The Carp Fishing Social Network

Lord only knows when the first capture of 2010 will appear in this catch report. As I write all the local stillwaters have lids on them and the rivers are running like the Zambezi. Must be down to the Global Warming

I have some plans pencilled in for the year but carp may not feature until we hit spring.

My focus up to March will be on Pike and Perch, I'm still in pursuit of my first pike in excess of 20lb and looking to improve my current pb perch of 2lb 4oz hopefully breaking the 3lb barrier.

Some time in March and April I'll be getting the carp rods out at Archer while we take care of the maintenance and improvement of the lake with the scheduled work parties. We've done most of the major work on the lake already so mostly its just topping up swims with woodchip, pruning and planting and repainting the woodwork. We'll also be putting another ton of Siltex into the lake in March as part of the ongoing improvement programme and hopefully getting a permanent roof over the social area.

I'll hopefully get to see how some of the stockies are coming along and if I'm very lucky indeed I'll get to find out how much a particular common weighs. Its a recognizeable fish that I had a few years ago at 17lb but I saw it close up last April and it's a lot bigger now.



Around May time I'll be turning my attention to some unfinished business from last year. I'm looking to catch carp using traditional cane gear from a couple of history waters at least. Mapperley Reservoir is one of them and even though the guys using boilies and modern tactics call it "Heartbreak Lake" I feel confident of getting a result having learned a bit about their movements last summer.


I hope to get the chance to fish Redmire with my MKIVs at some stage this year

I'll no doubt have a few short sessions on a lovely little pool I have a ticket for where I use a MKIV with either a Mitchell or a centrepin. Most of the carp are very old and I never weigh a thing.

Depending on whether I get certain tickets this year and other opportunities that may arise I expect to be doing a bit of social fishing throughout the year and hopefully meeting up with a couple of lads from on here

Now, lets get rid of this bloody ice

Good luck in all your challenges mate

Good luck yo a fella. Hoping to tag along with you on at leat one expedition and I'll see what I can do on what we spoke about.

Tight lines for 2010 buddy.......

good luck pal

All sounds very exciting mate, makes my mouth water,

All the best for 2010

Great photo Good luck for 2010

Drove out today mainly to check on some stretches of the Witham with the intention of targeting pike with my mate Rick either tomorrow or Tuesday. All the stillwaters around here have had lids on em for weeks now and a walk around a local water revealed just the very beginnings of the ice thawing. The Witham looked more like the Zambezi and from what I know of the river anything more than a "steadily flowing" status means there's not a cat in hells chance of any pike.

Having written off the river I took a drive out to Archer more for the sake of just having a walk around than anything else but got a marvellous surprise finding a 40 yard swathe of wobbly water running out from one of the swims. On the phone to Rick and now Tuesday will see us chucking some smelly deadbaits out in front of us hopeful of catching something more than a cold.

Come on you snappers!!!!!

Vini , Vidi , Blanki

Well, first day out in 2010 and I've notched up my first blank.

To be fair with lots of ice still on the lake and a freezing fog surrounding us for most of the day our confidence was pretty low to say the least. Our attitude is always that it's called "fishing" not catching though so we enjoyed getting out on the bank and downing a few brews between us. Ricks just got a new fast boil gas stove and kettle affair which needed testing out and sure enough it was super quick in providing us with hot water even though the temperatures were only just above zero.

I had two rods out with a big bait V small bait plan but I think the trout I used may have been rather over optimistic in size considering the extremely low water temperature



A lot more of the lake was clear of ice though so I'm planning another day session on Thursday.

Well done for getting out there mate. Nice UpsideDown Trout you caught there, could enter for Fish Of The Month!!!

At least your getting out there mate.

Try this on thursday, no popup baits,the water temp is still very cold, them big ole girls will be well hard on the bottom and when they do feed they will be looking for an easy meal and that usualy means staying on the bottom looking for something easy.Bang em out full distance,twitch em back 3-4 feet every half hour. This does two things,it covers a bit of water and temps a fish to strike that is not really interested.

Top angling mate.Wish i was going too!

2010 has started

I had one rod fished on the bottom Carl, moved about throughout the day, as was the other rod with a popped up roach. Fished the deep end of the lake off the dam wall.

Unfortunately the action was very,very slow on deadbaits. When I joined Mark about 8.30am he'd had one jack to dead roach, by the end of the day the total between us was 8 pike (all small, up to about 9lb) with 6 of them falling to livelies.

We shared the live rod , alternating takes, and Mark had a right result taking a new pb perch of 2lb 15oz. I love big perch

Here's my first fish of 2010

Get in!!! Well done mate!!