The problem with fishing for canal carp in these neck of the woods is locating the fish in miles and miles of water. It can be such a time consuming exercise and not for the feint hearted. Spending so much time on the canal towpaths during my double figure Zander quest however eventually in the odd one or two areas, carp were spotted.
In one of those areas there was a few carp grouped together tucked well away from sight underneath an overhanging bush. They only revealed themselves seconds at a time before heading back under the water never to be seen again, well not for the next hour anyway.
One was >20lb or so but they never ventured out away from the cover so I actually lost two carp to hook pulls because once hooked within a split second they would swim in to the tangle of branches.
The cover was hacked back sadly so those carp are elsewhere now, but more recently having eventually catching a small one (7lb 6oz as pictured) on another stretch a good while ago, fishing for bream using bread I hooked in to a surprise carp that did me over good and proper.
Fishing light I could literally do nothing about it and after a proper battle the small hook pulled and the carp was gone.
Even with the sun blaring down they don't often show themselves it is almost always a surprise sighting.
Anyway I've tried a few times now without success, without another bite and to be honest I'd largely forgotten about them until a message came through whilst bashing the CAD machine.
There are Zander here as well though and bream and hybrids so to try and cover all bases I'd have my usual overdepth deadbait rod with a 'pimped' up roach, and then have a float rod with bread that I could adapt to fish off the top.
Headed in to dusk and beyond I'd change the tip for a bright green chemical light and fish tight to the reeds where I and others have seen the carp reside.
They don't appear to be big carp, but any carp would be a nice change from the slimy landing net tainting bream that also share these turbid waters. So to 'CARP CORNER' forthwith better get fishing.
Before I got to the set of reeds where they usually hand out I noticed the spindly reeds moving quite a bit, not just in one area either, in a few areas.
Yup, carp, at least 3 that I could see. One looked a good double. A few bits of bread thrown their way, and yes before you ask they obviously ignored it. I also cast out a float with some slow sinking flake bu they ignored that too.
After a boat went through they disappeared so I decided to unsticks and move up to 'carp corner' to settle down for the session.
The Zander rod went out and before I would fish the reeds in to dark I decided to fish in the middle of the track for anything that would like a large piece of flake on a size 10 hook tied to 10lb line. It didn't take long to get a bite either in-fact I was getting plenty of bites but I was missing them. 🤔
The first fish was a foul hooked eel that could have well have been the culprit for the missed bites. Soon after a few small bream and I bet if I fished maggots rather than crudely how I was fishing I'd have banked some more fish.
I've never been here when there was so much fish activity, bream rolling, predators chasing bait fish and almost by my feet some huge boils on the surface. It only increased towards dusk and yet nothing big wanted what I was offering on the hook.
After missing a run on the Zander rod which was most likely a small schoolie that picked up the bait and dropped it, so I decided to fish tight to the reeds with some bread mash as feed and a large piece on the hook.
Oddly the activity all of a sudden seemed to stop and I did contemplate packing up and going home but then to my left a huge surface disturbance I lifted out the float and dropped the bread down where it happened and what I didn't expect that within a couple of seconds the float buried and I had hooked in to a fish.
The first bend of the rod whatever was on the end went on a mad run with the centrepin ratchet audibly struggling, with me trying to calm the chaos. The problem was I was fishing at the start of the reeds so the fished managed to literally swim right in to the thick of it.
And yeap, you guessed its efforts to get to safety sadly the hooked pulled and the fish was gone. It could well have been foul hooked, I'd never know because I never got to see the carp. Damnnn It !!!! I might need to change tactics because I've been done twice over twice here now. 3rd time lucky ?
Nightmare!
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