You can imagine how chuffed I was when the wife said I could go fishing for the weekend, all I’d had for the weeks that I was away where texts to say what had been out recently and as much as I’m always chuffed when you hear that one of your mates has had one there’s nothing better than trying to catch one yourself - and succeeding! Especially on a really ttricky venue like the one I'm currently targetting in Berkshire.

The weekend started as usual get home from work, load the car, get to the lake and hope that no one is in the swim that you wanted to fish. Well I drove through the gate but a car was parked in the car park near the swim I wanted. Oh well, I knew exactly what it meant and wasn’t shocked when I walked into the swim to see a mate who’s been doing well in there.

Second swim choice it was and as Nige had been in there for a few days I knew it was a good bet. I set two rods up on hinge rigs and one on a multi rig and cast them to the desired spots near some big weed beds that weren’t there on my last visit. One of the hinge rigs was fished with an Anchovy pop up and the other was a Fish n Blood / Fresh Orange, the multi rig was fished snow man style using a 15mm Fish n Blood / Fresh Orange bottom bait with the corresponding pop up.

The night past with just a few line bites but every bleep bought on renewed confidence, the first text was from my mate in the first choice swim with a nice common. Then it was my brother who had a small mirror from the new water he was on, it was certainly looking good for a bite. Then they started showing a bit more, especially in one of the bays - and a few of them looked like they were big!

I told myself that if nothing had happened by mid-day i'd go and have a look and maybe move before the rest of the weekend anglers turned up. It never happened because at 11.00am, just as I was sat tying up some fresh rigs, the middle rod fishing the Anchovy pop up ripped off. At first it never clicked what was happening as it had been a while since the last run but then instinct kicked in and I was into a carp!

For all you people who fish weedy waters you know what goes through your head “will I get it in through the weed beds” well this carp had its own ideas and dived into the nearest weed bed. Fishing break off leads though meant it wasn’t long before I got it moving again. The fish wasn’t that hard to get in after that as each time it went into a weed bed a firm bit of pressure would get it moving again, five minutes later I was guiding a nice mirror into the net which went 22lb and was one of the recently stocked fish.

I was happy and thoughts of moving were wiped from my mind only to get the phone call off a friend who went in the swim that the carp were showing in and had the one fish that most of us are fishing for. If I had moved would I have caught it? I don’t know but I was so chuffed for my mate it didn’t matter and my time will come…..

tight lines fellas

Mark Coward