3rd August - Private Pond, Holland, Surrey

The previous Sunday I'd been carping at Bouthurst Farm so I thought today I would revert back to float fishing down at the club's Private Pond in Holland in darkest Surrey.

I arrived around 7am to find 3 cars parked by the entrance. A quick look over the fence confirmed that my favourite swim was free. I unloaded my gear in double quick time and made my way round to peg 1.

The sun hadn't of course yet reached its peak but already I could feel that it was going to be a very hot day.

The plan of attack today centred around flavoured sweetcorn, bread and meat (later on) as hookbait. A few grains of hemp were going to be fed every cast. For groundbait it was the usual mix of brown crumb (90%) and red carp/tench attractor with a few grains of normal swwetcorn. This would be fed into the swim every hour.

In an attempt to feed off the small rudd I would feed quite a few maggots early on. The margins to the left of me were also fed with flavoured sweetcorn every hour and whenever I caught a fish caught from swim 1.

The swim I'd selected was in the corner of the pond, right in front of some lily pads (See photo below). As I had fished the swim before I knew what to expect. Small carp early, then maybe some crucians and a bonus tench or 2 later on.

After an hours fishing I'd had the usual suspects in the virtual net although not in any great numbers. Two hours in and it was time to cast into swim 2 which was to my immediate left. The float disappearred and the rod had a bit of a bend in it which I took to be a nice tench. Instead it was the best roach I'd ever caught weighing in at just over a pound! See below:

More small carp and the occasional crucian were caught from swim 1 but the better fish came from swim 2. Here's an example:

The quality roach kept appearring throughout the day. I reckon I must have had about 6, all around the pound mark. I was well chuffed with them.

I introduced meat as a hookbait in the afternoon and it was responsible for this very nice common carp of around 5 pound.



By close of play I'd had around 70 fish, a good mixture of roach, rudd, tench, crucian, common and mirror carp. Of the 2 swims the most fish came from swim 1 but the better quality came from the margin swim. See below:


I finally packed up around 7pm very pleased with the results of my latest outing.

Until the next time.

July 31st - Boulthust Farm, Nr Limpsfield Surrey

This trip was my first using my newly aquired carp gear.

I have been accumulating the equipment over the previous year. None of it was expensive as I tend to learn how to do something first before I actually spend loads of cash on expensive equipment.

Here's a picture of my set up.

The two rods are about 15 years old, one is 1.75lb test curve and the other a 2.25 lb. The carp in this pond grow to low doubles however 7lb is my best so I thought the rods would be up to it.

The reels are, an Omni RX35M costing around a tenner last year and the other is a Daiwa BR2650 which is about 15 years old!

The rod pod I brought from Trev's Tackle for a tenner. The buzzers were free with the Angling Times.

Going for the simple solution I decided to use ready tyed hooks to nylon with a hair. I opted for a size 14 hook to start with as this was the size I normally use when free-lining at the pond.

Now for the boilies - my first mistake. As I have never used either a boilie or a hair rig I went for the easy option - self drilled. Not a major mistake you might say well in 6mm it was! A trip to the tackle shop and that was sorted - 10mm, the flavour tutti fruitti.

I then came unstuck as I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to use the Korum Quick Stops. After a while of fruitless effort I put pride to one side and approached the only other angler on the pond for help. He showed me that I needed a special needle to do it and as luck would have it I got one free with the 6mm boilies! Anyway I finally got one attached.

Now for the fishing - I threw a few free offerings into both swims and cast out.

15 minutes later the buzzer went off and a nice 2 pounder was in the net. The session was fairly succesful as I managed to bag 5 carp, the biggest was about 4 pound.

Now for my second 'carp' session which technically should be better than the first.

Tight Lines