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Getting started in Carp Fishing |
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My father was a computer engineer in the early days and I remember a time based in Frankfurt Germany where he caught a massive eel and said we were going to eat it for dinner. I was sick just with the thought of it. He introduced fishing to me. But thinking back I can only really remember my grandfather giving me the most enthusiasm to fish. That was on the south coast of England around Limington & Southampton Sea and docks. We would go beach fishing for cod or sole and sometimes me and my brother David would sit on the pier catching crabs with bait and line. since then I was always hanging round a river or stream I lived in Yateley and later moved closer to Reading and the opportuinty to fish was everywhere.
After tidller bashing we eventutally discovered the ultimate quarry. The first step was to visit our local takleshop and get what we needed to start fishing UK rivers and lakes. Tim and I and our parents visited a few shops. After entering the shop we asked this question “We want to fish for Carp” and the shop keeper said. “How much do you have to spend” that really depends on our parents. The shop keeper armed us with four Diawa Powermesh 2.25lb rods and Diawa Bite n Run baitrunner reels. We had the first Fox Micron alarms and the original 1st edition Fox Easydome which I have to this very day and trust me it looks that old too, but it still works and I never changed what works!
The English carp scene is very complex. With so many variables available to the angler it was a little tricky to come to terms with and very expensive too. Both Tim and I were now professionals, well we had the gear to be, but we lacked the knowledge and experience to do what we wanted and that was to catch as many carp as possible. We tried fishing very tough waters in Yateley like Swan Valley and South Lake. The venues cost £12-£24 a night and for countless times we fished and blanked. Confidence was at an all time low. We were constantly switching and changing baits with the news of big carp being caught on this boilie or that one. We never stayed with one for more than a couple of sessions before we changed to another taste. Pay ticket waters were killing us big time. We just could not get into the carp. Sometimes it felt we were fishing a space of 30m2 there was so many anglers on the water.
My first carp came from a small pond/lake called Dougies in Wokingham. I caught it fishing a float about 3ft deep with luncheon meat on the hook. Later on we found a paid water in Wokingham but this was cheap at £7 for two rods a day. It was full of carp with a rumour of a big one swimming the depths. In fact we joked there was more carp than water and we named the place Strawberries because originally the lake was irrigation for the strawberry farm until someone put abundance of little carp in there. It was mainly home to the old folk match anglers who had regular competitions and a handful of youngster and the old pro would come by. It was our heaven for many years. I first fished this water with boilies and caught two or three carp in a day. Not satisfied with this result and watching the match anglers catch 100lb a day. I followed their techniques and the next session I fished hair rigged corn and a feeder full of crushed hemp mix and corn. But instead of fishing like a match angler would, I used my powermesh rods and bait runners with my fox alarms on my pod. The only change was the small low diameter hook links and feeder the rest was 15lb mainline and the normal heavy duty gear. The result was amazing. From 9am to just before dark I landed 18 carp all around 7lbs with the largest at 9.1'2lb. It seemed impossible to get both rods in the water at the same time and on many occasions I had runs on both rods at the same time. Many of the carp anglers around me wanted to know how I caught so many and when I showed them they were reluctant to swap boilies for corn. So they would sit behind there motionless buzzers while I landed carp after carp. |
"One of the 18 carp caught in a single day fishing corn & crushed hemp on the Strawberry Lake."
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I’m the kind of angler that always is looking for that edge and from a colleague at work he showed me another tactic that also became devastating on this water. Surface fishing dog biscuits was another incredible way to catch multiples carp on a day fishing only water. He also taught me how to catch carp on the pole, but the fine line and tricky float set ups kept getting me tangled up. On carp waters all I could manage was two carp of 10lb and a bucket full of silver fish. Not concentrating and fiddling with the sections of the pole I had caught a roach in the margin and a few seconds later when I turned back to the water I had a monster pike laying still by the waters edge. We estimated at around 20lb and as soon as I put pressure to land it, it kicked into life and was impossible to land even with size eight elastic. Every time it came close it would swim hard away and the elastic would stretch. I had no control at all. Eventually the line snapped and I put the pole down and swapped it for a float rod but with a wire trace set up with strong mainline and two treble hooks. My colleague provided the white fish bait and from then to the end of the day I landed four pike between 9-13lb unfortunately the monster lake record was never seen again by my eyes and my pole fishing day was over.
