Stotty Brace

I made my Friday afternoon ritual journey down to Wellington Country Park. Once again it was a nightmare with the M25 again in gridlock and I eventually arrived at the lake almost three hours after leaving work. The barrow was soon loaded and I made the short journey to the back of a swim called the Goose Shit. I parked the barrow and went for a walk that was to last the best part of four hours in my search to find some carp.

It was whilst standing near the club house looking at the water at the rear of the building that we call the arm that I noticed a load of fizzing going on. That was it for me and my mind had been made up as to where I would be fishing for at least one night anyway. A short walk was required to retrieve the barrow which was soon located in my chosen swim.

I had fished this swim the previous Sunday night and had made a bit of a mistake and fished all three rods about three quarters of the way across the arm. That night I had received liners all night long, but didn’t get any other action. On the Monday morning before packing up to go to work I had noticed a load of fizzing going on only a couple of rod lengths out from the bank.

With this information stored and the fizzing I had seen a short while ago I knew what had to be done. Three Century FMA2’s were sorted out and new pop-up rigs attached. Once again the reels were loaded with 15lb Pro Carp and my usual five foot 30lb Gardner Mirage fluorocarbon leader. A Covert Lead Clip was used along with a 4oz Gardner lead.

I’m still not going to tell you about the rig, but it was made up using a size 4 Covert Chod hook with the eye straightened and a small amount of Covert Shrink Tube added and a little Covert Flexi Ring swivel. Hookbait was an 18mm Nutty cream Cracker pop-up from the Elite Baits Direct stable, which was tied up using 25lb Trickster Silt and a boom section was made from 25lb Disruption. This was chosen because of the bad snags that are situated either side of the swim.

I made up three large Micromesh pva stockings of whole and chopped up and crumbed boilies, and hooked each one onto each rig and moulded a couple of Gardner Rigwise Dissolving Foam nuggets round each hook to help mask them from the weed that I knew was in the area. All three rods were lowered into the water no more than a couple of rod lengths from the bank and loads of slack line was paid off from the spools. I chopped up a few boilies and added a few whole baits to the mix and flicked a few bits around the area where the rigs had been placed.

The night was so warm that I decided to sleep under the stars. I heard a few carp crash a couple of hours after getting the rods out but they were further up to my right, knowing that they were in the vicinity certainly upped the confidence levels. I decided to just lay on the bedchair and promptly fell asleep.

I was raised from my slumber a couple of times when I received liners, however it wasn’t until about four thirty when the middle rod howled at me for some attention. After picking up the rod it soon took up its full curve as a carp made its dash for sanctuary and I was quite shocked to see it turn over on the surface some fifteen yards from the bank and I was convinced I had hooked one of the lakes smaller residents.

The fight for the next few minutes was hair raising to say the least as I managed to guide the carp to my margins where it tested the close quarters playing abilities of the rod to the maximum almost gaining the sanctuary of the snags to my left and right on more than one occasion. The power in the FMA2’s eventually tamed my prize and as it went into the net I realised that it was considerably bigger than I had first thought.

After making sure the carp was secure I went and got a mate who was fishing Boathouse to lend a hand with the pictures. After we got everything sorted and when the carp was weighed it sent the needle spinning around to 40lbs 10oz, needless to say there was a smile on my face for the pictures.

After sorting out the rod and getting it back out to the area I was not really expecting any further action any time soon. Some four hours later I was sat on my bedchair watching four or five carp hovering over the middle area before they dropped down on the spot and started feeding. Even though I was expecting one of the rods to bust off, it still made me jump when one of the rods tore off and as soon as I picked the rod up I had to jump into the water as the carp was powering off up to my right at a rate of knots.

It had taken a fair bit of line from a pretty tight clutch and it was probably twenty five yards away from me and I had to lock down on it, as I knew that it would kite further right and get under the trees that were all along the bank to my right. I could feel the line grating as I pumped the rod back towards me, but everything held firm and the carp eventually cleared the trees where it went a bit mental just in front of the swim for a few moments before at last surrendering and giving in.

Once again I went and got my mate to help with the weighing and photos. I was a tad taken aback when up on the scales the carp went 37lbs 6oz and I couldn’t help but pull cheeses as the camera clicked away.

That was to be my last bit of action for the week end but hey, two cracking carp in the bag, that’s enough to make any one smile!