An update from me.
I went fishing on the 27th, 28th and 29th of December with one of my friends, There was meant to be three of us but one pulled out at the last minute. At around 6.30 am i found myself dragging along all my carp fishing gear in the freezing cold across to a muddy lake.
At around 11pm the first evening my friends bite alarm started beeping away and by the time i got out of my bivvy (posh name for a green tent) my friend was well into what seemed a nice fish. In the hurry to get the rod my friend also decided it would be a good idea to leave his shoes and head torch in his bivvy which i found rather amusing seeing as it was pitch black. I did the kind thing and grabbed his shoes and head torch for him and after a little struggle eventually netted the first carp of the session. Hopefully this was a sign of good things to come! With the fish safely on the unhooking mat we took a couple of pictures and proceeded to weigh and release him. The final weight was a satisfying 13lb. Not the biggest carp ever caught but it was still welcome nevertheless.
After a pretty lousy nights kip, i had a few bites but the fish never really took the bait, i set about getting ready for what i was hoping to be a furious day of constant catching. Unfortunately this was not to be the case
After quite a few beers me and my friend decided to call it a night at around midnight. I slowly dozed off into the land of nod and was rudely awoken at 4.30am! To say i was a little startled is quite the understatement, I was frantically trying to get out of my sleeping bag which even Houdini would find a troublesome task, find my head torch, get the mosquito net undone, find and put on my thermal boots, negotiate the inner and outer doors to the front of my bivvy and strike the rod and hopefully still have a fish on the end!
I struck the rod and was happy to find the fish still on the end although he was making a bit of a b-line for a group of lilies which would cause complications. I turned the fish thankfully on time and proceeded to wear the fish out. She didn't really put up much of a fight after the initial strike and my expectations of a monster carp sank pretty rapidly. We finally netted the carp and got it on the unhooking mat where we could remove the hook and weigh the beast.
The final weight of my first carp of the session was 16lb 13oz Common Carp. I was chuffed to bits and after releasing the carp i celebrated by drinking a cup of tea and going to sleep for a few hours.
Pictures of my first carp of the session
After getting out of my sleeping bag at around 9.30 the next day i sat in my chair and my friend pointed out to me that i had forgotten to put my bait runner on on my reels(this lets the fish take line when you catch it). I walked over and turned it on and sat back down in my chair. For some unknown reason me and my fishing buddy were just staring at my rod and reels like we were expecting a fish to suddenly take my bait and the strangest thing happened. The bite alarm erupted into life and we both just looked at each other in disbelief at what happened. It then occurred to me that i should strike and hook the fish seeing as thats why i was there. This fish actually felt smaller than the fish i had earlier the same morning, it fought alot more near the surface and i had a bit of fun tiring it out. Finally i got the fish landed and i was convinced it was a smaller fish than the one before but the scales never lie and displayed 17lb 8oz. My new personal best!
Pictures of the second carp of the session
Other than a bite or two the rest of the day was uneventfully and we finally decided that fishing any longer was futile. We packed up and went home after a pretty good fishing trip.
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