Carp Fishing…. It’s something I’ve dabbled with in the past but never quite gotten into. However with the sea fishing getting worse every year and me losing interest there was only one thing for it, get down the lake and try for a scaley beast.

Bank holiday weekend arrived and with it came the opportunity for a quick overnighter on a club lake I have just joined. The plan was to head out the door for 3:00 pm and hopefully be fishing by 5 pm but like all our best laid out plans this was not to be the case. I had dozed off and opening my eyes at 6 pm panic set in, I had slept past the time I had wanted to leave and with night’s drawing in I knew I needed to get out quick to avoid setting up in the dark. Arriving at the lake I could see a couple of cars in one of the car parks but that was it, and after wandering down for a quick scout there was one peg that looked super fishy, being right on the edge of an out of bounds area it had loads of fish holding features and looked ripe for the picking.

I unloaded the car and got all my kit in the swim, twilight was coming in fast though and I’d never even set my bivvy up before!! This was a race against time. My rods and pod were soon set up and I took a couple of minutes watching the water, working out where I was going to plonk my rigs for the night. I had opted to fish with bog standard basic blowback rigs for this session on both rods. Size six barbless hooks were on the sharp end and loaded onto these were single Cyprisnax CCBP boilies in 16mm size. Hopefully using the larger size would keep the slimy bream at bay!

Before I cast out I sprinkled a few whole boilies on both spots, one being on the edge of a channel between 2 sets of lily’s, a natural carp motorway they were bound to travel on going in and out of the out of bounds zone. The other spot was under a tree in the margins just to my right, this was also skirted with lily’s and looked like the perfect place to drop a bait. I whipped up a quick stick mix consisting of crushed boilies that I was using and also some bloodworm pellets to get them grubbing about around my hookbaits.

Both rods were dropped bang on the money first cast and with little 4 inch pva mesh sticks attached it was not long before the alarms were giving little beeps every now and then as the fish started grubbing around. After what seemed like forever I soon had my bivvy up and had my home for the night in order, a cup of tea was made and burgers were cooked and I sat back wondering what the night would hold. Would I catch on my first even session on this lake or would I blank, after all fishing is a learning curve and you can’t expect to work somewhere out on the first time there.

Laying back in the bivvy it was near silence, the only noise being the deer on the far bank making the occasional banging noise, then out of nowhere my far rod screamed off. Lifting into the fish I could feel it wasn’t massive and after a spirited fight I soon had a scaley mirror sliding into the net. What a stunning fish this was, the big plate scales shimmered in my headtorch and I could see how healthy she was. After a couple of pics I slid her back and watched her slide into the depths, yeeeees I hadn’t blanked and it looked like my tactics were working. Another stick was made and attached to the hook before being cast out bang on the money once again.

Nothing much else happened for a while, I was still getting the occasional bleep to signify the fish were still active around my baits but no screaming takes. By now it was nearly 1am so I opted to get my head down, this didn’t last long though as my right hand rod soon came to life. Straight away could tell this was a bream and as it came towards the net my other rod tore off as well. Unfortunately this run only lasted a few seconds and before I could get the bream in the net and pick the rod up it had stopped as I can only assume the fish shook the hook.

That was it for a while and I soon got my head down for a couple of hours. Waking up it was still dark around 5am and as I sat watching my rods something just didn’t feel right, after the bream escapade I had a hunch I hadn’t placed my baits right in the perfect spots, rushing my casts in the middle of the night, so I wound in and put another stick on each before making sure both baits were bang on where I wanted them.

I sat back and made a cuppa and watched as dawn started to break, all of a sudden my far rod again tore off and I was quickly on the rod and into another carp. This fish was fighting much harder and trying it’s best to get into the out of bounds, I was scrapping with him ensuring he couldn’t get too far and soon he was back in the open water and tiring. With his head up I knew he was beaten and slid my net under a lean, fit common carp. Not the biggest but my word was he strong. I took a couple of snaps before sliding him back into his watery home, sitting back on my bedchair I was over the moon. 2 carp on my first overnighter on the lake to me was a total win!!

That was it for the fishing for me and as the time reached 7:30 am I started to pack away my things, of course the rods were the last to go away, always hoping at the back of my mind there could be one last screaming run to come but today was not the day unfortunately and as I pulled out of the car park my mind was already on my next session on this stunning lake.