Ben noticed me catching.

“Dad! Dad! He’s caught a fish, I’m going to see!” And he was off! It was then that I realised that four year olds don’t have any idea of Social Distancing! Ben was quickly followed by his dad who wanted to keep him out of my way but every time I caught a fish the attraction was too great! Soon he was holding my fish and putting them back in the water!

After a couple of hours with nothing on my carp rod and nothing on Ben’s dad’s we had a chat. He told me that the fish were swimming in mid-water, which explained why I was catching nothing fishing on the bottom. He had a fish finder echo sounder device and could see them, I told you that he had all the gear!

I decided to change my rig to fish off the bottom and about half an hour later the bite alarm sounded and I was into a carp.

“Dad! Dad! He’s got a carp!” but this time dad was not letting him come over and get in my way.

“Dad, he’s got a fish! We haven’t got a fish, why haven’t we got a fish dad?”

I manage to land the carp and had him on the unhooking mat and both Ben and his dad came over to see, as you do. Ben was very keen to stroke the carp and to have him weighed and he came in at just under seven and a half pounds. Ben helped me put him back by holding the end of the landing net handle.

Then it was their turn to catch and Ben helped dad by getting the landing net. I wandered over for a look.

“That’s my rod.” Said Ben although it looked to me that Dad was doing all the work! Ben was very proud that his fish weighed a pound more than mine.

Then it was lunchtime and I was confident that I would get a bite with a sandwich in one hand and a cup of tea in the other but it was not to be. I decided to have a change from the float rod and fish with a feeder and a quivertip to try to pick up some bigger roach on the bottom. Time passed and I did get a better fish.

“Dad, he’s got a roach again!”

Then the tip pulled round quite quickly and I was into something totally different! On light tackle it was giving me a fair old fight and as it got nearer I could see that it was a carp of two or three pounds. I managed to land it and had it on the unhooking mat and the hook had fallen out by itself. I was just getting my phone out for a picture when the alarm on my carp rod started beeping! A quick shout to my neighbour.

“Can you put this one back for me? And that was the last I saw of it. I was back to my carp rod and into another nice fish, a bit smaller than the first one. Ben wanted to help me land him but dad kept him out of my way until the fish was safely landed. We didn’t weigh him this time and Ben helped me put him back by holding the handle of the landing net again.

After that it went quiet, then it started to rain and I pondered the wisdom of leaving my fishing umbrella in the car because I had too much to carry, perhaps I need one of those trolley things! I covered up all my gear as much as possible and I had waterproofs and wellies on so was OK although I did go and stand under a tree for a while.

There were a few smaller fish and Ben came and “helped” me with them. One of them had swallowed the hook and I was taking a while to get it out with and Ben was watching me intently.

“We say it’s a pain in the arse when they do that!” I had to agree but was laughing inside, I don’t think dad heard him or would have approved! Then it was starting to get dark, time to pack up, go home and get the dinner. “Are you going home? We’re going home soon!”

I wandered over to say goodbye to Ben and his dad. I had been impressed with the way dad involved him in their fishing. Ben obviously liked fishing and spent six hours on the bank being well behaved and interested in what was going on, even when nothing much was happening.

Dad had had no more bites, I felt a bit sorry for him but at least he didn’t blank. He told me that was the worst he had ever done here. I told him I had beginner’s luck! I don’t know if that made him feel any better!

Then it was back to the car, struggling with all my damp gear and home to spread it out in the shed to dry. The Missus said.

“Did it rain much? We had a few drops here.”

A few drops! I was only three miles away and it poured for twenty minutes! Of course if I had taken my umbrella to the swim then it would have stayed dry all day!

Never mind, that was another venue ticked off the list and although I caught a few it was far too noisy with the tree felling. I have more places to fish before returning.

Now that it is Saturday it is time to update my Blog. We get back to the story after a few months had passed since I started fishing again and it was now mid October. The fish were still biting and I thought that I would try as many of the club’s waters as possible before winter set in.

