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.