Well it is the end of May 2021 and the weather has changed from a whole month of rain to glorious sunshine. I went out fishing at a local club water and I had a few hours to try to catch something!
I brought along with me, my Carp rod 1.75lb T.C. and my Shimano reel with 10lb sensor line, for the bait I am going to use the (in my opinion) awesome Pineapple & N-Butyric Pop-up Boilies, see my previous review of them here.
I also took along a 10ft Shakespeare float rod with reel holding 6lb line, to try waggler fishing sweetcorn next to the lily pads to see what else I can get.
For both swims I used Sonubaits Pro – Thatchers Original Groundbait and I have found it a very good all-round groundbait, especially when its mixed with a few chopped up Sticky Manilla 16mm Boilies and a few bits of sweetcorn.
I had the Carp rod set up with a 31g lead, and hook link with double Pineapple N-Butyric on a hair, I added a small amount of dark matter to make sure the boilies were popping up the way I wanted them to be, like a ‘figure of 8’ or a ‘snowman’. The Dark Matter Putty is brilliant and I tested it in a bucket before I went out to make sure the presentation was great, straight up!
The double pop-ups were cast out just short of a very large reed feature, to be honest the first cast was a bit over zealous and I had to feather it heavily, so I retrieved it as I wasn’t happy with the positioning, but the second cast was good as I was about a foot away from the reeds. I set the bite alarm up and then I balled up the prepared groundbait, chopped manilla boilies and sweetcorn. The swim was just in throwing distance to get the groundbait out.
I was just about to set up the float rod when the bite alarm went off on the carp rod and the drag was screaming, in the 5 seconds it took me to get to the rod, I feared it had bolted into the reeds and thoughts of lost fish and snagged line instantly came to mind. Instead of heading for the reeds the fish headed out into the water and started a route to the Lilly pads to my right, exactly where my float would have been.
Well the next 15 minutes were tiring to say the least, this lump of fish really did fight. It took me towards the lilies to the right and lilies to the left, then back towards the reeds, it tried to swim underneath the platform I was standing on for this peg.
The fish started to tire and I saw it surface for the first time and for a moment with the sun it looked like a mirror, it was however a great looking common carp nonetheless, the colours were proper golden! I struggled to get it into the net first time but it doubled over and I scooped it into the net, note to self; next investment will be a decent sized net, I should maybe review some nets in the next blogs, we’ll see.
Once in the net, I quickly transferred it to the wet unhooking mat, ready for a couple of quick photos, unhooking and weighing. I am really conscious of the time the fish is out of the water and keep this to an absolute minimum.
You can see on the image that the hook is just on the lip and the double pop-up is visible. You can just make out the dark matter putty on the eye of the hook.
The condition of this fish was amazing, the scales were pretty perfect and the golden colour orange/yellows were brilliant, the tail had an orange gradient to it and all of it’s fins are perfectly formed with no damage whatsoever, really happy with this catch!
Next, I set up the float rod which was a Shakespeare Omni X 10ft match rod with a waggler as the ripples on the water were fairly substantial, on this water there is always a wind blowing as there is no tree or hedge cover to cut the wind down. I plumbed the depth and it was around 5ft, so with a size 12 hook and a good piece of sweetcorn on the hook.
Well, I missed about three takes using the corn, the float was about 1ft away from the lilies, there was a lot of drift left to right. With another cast in on the same spot I managed to catch this little nipper.
I tried a few different spots with the waggler and corn, using the groundbait fairly often with the odd piece of corn in there, but not overfeeding, yet nothing was taking. The sun was starting to drop behind the hills and the temperature had dropped from a decent 23C down to about 16C, so with a monster carp, for me it was a monster, it was time to head home for some well earned dinner and maybe a small beer!
DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting TackledUp.co.uk so I can continue to provide you with free content!
