A stunning original!
Alex Grice tends to only catch nice ones and here’s another case in point, with a lovely old carp, well done Alex!
‘Taverham Mill fishery has to be on of the most idyllic venues in the whole of East Anglia and towards the end of April, I was due to visit the lake for work alongside some close friends. We arrived to meet Harry early on the Friday and after a quick coffee at the visitor centre, we headed out towards the lake, over the old sluice gate that crosses the river Wensum before arriving at what can only be described as a lake of beauty.
Harry had directed us in the area of the lake that has a large peninsula that embarks into the main body of the lake. With two bays either side of the large peninsula and a small island off the tip, we have a good choice of swims that commanded a good proportion of the lake. After the other guys settled into their chosen areas, I managed to sneak off and find a lovely swim that controlled the central section of the smaller, much quieter bay to one side. It looked lovely for a bite, but instead of getting the rods out first of all, I spent a bit of time finding three areas to present each of my rods. As the lake is generally very weedy, with large beds of silkweed and Canadian, I was keen to find those small firm spots between the weed beds that were ideal for my favoured hinged- stiff rigs.
Having found three lovely firm areas, I marked the rods up and introduced a few kilos of Tuna across the spots and to areas between which connected them via a central channel. I had other bits to sort for work, so rested the swim throughout the whole first day, hoping that the lack of disturbance would let them drift in undisturbed, especially as no other anglers were present in the bay.
It got to around 5am and I simply couldn’t hold out any longer, so after mounting a few very potent and vivid hookbaits on my favoured Tungsten Loaded hinges, I soon after had three rods fishing effectively on the spots. A few handfuls of bait was all I thought was needed to keep the swim topped up and it looked great going into the evening ahead. Throughout the day I had caught sights of the odd bubbler in the area and by the evening, the temperatures had rose and it felt like a bite was on the cards.
We grouped together in the evening between the swims on the peninsula for a lush early season BBQ and beer. Great times were had before the early 5am start had hit me and it was time to retire to the bed. The next thing I can remember was waking up to the sound of Geese flapping about vigorously in my swim, which continued for the next half an hour. I rolled over and fired up the stove to make a brew, at which point I heard the middle bobbin hit the rod blank before peeling line at a rate of knots. Initially, I thought it may had been one of those Geese, but after looking up to no signs I knew it just had to be a carp.
Returning the old creature
A long old fight ensued and after managing to steer the fish clear of a few weedbeds, I finally had it under some sort of control in front of me. Moments later, my good friend Ollie walked into my swim, notifying me that he had somehow managed to hear the sound of my old tournaments wailing as the fish took more line. Minutes later and the fish was gliding towards the waiting net, of which Oli did the honours. I left her sulking in the net while I grabbed my tea and headed to see if anyone else was awake. My good friend Foxy was snoozing but I could see his mat hanging from the tree, at which point he woke and told me he’d had two stockies. The guys slowly began to appear as the morning sun broke through, so I readied the mat and went to get the fish from the waiting net. I lifted her up onto the mat, rolling back the mesh to reveal a truly incredible old carp. Gav rattled off a few shots before we returned her to the clear depths of the mills. A real special capture that made my spring’.