Carp Fishing – Rob Marsh’s Atomic Tackle Diary

The Park Lake closed early but I was able to get a session in and this was one of the results

Despite his main venue closing early due to spawning Rob still found himself holding up some serious fish last month.

With only one week left before the Southern Park Lake was to be closed for a month I felt it was time to squeeze a couple more nights in and I arrived at the lake on a Monday evening to find the lake fairly quiet. 

After a walk around I opted for the ‘Pissing Tree’ swim; I had seen several fish show between the islands in front of the swim so I cast two single pop ups to them as I got set up. I baited up one spot at around 80m range with Hinders’ sea salt hemp and Mainline Cell boilies and with my second rod I was simply going to fish a single Cell fluoro pop up  at around the 120m range.

The night was quiet until first light when I hooked a fish on the fluro pop up and after a good battle I slid the net under a cracking looking mirror which went 22lb 6oz on the scales.  As I started to pack up the baited area rod was away and after a somewhat scrappy fight I landed an upper double common, which I slipped straight back and got packed up ready for work.

A couple of days later the lake closed early due to the fish spawning so I switched back to my Essex syndicate for a while.  I decided to drop back on for the following weekend and was intending to get up there for midday but with a load of dramas at work I did not arrive till nearly 5pm. I thought it would be packed but as I approached the car park I was amazed to see only three cars there - crazy for a Friday night!

After a quick walk around I dropped into a peg called ‘Jeff’s’, a swim I have fished a couple of times in the past. I placed my rods in clear areas between the weed beds and baited with Cell pop ups on chod rigs over a bed of mixed pellets from Mainline and Hinders and Mainline Cell boilies in various sizes.

Friday night was very quiet with no fish showing but at around 9am I saw a fish just to the right of my right hand rod; three more shows and I was just going to put a bait on the showing fish when my right hand rod was away.  It was a monumental battle that took over 30 minutes with the fish nearly snagging me in the margins to my left on numerous occasions but eventually I got the upper hand and slipped the net under a good 30lb plus mirror, and on the scales she went 33lb 5oz. 

I was well happy with that and I got the rod back out and leapfrogged my left hand rod to where the fish were showing.  Thirty minutes later I was in again on the right hand rod and after another good battle netted a mirror of 28lb 3oz. The afternoon was quiet with no fish showing but just before dark I landed a 23lb 7oz common.

After another quiet night I started to pack up when once again the right hand rod was away and it was another tremendous fight.  The result was a cracking common which went 32lb 3oz and made the journey home that much more pleasurable.