To surface fish dog biscuits you must prepare your bait right before use. Buy a packet of dog biscuits from the supermarket or pet shop. My favourite was chum mixers. Put 1/2 kilo into a food bag and add 1/3 water tie a not and then place the bag in the freezer. The next day take the frozen bag out of the freezer and leave it to defrost naturally in the sun. Once the bag had defrosted and all the water was absorbed into the dog biscuits they were ready to be fished with. All you need is a surface controller float about 1m of hook link and your hook tired at the end. I liked to fish a size 6 wide gap. As the water was absorbed into the biscuit it was now soft and rubbery. It still floated and yet was easy to put the hook inside the biscuit by turning it slowly and carefully. I preferred to use a bubble float which you filled with water to get the right weight for the cast. The cast was about 10-15m in front of me this was enough. I would then scatter around 10-20 normal biscuits as feed. I kept the defrosted ones only for hook baits. The beauty of surface fishing is you can see your presentation. When the carp heard the freebies splashing in the fish would rise and take them instantly. Clever as the carp were they would take the freebies and sometimes leave the one that was only slightly lower in the water with the weight which had the hook inside. But not all the carp knew that and I would be in action nearly all day with the most productive time being when light was fading. Now we didn’t need to be at the water all day and would only fish the late afternoons and evenings.
In one friendly competition my mate Tim and I would catch around 35 carp in a single session using this tactic. On another day Tim discovered an even better way. Accidentally we forgot the defrosted bait and made a new discovery. Instead of a biscuit he used a cork ball hair rigged close up and he caught 24 carp. Now the other anglers on the lake were following our steps but with not the care and attention of us. They left their rods unattended and one day the swan took their bait. The poor swan had line tangled around him and a rescue mission was on for its life. From that day onwards Surface fishing was banned on that water. This was a shame for the serious anglers like Tim and me who were always watching and paid attention to our fishing as it was our life and not just a game for the day. After that day we decided to go back to the more serious carp waters, but it was an uphill struggle to catch the bigger wiser carp. We fished mainly in Berkshire where we both lived and caught one or two from here and there. My secret edges were fishing soft pellets on the hair with a pellet mix method feeder which I scolded the pellets to make them sticky and breakdown quickly. I managed my first linear carp of 19lb on a private lake near Reading and a new personal record. But my mate was lazy and annoyed with my result he wouldn’t get out of his tent to take the picture and instead lent out for the shot. |
 "19lb Linear Carp caught on pellet" |
Then a local estate lake was found in the Yateley area which was small, quiet with little pressure and we both decided to put an effort into catching the carp from this water. I read an article about making your own boilies and my first homemade boilie that proved successful was a liver mix. I called them Leigh’s Liver Lovely's and they did the job. My new PB was 24lb caught from the estate lake. But the results were slow with many days with no fish at all. So with the past knowledge of the corn method I pre baited 10kg of corn, luncheon meat and a kilo of liver boilies three times a week. The corn was bought from Asda in the frozen section 3.5kg cost around £2.50 then and I pre baited the margins and a Lilly patch with the corn and the liver boilies. I fished two rods one with two pieces of corn on a hair rig and the other with a liver boilie. Both methods were effective but the corn always produced more fish. I think this was down to the carp preferring to eat little baits with more confidence especially after a bucket fall had been in the area for a couple of days. When the carp swam over the area and saw just two pieces resting on the bed they must of thought they’ve we safe left over’s and eat confidently. Where as the 18mm liver boilies were a little more suspicious and I could only get a bite in the fading light. I managed in a few weeks to catch most of the larger carp except the big one which was 29lb. Most fish were between 19-24lb but the big one was only caught at the bottom of the lake and each session I fished that area I caught nothing and got bitten from all the gnats in the late evening. So the top end is where I stayed. |
 " 23lb Common Carp caught on corn & hemp feeder style on my Lilly pre-baited spot the estate lake was also a day fishing only water" |
 "My new PB caught on Leigh’s liver lovelies at 24lb 10oz, another Estate Lake carp in pristine condition I was just packing up when my rod burst into life" |
At my family house ran at the bottom of the garden the River Loddon. In my early days Tim and a few other friends would finish work on lovely summer evenings and we would fish for roach, gudeon and whatever would take a ledger rigged maggots. Crazy fishing with simple float fished rods no more than 6ft we would have scores of 16 vs 11 catching gudgeon, roach, bleak and perch, it was childish but so fun. We were happy with any fish in those days. |
 "Even the Bream were in on the action but more rarer than the other species" |
 "Monster river roach caught on the boilies again Timbo was too lazy to get out of his bivvi for my picture" |
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A Christmas day Chubb who immediately went for the snags, luckily I got it out and it made a special day even more special. This good sized fish was also caught on a boilie rig carp set up. The water temperature was close to freezing yet the flow was strong so we never had ice on the water. |
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There was an article in the local paper that Barbel was in this river and the new record for the Loddon was 10.5lb. This gave us the idea that we would turn our efforts into fishing for them instead of the hard Carp pay waters will seldom had results on.
