No Blank Holiday

It was finally here, the bank holiday weekend I’ve been waiting months for. The Bushnell Carp Diaries were coming back to Willow Park Fishery for another video blog after the success of the first one and the only challenge for me was putting us all in an area that would produce the goods again – no pressure then!

I finished work on Friday at 3pm and after a coffee in the on-site Café I made my way down to the Big Lake. We had planned to fish an area called Bungalows for this session, but as we all know with these fish, it doesn't matter how many times you walk a lake or follow catch reports they will be where they want to be. A phone call to the guys and they were stuck on the M25 in traffic, so I thought it rude not to try some stalking before they arrived.

An hour must have passed and I was sat on my unhooking mat watching the world go by, slowly one rod started to click. Trying to contain my excitement I picked it up and lifted into a fish. 10 seconds into the fight I caught the other line, or at least I thought I had. It soon went slack again, so I carried on playing the feisty common I was attached to. I’d dismissed the second rod too quickly as the line went tight again, followed by a slow clicking of the clutch. With a few choice words I placed the first rod between my legs and tighten the clutch on the second rod only for it to set off to open water! Panic set in and it wasn’t long before I was swapping rods to keep control of both fish. It took all my nerve, but both fish were in the landing net. Even better a phone call to the Bushnell’s and they were in the car park.

The guys arrived at the swim some two minutes later and a quick peak in the net, it’s a couple of stunning commons that went 19lbs and 20lb 4oz. A few quick pictures and it was time to finally pick the swims before cooking the chilli I’ve got us all from the on-sight café. Jnr’s picked the left hand side of peg 7 and is fishing the far margin plus a little open water spot in the entrance to the bay. Snr is in the right hand side of peg 7, but fishing open water with me opting for peg 8. Peg 8 is more of a distance peg with access to the middle of the lake. It didn’t take long to find the base of a drop off and gravel patch at just over 10 wraps, while the second rod was a soft silt area at 18 wraps. The bivvy went up and beers were opened, but it was already 9pm and we’d not eaten.

The first evening turned out to be a quiet one and going into night we were still waiting on a fish. It didn’t take much longer and by 11pm I landed my first one, with another at 1:30am. After that it went a little crazy and by 9:30am Saturday morning I’d had 6 fish. This was backed up in the daytime with a further 2 more, and around 8am Ken (Mr Dispersion Pop Ups) and Keith a couple of very good friends had joined us for the night. The Bushnell Carp Diaries have been in on the action and are on 4 fish between them, so at this rate its not going to be long before we better the last blog, and that was a cracker.

Anyway, Saturday was full of laughs and conversations about bait; rigs and how many wraps people were at (or not). Not many fish were coming out with it being so hot, so I took the chance to take James Jnr for a little stalking. We tried the bay to our left with no luck, so it was down to the small lake on the complex. The small lake is always good for a few fish when your after a bend in the rod. A quick coffee and chat in the café and time to introduce Jnr to some old school fishing techniques. One rod was free-lining a cube of luncheon meat held in place by a small twig. Jnr really wasn’t sure about this, but I assured him it would be an explosive take when it happened. The other rod was free-line bread paste with both placed in the margin at the time most anglers were leaving. It’s a great tip on commercials, as the fish know anglers throw bait in as they leave.

Well, the bread paste rod ripped off and we only just got it in the net before the luncheon meat rod exploded into life too. 10 minutes of big smiles and bent rods made the walk down so worth it. It was now time to head back to the big lake and get the rods out, as I needed to sort food again. This time Sarah at Willow Park Fishery had sorted us a curry for the night.

With not much sleep from Friday night and a belly full we all agreed an early night was needed. The plan was if someone had a fish we’d stay up, chat a little and put the kettle on. Yet again in the early hours the lake produced two more fish for me, taking my tally to 10 carp, but I’d only managed one 20lb fish. I felt unlucky even though some of the fish I’d had were stunning, but I know Willow has a good head of 20lb fish. I needed to up my game and trickle a little more bait in and see if we could snare another 20 or two.

My tactics this session were two small supple hinge rigs on a Dispersion Fluro White pop up. I was using the New Mad Baits Pandemic with a scattering of Wicked Whites, and so far, with 10 fish, I’m pretty impressed.

Ken and Keith left us around lunch time with Ken banking two and Keith banking six. We even had a triple take during the day, what a picture that made. The day was quiet again so with rods in hand Jnr and myself headed down to the small lake again to get a bend in the rod. For an 11 year old I’ve not met anyone more passionate as James Jnr, we managed four more fish for his tally along with another big smile. It was soon time to head back up to the big lake in search of those 20lb fish, and going into the last night the scores on the board were Bushnell Carp Diaries father and son 9 from the Big lake, 7 from the small, and I’d equaled my personal best of 10 and would have been happy with that, but…

I was in such a deep sleep when my rod screamed off at 12:30am, but if that wasn’t enough by 3:30am I’d banked a further five carp, with four being 20lb plus. It was crazy and I was dead on my feet, but smiling. By this time I had no rods in the water, the kettle was on and I was watching James Jnr photograph a mint 18lb 8oz common for his dad.

The rods never made it back out, but I did catch up on a couple of hours sleep. I’d ended on 17 fish with the Bushnell’s on 13. It was such a great bank holiday weekend, spent with some amazing people who share my passion for fishing.

Shall we say same time next year?

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