A Jubilee Carp

Bank holiday weekend usually means lots of fishing, but not this one. The weekend started with my birthday celebrations, a trip to the zoo and a friend’s party on Saturday followed by a day out with the parents on Sunday, although I did visit Winchester so stopped by to tip my hat to the great man and ask if he might bless my rod for today.

I arrived at Carron Row early, around 8:30, but it wasn’t nice at all. Cold wind, damp in the air and all the usual spots looked devoid of fish. Before putting a rod together I climbed back into the wagon and headed to The Barns in the hope that the carp might be in a more generous mood. First signs were much the same as the Row but eventually, whilst eating an egg and cress sandwich, the sun began to break through and a few fish started to move amongst the pads.

It was then I noticed something sparkly. A small silver fish leapt clear of the water, for whatever reason, and landed on a lily pad. It jumped and fluttered for a while before finding his way back into the water. Quite shaken from the ordeal I would have thought, but no, a few seconds later out he popped again and started writhing around a while more before plopping back into the weedy water once more. It was as if he enjoyed it for the process was repeated a few more times throughout the morning.

I tackled up with a size seven hook and two soft floating pellets, no freebies, just cast into a channel in the weed and waited. The first bait was torn apart by the rudd but the next cast landed in deeper weed where the rudd couldn’t get to it but the carp could sniff it out. A couple of minutes passed and I noticed a carp poking its nose up through the weed as it fed; perhaps it was feeding on tench spawn that was evident around most of the weed beds, but this fish took a liking to my floating pellets and was soon away charging through the weed trying to free itself of the hook. By keeping the fish moving at all times it never got too deep and soon enough my prize was safe in the bottom of the net.




The swim went horribly quiet after that, I had a walk around the rest of the complex but others were starting to arrive and I quite fancied another look at Carron Row anyway so I left Tithe behind me and my 100% record there this year of a fish every visit.

Back at the Row I began fishing pond one just off the sunken tree with crust. There were a few fish milling around the outskirts and one small common took a shine to my hook-bait and shot under the branches dragging me along for the ride. As soon as it was clear of the snags I guided it into the net and admired a portly looking common carp of around 5lbs.

I fished the second pond for a while switching to the float and caught two nice tench before it was time to pack away and head for home. It was a short day with a fair amount of stalking and travelling around, just how I like it.