This one looks like it used to be a gravel pit and is supposed to be good to fish. The ground was a bit wet after some rain so I put on my waterproof trousers and wellies and went to have a look, chatting to a couple of anglers on the way, keeping my social distance of course! I had nearly got back to the car when I found that my phone was no longer in my pocket! I had used it to take some pictures half way around the lake so I knew that I had it with me so I started to re-trace my steps. First stop was the swim where I had just been chatting to a guy but it wasn’t there. He was great though and said that if I gave him my number he would ring it until I found it. A couple of hundred yards later and I could hear the ringtone and soon homed in on my phone, great relief all round! Walking back I thanked him and as he was packing up he even gave me some of his bait, what a nice bloke!

Eventually I made it back round to a swim I had been told was a good one and got the carp rod out and set up the float rod. It was then that I realised that I had left the rod rests and alarm at home. I always forget something but decided to carry on without them. I got the rods in the water and soon the carp rod started shaking and I was into a fish, not a carp but a tench of 5 and a half pounds, the first tench that I have ever caught!

Attention then went back to the float rod and I was busy pulling out tiny roach as seems to be my usual catching style, then the carp rod started twitching again and I was into another fish. It felt different to the tench, livelier and jerky and didn’t want to come in so easily but I soon had him into the net. A nice common which weighed in at seven and a half pounds.

Safely unhooked and returned and the rod back in the water and time to catch smaller fish on the float rod. I was catching these all day, must have been 20 at least.

I glanced over at the carp rod and the line was going slack then tight then slack then tight, I picked up the rod and was into a fish! This one was quite different to a tench, much more fight, in a short while I had landed a carp of the same weight.

I caught another carp and another tench during the day, it was a good result and I was well pleased. The sun shone a bit, the wind blew my line into the reeds and the tree, I lost a method feeder, sheltered from the wind, saw a heron and a flock of about 15 swans flying overhead and generally enjoyed being out in the country.

The second tench was an odd one, I was reeling the line in to pack up and he was on the end of it, I have no idea how long he was there! He didn’t seem too happy about being caught though, looked very grumpy!

After him I did go home to find that the Mrs had even got the dinner for me, usually that is my job! So, a good day at a lake that I will certainly go back to. Anyone got any tips about how to take a selfie with a fish in one hand and camera in the other?

After fishing in the starter lake for a while without too much of an audience and having caught my first big carp and lost one I was feeling more confident about moving on to a more popular lake. I had driven past a while ago and knew that there would be people there.

It was sunny with a cold wind when I arrived and as I got out of the car a guy started talking to me. I presumed he knew what he was doing as he had all the gear and a bivvi set up to shelter from the wind. While he gave me the low down I had a good look around at a nice lake and also a smaller one the other side of the car park. After finishing our chat I went to have a look at this one and quickly decided that it would have to wait until another day as it was very exposed to the wind with little shelter. Back to the other lake and a walk round to find a swim.

I decided to fish in a swim on the windward side of the lake, which had a belt of trees behind it to give some shelter and then learnt my first lesson of the day. At the old lake I could just get my stuff out of the car and put it in the swim, here I had to walk fifty yards with my ragtag collection of bags, rods, landing nets, bank sticks etc. There was too much to carry at one time so I had to make two trips leaving my gear at the swim as I went back for the second load, not ideal.

Still, the swim had a nice area around it and was fairly clear of trees overhead so I was able to get my carp rod in the water while I set up my float rod and baited the swim. It was then that I learnt another lesson as a quick phone call to my wife confirmed that I had left my frozen sweet corn in the microwave! Still, I had maggots, pellets and bread so decided to carry on regardless.

After five minutes I still hadn’t had a bite! On my last lake I would have been inundated with bites from baby roach from the start with the slightly bigger fish coming in later, usually on sweet corn. So I began the tinkering, fishing deeper, fishing shallower, changing bait, casting a bit further away, feeding the swim, anything to get a bite!

Then it happened and I pulled in the smallest perch that I have ever seen, followed by one of those tiny roach, which I thought meant the bigger fish were on their way but this time they weren’t.

Then the buzzer on the carp rod sounded and I picked up the rod and started to reel in. However the fish had different ideas and made straight for the fallen tree next to the swim and broke the line. Of course, this all happened just as another angler was passing by on his way to set up at the swim next door. He looked a lot more experienced than me and even had a trolley for all his gear and as he stopped to commiserate I explained that I was still a beginner he gave me some advice on how I should have played the fish!

