Thanks for all your kind replies, the reason why I wrote the article was, because I have up until now had a rather Jaundiced view of Carp angling because of a few nasty incidents on a couple of lakes I used to fish. Catching the Carp on the River in the environment that I love showed to me that the Carp is just as hard fighting and tenacious as any Barbel or Chub and that my problem with carp was more to do with a certain element of anglers rather than the fish themselves. I have deprived myself of a lot of decent angling and this weekends catch has reawakened a desire to fish for carp again. Now my new seasons resolution was to catch myself some eel this year from a midlands water, so if I can achieve that this year it could turn out to be a special year indeed for me. Hoping to meet up with all of you at one of this summers fishins, good luck to you all.