I pre baited the river with Leigh Liver lovelies boilies but only a kilo or two as making bait was hard work and the rows with my mother were terrible, mainly due to the smell and mess I would make in her kitchen. The rest of the pre bait mix was good old faithful frozen corn and any kind or hard meat with luncheon being my favourite. I obeyed the close season rules and pre baited every week with all kinds of foods anything that was left over from the dinner table would be used to feed the river fish. On the first day of the new fishing season June 16th I booked time off work and setup on the river fishing carp style but for barbel. At around 3pm my alarm screamed and line ripped from my reel. There was a mighty splash on the other side of the river and to my surprise the fish was not a Barbel. I caught my first ever river carp and it was awesome. It was a magnificent brown in colour and weighed 15lb. I screamed and shouted until my mum heard me then with the help of Phil her companion we took this picture. |
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My first river carp caught on the River Loddon weighed 15lb. Just a point my hair turned grey at 19 and through the years I tried many different hair dyes to hide my embarrassment especially with the girls which I wasn’t really successful with until my late 20’s.
I phoned Tim to tell him and he couldn’t believe it. This was now our new carp water and for many months and years we were catching pure English river carp and barbel on the same carp techniques on the hard pay waters. |
 "A better sized river Loddon carp of 24lb" |
When we wanted to fish, I pre baited for the first three days of the week, nothing Thursday and fished either Friday night or preferable Saturday all day till Sunday morning pack up. Nothing really happened during the day except the first result. My thought of the pre bait schedule was that all the fish in the river system would swim to this area regularly to feed and come back time and time again, when the bait would dry up they would still come back to find the odd bait here and there. Then we would fish but only with single boilies no feed at all. My tactic had now changed from fishing corn to boilies mainly because of the smaller nuisance fish and having confidence the bait would remain in tact until the carp or barbel arrived for the take which was late night or early hours of the morning. We were well prepared with bivvi and cold weather fishing gear to keep us there all through the night comfortably. If I got hungry I would just walk up the garden to my parent’s house to eat and on some occasions abandoned fishing all together due to torrential rain and a heavy thunder storms leaving my friends to battle out the bad weather alone. I would return in the morning and little results would of come from nights like that, except lose of sleep and the common cold. |
 "9lb slim muscle powered torpedo Barbel caught on Leigh’s Liver Lovelies" |
Barbel love to eat boilies and it didn’t really matter so much as to which brand or flavour they just had them. I started catching them on Liver boilies but later stopped making bait and used ready mades. I realized also that Barbel love sweet flavours to. My friend Paul Smith caught the largest one on the river at an estimate of 13lb on Esterberry boilie and Tim and I had probably had around 25 of them on many different taste that ranged from savoury to sweet mostly, but they did prefer only bottom baits, only the carp would take the pop-ups. |
 "Just over 10lb and starting to get chubby Barbel" |
The river Barbel or Carp were not rig shy at all and as long as the rig was strong for the fight pretty much most worked. My favourite at that time was the Snakeskin combi-links, hooks were barbed size 4, bolt rig lead setup of 2-3oz and mainline of between 12-15lb on bait runners reels and 2.25lb test curve carp rods. The river was only 6-8 metres wide and the middle part was the most productive, on other occasions we caught carp in the far side margins and under over hanging trees. But getting you bait back on this spot in complete darkness and with all the river foliage was tricky and the middle was a simple under hand chuck of 3-4 metres and in perfect presentation and away from the snags. |
 "A good sized barbel of over 11lb it seemed the smaller fish between 7lb – 9lb were harder fighters. These ones had too much fat compared to the slim torpedo muscle fish" |
The Barbel is a true bottom feeder and would only eat if the plate was clean of weed or debris. The Barbel fight was unbelievable even with the heavy gear we used it was not easy to land them. As soon as they felt the hook they would bolt at high speed ripping as much line as they could until you got out of your bivvi to stop them. The rod bent over like it was going to snap and the drag on the reel made as much noise as if you were playing a salt water Marlin it was tough and hard on your arms. But they seldom searched for snags and just were reluctant to break the waters surface. An experience I will never forget. They mostly were caught at night so we set up the fox easy dome at the river edge and after a three day pre baiting session and two days of no bait and no fishing we would be ready to fish for one night. They seemed to only want to eat the bait off the gravel bars, just like the carp did, unless you used a popup for the carp in the margins. As soon as the carp felt tension or the hook they would immediately break the surface water with a splash and then the fight was pretty much the same. Only when we caught the second species of carp did we realise we had no idea what we had until it was close to netting. The river was deep around nine feet so playing hard fighting fish in the margins was a rush and a surprise each time for us. It seemed we had a double opportunity of a good fish from these gravel spots and only knew what was on the end in the last few minutes of the immense fight. Both species fought hard to the end. From a one or two week baiting campaign with no fishing we had a mixed bag of fish. That ranged from Barbel to Tench, Bream, Chub to