Summer Success

Although no other piscatorial species excites me like 'Esox Lucius' i do enjoy the traditional summer break and of course enjoy catching other species. This summer i have been consumed by catching carp off the top and again it is the influence of Stu maddocks aka 'The Womble' who is responsible for this obsession. I began the summer season with my bite alarms; a disciple of the 'Korda' video bible. I often had with me a float rod and mixed catching carp with plenty of Tench and Bream and other fish but the main target was carp. I have always fished for carp on the top but never with such an appetite, but observing Stu stalking around me as i sat statically often for long periods without a single bleep from my alarms made me more and more interested in fishing with bread and dog biscuits. Stu prefers dog biscuits where i prefer the old school bread. One particular session will forever remain in my memory; this time i watched Stu climb into the bankside foliage; a large willow over-hanging the lake and eventually after patience he hooked into a small hard fighting common. How he extricated this fish from such a tangled mess of branches i am still amazed by and in awe of. He came out of this tree with pride but also mixed with annoyance because his target fish was a much larger carp which had been beaten to the bait by this small common. So as the summer progressed i began to fish more and more with surface baits; mainly bread. Stu knew of my ambition to catch a 'Grass Carp' which i had never caught and had been an ambition for a long time. I had targeted the species a number of times over the years at expensive day-ticket waters without success and Stu had shown me spots locally where i could achieve it and eventually it happened; a fish of 20lb 1oz was my prize. Pictured above are a number of my summer carp and i must thank Stu again for all his advice and knowledge.