‘we had a little carp party’
Southampton all rounder David Meek had given the carp slaying a rest recently, deciding to chase other species on his local rivers. However, due to the unseasonably mild weather, he dusted off the carp rods and got back amongst them straight away!
‘I had been messing about on the river for a few weeks. This enabled me to do some much needed socialisation at the weekends. On one of these weekends I found the urge to go carping. There had been a few coming from the venue, so I treated myself to a three nighter over a good moon period.
I fancied a corner, where there is a large amount of deeper water, and I couldn’t be hemmed in either. So an early morning visit to Richie’s in Ringwood saw me purchase a couple of gallons of ‘gentles’.
A couple of teas later and the car was gently rolling down the gravel track to the lake. I was pleasantly surprised that it was empty, only me. I sat in the swim I fancied for a good 45 minutes. I hoped to see the odd patch of fizz, then I saw a trail of 10 pence sized bubbles, that had to be a carp. So leaving a water carrier in the swim, I took a gentle stroll around the lake. Nothing really to report, and I knew the wind would pick up and blow at me throughout the course of the stay.
Whilst setting up a large fish slid up to the root of it’s tail before siding back in quietly no more than three rod lengths out. Well happy now! An hour later and all three rods are out. A mixture of ground bait, maize and maggots have been dispatched first class to the spots.
Late that night, my good friend Hadley who turned up and fished next door had a very special fish. After we had weighed it we decided to sack it up for the few hours until daylight. After I had trotted back to my swim, my right hand rod picked up and was chugging away. After a spirited battle in the wind, a lovely mirror was laying in the folds of my net. With the fish weighed and sacked up. We had a little carp party.
‘a lovely way to finish the trip’
I must admit photographing a couple of carp in December doesn’t get much better for me in terms of my fishing. So smiles and hearty handshakes all round as the fish swam back to their watery homes. The following morning I had a high twenty which was a lovely way to finish my trip. It’s lovely fishing for other species this time of year, but I do like a winter carp.
All were caught on ESP Tungsten Loaded hook link, new, as- yet-to-be-released size 7 beak points, trusty ESP leadcore and Syncro loaded in 18lb.