With a Spring in my Step, Part 2 - By Darren Fellows

Rig choice was simply, a swivel attached to short 4” braided Cortland micron 20lb white hook link, with a nice coil of lead core wire wrapped halfway along to pin it down, to a simply knotless knot and a tiny mini tiger finished off with a 3lb breakaway nylon link from the swivel holding a 3.5oz lead. The main line on both rods were to deplete most of my putty tub, as I put on a nice lump about every 8 inches from swivel to about 6 foot up the main line, so to avoid any line detection or pike bite offs on both rods. I placed both rods with absolute accuracy on two noted feeding spots, carefully dropping the puttied fluorocarbon up and along the shelf out of mischief’s way. Rods set well back, and both lines slacker than a spaniels ears. A quick trickle of mini tigers, crumb and boilie bits no more than a handful across each rod and I was set for the night ahead. Just couldn’t sleep I was buzzing, a single line bite from the pike every so often, made sure of that.
At dawn the left rod steamed off, tip pointing down through the tufts of margin plants towards a very angry carp. I hit it and the fish boiled up on the surface, 10 yards out, lead off and up in the upper layers now. Strangely I knew that I was playing that long chestnut mirror now. But as the battle continued, something was not right; it felt funny and kept fighting on its side on the surface. I tried everything to ping the line off the fins. After a mental battle I netted it, and still it was thrashing in the net, not giving up. I sorted all the unhooking kit, and lifted my prize onto the mat. Pulling back the mesh I checked the perfect mouth for a hook hold, no marks, cuts, scrapes – nothing! Now totally gutted beyond belief, I trace my line down to the swivel and the hook link from the folds of mesh, there firmly hooked in the right pelvic fin was my trusty Ashima hook. Why and how.... god only knows how it ended up there. Never mind, I can’t claim it, but he deserved a photo for Alan’s records.
I slipped him back, totally gutted and dejected. I kept thinking what went wrong, all the priming yesterday morning with bait, the observing, then all the raking and debris removal, the plan had worked perfectly I was so close....but the bloody hook bait ended up in the right pelvic fin instead. Not the result I had hoped for, but another one for the carp fishing mysteries box! Oh well, onward and upward. There was still the odd carp visiting the area over the morning, noticeably less though as it wasn’t as nice weather wise. I sensed a change in wind direction together with a much colder feel to it. I decided to give It another 24 hours watching and waiting, still winding in and walking around several times a day to keep my finger on the pulse.
That evening I put 14mm boilie hook bait on the right hand rod, and lowered it back down, following by a one small handful of boilie bits and mini tigers. The cooler weather had that evening made a few carp show further out into open water, I could feel the area was past its best. See out tonight, then I would go home for 24 hours sort my life out, check the weather forecast and come back to make the most of my time off. I wasn’t as confident as I went to bed that night, really I was hoping for a lone carp to sneak in and have a quick meal, as I knew the bulk of them had moved on. Just as it was starting to get lighter at dawn, a single bleep then another on the boilie rod, now I’m looking at the gently nodding tip line still held in the carbon clip. I carefully picked up the rod and pulled into it, up came the culprit, a rather large bream. I went to unhook it in the edge my hook only just in the bottom lip by about 3mm of flesh. As I did, I noticed how bloody deep it was maybe I should swallow my pride and net it, and weigh it, as it was noticeably bigger than anything I’d caught before. I was glad I did as she was a new personal best of 10lb exactly. The stiffening early morning breeze was certainly cold. Over the next few hours I had a couple of brews and then packed my kit up and headed home.
48 hours later I was back, armed with the knowledge of a new warmer weather front coming in, within the next few days fingers crossed. I set up in a new area on the back of that cold wind – I’d had enough of that already. With new spots found, again with new weed growth of only a few inches I continued with my pop ups rigs. Well later that afternoon I make the most of my time by painstaking myself to roll another 1 egg mix of cork ball pop ups for my future stock, I ‘d caught 2 on them so I was more than happy with the consistency over 12-24 hours in the water, they were perfect.
These next few hours were a labour of love with extra tender loving care. But the end product was now drying out on top of the bivvy out of the walk of any hungry dogs!