2012 23 August 9th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

I thought that as the weather was looking good today I would take advantage and have the afternoon off work to go and land some of the NF carp.

I left work at 12, arrived home about an hour later, packed the car and set off for the fishery. There were a few cars in the car park when I arrived so I pretty confident my favourite carping peg would be free.

I quickly loaded up the trolley before heading out to the top of the lake. Sure enough the peg was empty. Lady luck was on my side today.

I set up both rods exactly the same except for the boille flavour and size. On the left rod it was 10mm monster crab and on the right it was 15mm pineapple frenzy. At 15.00 on the dot I made my first casts.

On my last carping session I had to wait nearly three hours for my first bite, today it was only half that as at 16:30 the crab rod’s buzzer went off and I was into my first fish, a tench of around a pound.

Twenty minutes later, same rod, same result. These tench seem to really love crab. If the carp don’t come out to play I felt sure the tench would keep coming. I was wrong as it turned out.

That was it for the early action. I had to wait an hour before the buzzer went off again. Yet again it was the crab rod, only this time it was one of the lakes barbel that had taken it. Thirty minutes later another one took it. Three hours in, four fish, two tench and two barbel not a bad start.

I had to wait an hour and fifteen minutes for the next take. Yet again it was on the crab rod. It wasn’t a carp but another barbel, they do fight like carp though! Just after I put it back the other rod went off and I was into something a little better. A few minutes later it was on the bank, 2.5lb common carp. Mission accomplished.  

Time was beginning to run out. I had to ensure that by the time I had packed up and returned to the car the light would still be good enough for me to see the padlock. To this end I set myself a time of 20:00 to finish fishing.

I was beginning to think about packing up when the pineapple frenzy rod’s buzzer sounded and I was into my biggest fish of the day, a 4lb carp. It was dead on 20:00 when I returned it to the water.

I loaded up the trolley and headed back to the car. There were still another one or two anglers present when I left.

In conclusion, monster crab will catch anything that swims but pineapple will catch the larger ones. So in a way my plan worked a treat!