A funny looking Carp...

Nearly a year to the day I returned to the carp haven on the Warwickshire Avon, this time of year the Nymphaeaceae are thick and the fish that live amongst the lilies love the security it gives. This area doesn’t see many anglers because apart from 4 gates that need to be negotiated it’s also a decent trek from the car park. I caught a near double figure fish here last year and at the time it was one of the smallest fish out of the group. I caught that fish off the top, so again for this session I brought a floater set-up with bread as bait and I’d also have a sleeper rod out with a big halibut pellet surrounded by free offerings.

It took an age to spot the first carp, two hours in-fact, hmmm this is going to be difficult. It was 10 degrees overnight so maybe that was the issue because as soon as I felt some warmth on my back the fish started moving. There were a couple of smaller carp and a lovely big golden mirror that was gliding in around the swim, fantastic to see, and that’s the one I planned to target.

The lilies didn’t seem as thick as last year, so the suicidal swim was just about fishable. If the fish was hooked though, no time to mess around, it needed to be netted. The free offerings that were drifted down the swim were ignored, they just didn’t seem interested. As I was mulling over the best was to approach the remaining couple of hours my sleeper rod bolted off and I was in to a fish, the way it took off I thought it was a carp, but no, it was a bream, a half decent one too. I’d seen a couple rolling in the swim when I got here so I knew they were there. 6lb 6oz, a nice fish but not what I was after.

The remaining session was frustrating to say the least,the big’un even mouthed the bait before ejecting it. There are other areas of the Avon that I know are also home to carp and as they are also new stretches of water to me I’ll leave this area for another year I think. Hopefully next time they will be back in numbers and I’ll land a giant.