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New Year Carpin' Social - Ryan Hawes
I turned up at the lake around 8am where I met my good friend who’d offered me the guest ticket and we soon found ourselves a swim, one known as ‘Willows’, as funnily enough it has an over hanging willow tree to the left of the island at around 60 yards! With this being such an obvious feature we tossed a coin to decide who had what side, I lost the toss and got the right hand side, not a total disaster as I still had lots of features to fish.
I decided I would fish a rod length short of the island with small PVA sticks packed with crumbled Live System boilies, with a criticality balanced Acid Pear Drop Pop-Up on the hook.
A weather front was pushing in fast and with heavy rain forecast by 3pm, I didn’t fancy getting soaked, so the brolly was quickly erected and the tackle tucked under it. While I was in the process of pegging it down a fish boshed out over one of my spots, it gave me immense confidence - at least I knew they were in the area!
By now it was around 10am and my friend was on cooking duties whilst I was on fish feeding duties! Armed with the new Fox Impact Spod I introduced around 8 medium Spod-fulls around the area I was fishing, the main thought process behind it was just to get them milling around in the area, before hopefully attracting them with my brightly coloured Pop-up hook baits.
After 3 hours of strong wind and heavy rain I got my first bleep of the session! My heart began to race, was it a liner or was it a knock from a feeding fish? A few minutes later I heard the magic noise as my alarm properly burst into life! I’d only gone and got my first run of the session and only a few hours in too!
I had seen pictures of 40lb+ carp from this lake, so my adrenaline was really pumping, was I attached to one of the lakes monster residents? I played the fish for a good 10 minutes before finally managing to get it under some sort of control, it was a few rod lengths from the bank and I slowly began to pump the fish towards the surface.
Just as my leadcore leader broke the surface the fish bolted and the hook pulled! To say I was gutted would have been an understatement!
I sulked in my brolly for a few minutes before pulling myself together and getting the rods back on the spots. I topped up the area with another 3 Spod-fulls of bait as I was desperate to keep them active and grubbing around.
At this time of year as the days are so short there’s often not alot to do other than to retire to the sleeping bag, so that’s exactly what I done. I layed there watching the water and the rods, hoping that I’d get another chance to bag my first fish from the lake.
It was around 10.00pm when I heard the sound of a Delkim, not mine, but one of my friends further along the bank. I was soon up and in his swim, watching the action unfold.
After a epic scrap he netted his capture and I looked down to see a cracking fish sulking in the net. I know a few of the names of the fish from the water and remembered seeing this one before; it was known as ‘Crinkle Tail’, a fish that went 30lb+. On the scales, this absolute cracker of a Norfolk Mirror, went 33lb.
After taking a few pictures I went back to my brolly and soon dozed off, dreaming that the next take would be mine!
I was up early and greeted with an amazing view across the lake, but unfortunately no fish. I reeled in, added fresh rigs and baits and popped them back out to the same spots, another 5 spod-fulls of bait was added over the top.
I had a few knocks during the day but nothing positive enough to warrant a strike.
We stayed up and listened to the New Year countdown on the radio and that was about the highlight, as for the second evening on the trot my Delkims stayed silent.
Morning soon came and it was time to pack up and head home, even though I’d lost my only fish of the session, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days and I really do hope I get the chance to return soon!
Tight Lines, Ryan Hawes.
