Winter carp on the pin...

Managed to squeeze one more trip into 2011. I recieved a call from Tony asking if I wanted to join him and Dave on a day session at Stroud fishery near Petersfield, I hadn’t fished with Tony since Redmire back in August so jumped at the chance of a catch up and hopefully a winter carp or two. We met at the nearby MacDonald’s and I followed the guys the rest of the way. First impressions were good, a small lake of less than an acre with one very good looking spot where a great tree had fallen in the water, if the carp were anywhere, it was there!!

Tony jumped into the swim opposite the tree and fished two rods with his usual method of Sausage Oil criticals attached to a size 4 wide gape and small 1oz lead. He fished both rods tight to the snag tree locked up and we just knew that he’d have a good day. Dave set up to his right and I was in the next swim. With just open water in front of me I fished my home made popups with small bags of pellets and threw a few balls of groundbait in the area in the hope of interesting anything that might cruise by, this consisted of white crumb and crushed hemp.