King carp 1.2p per pound

The carp point for the challenge had been something I kind of wanted to get out of the way for a while. It's not that I don't enjoy carp fishing. It's more to do with the realization that if I wanted any realistic chance of getting it I would have to go a carp stuffed commercial to do it, rather than do it in the romantic way I had pictured it in my mind ie. three good twenty's from some forgotten water. My original plan was to go back to old lanwarnes were I had previously done 49lb in a little over two hours but a phone call the night before put pay to that, as two matches were booked on the big lake. A quick change of plans and I agreed to meet Neil ( a old friend who is just rekindling his interest in fishing ) at five ways fishery near Wolvey which is the home of one of the most carp stuffed lakes in the area.
The day before I had sent a text to Keith proclaiming my intention to get the King carp point on only £1 worth of bait and I was very confident that this was possible. So Sunday morning I loaded up the car with tackle and enough smart price sliced white bread to choke a heard of ravenous petting zoo goats.

The peg was not exactly feature filled. Just thirty foot of dirty water with the tip of an island in front and a few overhanging reeds ether side. The rig was even simpler than that. 8lb mono with a big hook tied on the end.
My complicated pre baiting technique took all of a minute complete; tear up three slices of bread and lob them onto the surface.

Before I had even finished this mass baiting the early morning silence was broken by the slurps of a hundred  hungry carp, as fish of all sizes came up for breakfast. So began my assault! It took exactly one second for the first one to be on, one of the smaller fish of the day a 2lb common. From then on it was pretty frantic.

After an hour I realised that there was a huge mass of small carp lurking within feet of the surface, and my bread crust was being savaged off the hook before anything bigger got the chance to get a look in. I also noticed that some bigger fish would come up in reaction to the hungry mass. At seeing this I became very discerning and waited for the bigger fish to appear before plonking my bait as close to them as possible. This turned out to be a better plan and string of better carp sent my total soaring quickly.

A good average sized fish.

Five hours of continual playing of fish on the hottest day of the year so far was hard work. But as it neared dinner time I broke the weight needed and then I bagged a couple more for good luck

The weights added up like this 2,2.5,6,6,3,6.5,7,1,4,7,3,3,3,5,4,8,6,4 = 81Lb. During the day I caught loads of little carp under a pound in weight, but if I didn't think they were a pound I slipped them straight back not even bothering to add them to the score. This could have come back to bite me in the ass but it never did and I was content with eighteen decent sized carp for over 80lb or 1.2p per pound if you would. Though I was happy to bagged this point on my second attempt I have to be honest and admit it was a pretty ugly way of achieving a point and not something I will be rushing back to do in the future.

My aim to do it using under £1 worth of bread worked out a treat and after five hours of carp bagging all that was left was two thirds of a slice of bread or one large mouth full, which I ate!

The great white hunter.