Carp score in my angling career so far: Hooked three, landed one. I will have to do a bit better than that!

So the day passed, a couple more tiny roach and an even smaller perch, feeling chilly from the wind, having lunch and a cuppa from the flask and casting out every now and again. I was trying something new on the carp rod using PVA mesh for the first time with a mixture of boilies and different size pellets and was pleased that I had a bite so decided to persevere with that method. By now it was mid afternoon and I was feeling peckish so I got a banana out of my bag, opened a packet of crisps and poured myself a cuppa and relaxed, looking out at the scenery. That was when the carp buzzer sounded again! I jumped up, spilling the crisps onto the floor and launching the banana into the lake!

I grabbed the rod and was into a fish. After last time I was a bit more forceful with this one but it wasn’t as lively as the first and soon came in, a mad scramble for the net and the fish was landed, 3-2! Now that I had the right gear I laid the fish on the unhooking mat and easily took the hook out then weighed it on my new scales using the new weighing net, 12lb 5oz! OK, so not a record but a good fish for only my second carp, it looked lovely as well. A quick photo then it was back in the water and I had a moment to sit down. I managed to get most of my crisps back into the bag, gave up on the banana and didn’t fancy the tea as there was something unidentifiable floating on the top!

That was the day really, no more excitement although they guy next door caught a couple and I watched him bring them in. This confirmed that he was more experienced than me, he controlled the fish well, had everything to hand and was calm and collected, everything I wasn’t.

So, what did I learn? Well, quite a bit. I have to be more organised by cutting down on what I bring. One large rucksack would be better than three backpacks and two tackle boxes and leave my hands free for other stuff so it will be back on to ebay to see what I can find. I have to be more organised at the swim and have everything in the right place for when I catch a carp instead of scrabbling around for it at the last minute. I will also have to think about warmer clothing as the winter sets in. I also learnt that I can catch carp and that the first one wasn’t just a fluke, oh yes, and another thing, I must remember to bring my bait!

The time had come to go fishing in a still water and try out my new carp rod. I chose one of the club’s less popular lakes as I didn’t want a big audience for my first time. When I arrived there were a couple of other anglers but we were well spaced out, which was good for social distancing. I set up the carp rod with a method feeder and cast out then tackled up the float rod. This lake is fairly shallow so the rig wasn’t set too deep, I put some groundbait in and was catching fish immediately. A little roach, followed by another and another and another. I am always pleased when I catch a fish but I moved away from the canal to try and catch something bigger so a change of tactic was in order. I swopped from maggots to sweet corn and at last a chance to re-cast the carp rod and have a sit down. 

Things went quiet for a bit, giving me chance to have a cup of tea out of the flask and notice the heron paddling in the margins opposite and briefly glimpse the kingfisher which flew over the top of me and away over the lake like a streak of lightning. Then the float dipped and I was into a bigger roach, still only a few ounces but a proper fish!

I won’t go on about the day because the story is all about what happened at the end, but it is enough to say that I caught more roach, bream and a baby carp and had a good session. Early in the afternoon I had moved the carp rod and was fishing in the margins next to the swim. I was thinking about packing up and going home when the rod started shaking and moving so I grabbed it before it disappeared into the lake! I gave it a yank and could feel something big, my first ever proper carp!

I tell you, I was sweating! I knew all the theory but here I was with a real live fish to play and desperate not to lose it! I had fairly strong gear on and was able to pull the fish in after a few minutes and get it into my landing net. 

Wow! What a feeling! There it was laid out in front of me, the biggest fish I have ever caught! It was hooked nicely in the lower lip and I was able to pull the hook out with my fingers, take a photo and slip it back in. I then had a sit down with a big grin all over my face and an amazing sense of achievement and an understanding of the attraction of carp fishing. Then that was it for the day, nothing could top that so I might as well pack up and go home while I was still on a high. One thing is for sure, I will be back!

My first ever big carp! I didn’t have any scales so don’t know how much it weighed but the diameter of the landing net is 20ins or 51cm. And yes, I now have a proper carp landing net and unhooking mat!