I'd spent my last 2 fishing trips carp fishing at Boulthurst Farm, so I thought I was due a session on the float at the Club's Private pond in Holland whisch is in darkest Surrey.
I arrived around 6:3o and went straight to peg 1 in the corner. There is a lily pad bed to the right and another along the margins to the left whcih are good features to fish to. (See photo below).
I fed sweetcorn into both swims and a mixture of groundbait, hemp and maggots into the swim by the lily pads which would be my main line.
I intended to set up 2 rods because these swims tend to mainly produce small (under a pound) carp but occasionaly a larger specimen can be had from the margins in the afternoon.
The first rod I set up was my feeder rod. This had a very basic free-lining set up in that I put a 3 bb shot on the 6lb main line just before the 5lb hook length. This had a size 14 hook.
Whilst I was setting up the second rod I cast the first one into the margins swim using a piece of sweetcorn as bait to see if there were any early morning callers - there wern't!
The second rod had 5lb main line to 4lb hook length and a size 16 hook with 2 bb float. I had plumbed the depth and set it around two feet which was a couple of inches over depth.
First cast and there was a strange sound followed by the float landing just in front of me! Upon inspection I discovered that my rod had broke - brilliant! I hadn't cast with any force as the lily pads are quite close.
Luckily I carry my old 13' match rod with me so I re-setup using that.
I started off using sweetcorn on the hook as I had pre-baited the swim with a fair amount of it.
By 9am I'd had 7 small carp none of them bigger than a pound but fish never the less.
I was loose feeding every cast into swim 1 (normally corn) and into swim 2 (the margins) every fish caught.
By 10:20 I'd added 3 more small carp, 2 goodish roach from swim 1 and this tench from the margins swim which took a fancy to a piece of meat.
I was by now settling into a nice pattern. I was feeding maggots to the lily pads and using corn on the hook. By 11:30 this had accounted for a further 8 small carp, 2 roach and another tench. I was also having a look in the
The next two hours produced 9 carp and yet another solitary tench.
One of the 9 carp was this specimen taken from the margins swim.
By 14:30 I was still catching consistently. I did try bread flake for a while but the very small roach kept picking at it which made bite detection almost impossible.
Despite that I still managed to add 2 more tench and 8 carp to the net.
The margins swim was still proucing the odd good carp. The one below came in at 15:40.
From around 4pm the glare of the sun off the water was getting too much for me so I put the float rod away and put a small amount of weight on my feeder rod and used that instead. The tip being far easier to see than the float.
This method brought me 11 carp, 2 tench and 5 roach.
I was on a roll now, I was alternating between the swims, taking a fish from each until I packed up because to be fair I was getting very tired!
Highlight of the last session was this 9lb common taken from the margins - my best ever carp from this pond. Luckily I managed to get someone to take this picture.
The last session yielded 3 tench and 8 carp making a grand total of 73 fish. A very pleasing day.