big Roach and our favourite quarry Carp that mostly came from gravel patch that we found running in the middle of the river just from the bend. Before the night came we would fish float set ups in the stills of the river around tree and reed beds. Here we caught other species like Perch, Dace and Bleak or our old favourite competition way with ledgering maggot and casting to the other bank as soon as the lead hit the water at the bait settled on the bottom the rod tip would twitch and we would be reeling back monster roach or gudeon on size 14 hooks and pear bombs. The river entertained us all the time, we could be totally alone with no other anglers around, piece and quiet in the heart of the British countryside is what it felt though really we were only 3 or 4 miles away from Reading centre and the hustle and bustle of city life. We could make as much noise as we wanted and no one would complain. On many occasions we would go out into town for a drinking session and on our return have all the bivvi and rods set up for the small cast and fish till morning. All our gear was protected in my private garden of my residential home. The River was all ours and we loved it. |
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My largest British carp is a river Mirror or Leather some might say it weighed just over of 26lb and was a magnificent brown leathery colour. I had a busy sales executive position with a network company back then and my free time was getting shorter as the years moved on. Juggling personal time with girlfriends who hated the idea of fishing and preferred the club and bars scene to fitting in my relaxing passion of fishing there became little time in my schedule to make bait anymore I had to find a new solution and that was switching to shelf life ready made baits, on a few occasions we tried the frozen baits too but the results didn’t justify the price and most often we forgot to get the bait out of our tackle bags and found it mouldy rotten the next time we fished. The Shelf life baits were cheap, simple and very effective and that’s all that was needed. Which ever brand had the best deal in the many tackle shops we visited in our area got out business. Mostly we bought in bulk of 5kg sack. We always added this to the pre bait mix of corn, hemp, pellets and meat. That was enough to keep the carp & barbel and other species in a 30m stretch of the River Loddon in Arborfield, Berkshire. |
 "What magnificent colours came from a dirty coloured river" |
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These fish had never known pressure and were all virgins to boilies and hair rigged setups. The news of our results travelled fast and on many occasions we came to the rivers edge to our disappointment see other anglers fishing into our spot from the opposite bank. But they never knew what we did and when asked they could only manage a 4lb Barbel during the day and never fished the nights let alone used boilie hook baits. They were typical match style anglers fishing line of 6lb and small hook baits like paste, worms or bread.
Later in the years of fishing the river we came across another beautiful species of river carp, it seemed the carp were travelling down and upstream to get onto the heavy baited home stretch. This carp were the most beautiful common I have ever seen to this day. Silver in colour they acted totally different to the mirrors behaviour when caught. They had the exact same fight as the barbel and we only knew what it was in the last seconds of the fight. |
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Silver commons fighting as hard as the barbel and acting the same on the fight we never knew what we had and constantly made the mistake of naming the fish on the fight and then getting a pleasant surprise or not. |
 "A Silver sparkle in the deep water and it’s a carp. Breathe taking joy of pure English" |
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From then onwards we rarely went to the expensive paid waters. Sometimes we would go but the disappointment of all the hard effort and no results was unbearable instead we were happy to fish Strawberries and the River Loddon both local to home and where our confidence was strong and we could guarantee a good bend in the rod.
One or two years later I moved to Holland and this was the last time I fished English waters. In Holland I became the European Distributor for Ocean Fresh and set up a company called Karperbaits. Now I had abundance of boilies and due to high work pressure and the family life I could only managed a day/night here and there. On these occasions I mostly fished singles or pva bags instantly with this new high valued food source bait produced the results I always wanted. My confidence in this bait is from self experience and the many anglers I know in Holland & Belgium both mine and there results are staggering on this affordable and versatile bait. The techniques I hard learnt on hard pressured British waters of finding the bars and measuring the depths were finally paying off and within the first year my personal record had gone from 26lb something to a 36lb common on a Dutch water see my article about fishing Loosdrecht Plassen.
Then the next year I had 6 x 30’s and finally my first forty from Belgium weighing 46lb and a month later I was in to another forty from the legendary Lac du der, articles Land of Ghow and Chantequoi Du Der. So my UK fishing is not as successful as it is in Europe some might say. But that doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve caught British species of fish people can dream about catching everyday! |
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This extremely rare golden Brown Trout caught from my back yard on a cooked prawn at the time we were fishing for Perch with an old girlfriends son Sammy.
I lived a good life in Holland for 5 years and now I’m off to another new country to expand on my fishing and life experiences, but just a few weeks ago I returned to England to say goodbye once more to my friends and family. |
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