2014 17 July 6th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge, Kent

July rolls in and it's another chance for me to fish the club's excellent Nursery Fields fishery.

I arrived at the fishery at around 7:30 to find the car park surprisingly empty. The reason for this was that there was a junior match scheduled for that day and also there was torrential rain pouring on my head! The good news was that they were only going to use the pegs on the near side of the lake so I really wasn't affected at all as I always go down the back stretch.

I selected a swim with some lily pads which I could fish a waggler to and some lily pads on the far bank which I could fish the ledger set up to.

Today I was going to use small strawberry boillies in a PVA bag with a larger one on a size 14 hook to 6 lb main line. The waggler set up would be my standard 5 lb main line to a size 16 hook.

I made my first casts at 7:30 and then settled down for the day's action to begin. On the waggler I started on corn. The first hour resulted in two bream and the obligatory small roach. The strawberry boillies were also proving popular as I also bagged a nice common carp.

For the second hour I switched waggler hook bait to small hookable halibut pellets. I was rewarded with 2 more small roach.

Today I decided that I would concentrate on using nothing but hookable pellets, the small variety already mentioned and the larger ones which I cut down so that I effectively had three sizes to use.

The action certainly was not fast and furious and as the day wore on, the time was now 14:45, I began to doubt my tactics. I was feeding 3 or 4 pellets every cast along with a ball of ground bait every hour. The result was a disappointing 2 roach.

I did manage to get another common carp on the feeder. It was a good one weighing in at 7 lb 2 oz.

The next 90 minutes was much the same, 1 small roach on the pellets and a mirror carp on the feeder. The carp came in at 7 lb exactly.

In the last hour or so the pellets started working on another species other than roach as I caught three barbel!

The final fish of the day was a tench with a liking for strawberries.

2014 16 June 29th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge, Kent

Today was going to be my first afternoon/evening carping session at the club's mixed fishing venue at Nursery Fields in Edenbridge.

The weather was overcast and not all that warm for the time of year as I made the drive to Edenbridge at around 3 pm.

When I arrived at the car park there wasn't that many cars present, maybe 3 or 4 certainly no more than that. I therefore, felt pretty confident that my choice of swim for today at the top of the lake would be free.

I was proved right in my assumption when I arrived at the top of the lake to find only one other angler there. He wasn't in my swim of choice however.

Today was going to be a two rod attack, one either side of the swim. The first rod would have strawberry 15 mm boillies and the second the same size tutti fruitti ones. Main line was going to be 6 lb to a size 14 hook on a 5 lb hook length.

This is the view down the lake:

I was ready to make my first casts at 16:27. I then settled back in my chair under the trees as it had just begun to rain. How long would I have to wait for the action to begin?

The answer was about two hours. The tutti fruitti rod's buzzer went off and I was in, unfortunately not for long as the fish came off! Undeterred I recast and sat back down to resume waiting.

Twenty minutes later the buzzer on the same rod went off and I was in again. This time I did manage to land the fish. It was a carp of 4 lb.

An hour later the strawberry rod's buzzer went off and I was in again. The culprit this time was a slightly better carp of around 5.5 lb. I didn't bother weighing these carp as they were nowhere near my personal best and I didn't want to keep them on the bank too long.

The strawberry rod was again in action 30 minutes later. Unfortunately it was one of the lake's smaller inhabitants, a 3 lb carp. On runs it was two all between the two flavors.

Immediately I recast, the Tutti Fruitti rod's buzzer sounded and I was in again. This one, like the first one was also lost.

I recast and had to wait only 20 minutes before the strawberry rod's buzzer signaled another run. I got this one but again it wasn't a monster. It looked a shade under 4 lb.

The time was now 20.30 and so I began to think about packing up. As I packed away the strawberry rod the other one went off and this time it wasn't a carp but one of the venue's barbel.

So the final score was 5 fish, three on the strawberry rod and two on the tutti fruitti one. Not a bad session however the fish could have been a bit bigger!

2014 15 June 23rd Chittenden, Edenbridge

Today was going to be my first outing of the new season to the club's premier carp water at Chittenden.

This lake does get busy so I set the alarm for 5 am to ensure I was loaded up and on the road by 5:45.

I arrived at the fishery about 6:15 to find one other car in the car park. Not too bad I thought especially as I could see where he was. I loaded up the trolley and made my way down the lake to the swims at the very end.

Two pronged attack again today, a waggler just in front of the reeds and a feeder line about a third of the way across. The boillie flavored bait today was halibut frenzy. The bait for the waggler set up was corn and meat.

I was ready to make my first casts at 7:20. On the waggler I started with corn and was into the action straight away. Six fish in the first hour, five bream and a solitary roach. Here's one of them:

The next hour was slower than the first only yielding a couple of bream to the single piece of corn.

The real action started in the third hour, as well as five bream I landed my first carp of the day. It was a nice mirror coming in at 5 lb 14 oz. However this is one of the bream and the aforementioned carp:

Another 60 minutes of fishing brought another 6 bream. The bream total for the day was mounting.

Going into the lunch break the swim slowed again, Only two more bream making the virtual net.

Sometime between 12:30 and 15:00 I made the switch to meat. Before switching the corn attracted two roach. The rest was made up of 6 bream and a carp of 3 lb 13 oz which was definitely caught on meat.

By four o'clock the virtual net had swelled to include 2 more carp and a three more bream. Also for the first time of the day the buzzer went off and I landed a carp of 2 lb 12 oz on the halibut boillie. I don't think they like halibut all that much. I will have to try something different for my next visit.

A quality bream:

When I finally packed up at 17:25 I'd added three more bream and another carp to the day's total which had now reached a respectable 40 fish. The final carp weighed 8 lb 8oz, my biggest of the day.

On the waggler set up I was using 5 lb mainline with a size 16 hook with a 3.8 lb hook length. I did lose quite a few carp today so on my next visit I will beef up the strength of my tackle a shade.