My friends all know me as Burnsy, I'm 24 years old and live in a lovely little village called Great Wyrley which resides in the Midst of Cannock. I have lived here all my life and still love it as much now as I always have. I have a wonderful family with two brothers and one sister. I was in Education until 2004 and now I spend all my time monitoring emissions from industrial sources. Anyway enough about me – lets start talking about something we all enjoy! FISHING!

My first fishing experience was always going to be with my dad as he has been and still is, a very keen match angler with probably 40+years experience in the sport. I've gained most of my knowledge through him using all his match winning skills to help me catch a few whilst pleasure fishing – you’d be surprised how useful match anglers can be in all situations of fishing' as they are always looking for new techniques and methods for producing that all important extra bite! Fortunately my dad is on the board for Blackfords angling society and therefore I've had a season ticket for as long as I remember. There are three society waters all containing a good head of all species, including the ones I'm after – Carp. I find that no other fish creates such excitement – even if you have to wait hours for the bite! It's always worth it, even if you catch just one in a whole day. I say day because that’s the only time I fish. I'm probably missing out on loads of action but I find it more of a challenge to catch a big fish in the middle of the day than wait for them to go into that feeding frenzy at night.

My typical weekend fishing starts mainly at around 7 o'clock (some anglers would say this is a lie in) to get one of my more favourable pegs. This was the case back in April when I visited a society water known as ‘the turf pool’. This is a very tranquil pool of about 8 acres in size with a large island and a few bays towards the far end. It is a murky water so luckily the only plant life is on the fringes – mainly rushes. I say luckily because I couldn’t think of anything worse than casting your rod out knowing there are big patches of weed everywhere and this has a massive impact on my confidence in the lay of the line and rig on the bottom, I say the more confident you are that your bait is presented on light chod, silt or gravel the more chance you have got of leaving it that extra half an hour and getting that all important take. Everyone you talk to on this pool in particular will tell you to cast to the island – and that’s what everyone does! So you can imagine, by 12 o'clock, from the air the island looks like a maypole! I have to admit I have fished the island and sometimes it has been productive but there have been no ‘special’ catches.

I had been fishing the pool for a couple of weeks previous in a number of spots around the pool with no more than a few bleeps on the alarm. Although I like to relax, I'm always scanning the pool for any indication of life. It wasn’t long when I noticed a series of fish jumping in one of the far bays followed half an hour later by some bigger splashes. It's around the time of year that spawning occurs but with the forecast for rain I was sure they would stay in the same area foraging for food for their next opportunity (rabbits!) I love reading Terry Herns articles and I always go fishing with his tactics and advice in mind. One of his main points is that ‘you can't catch what isn’t in front of you’ so with this in mind I packed my gear away and left for the day to prepare for a hopefully more productive Sunday in the bay.

I had arrived extra early (for a change) and a few people were already set up on the island pegs. I made my way around the pool as quietly as possible and found no-one was even close to the pegs I had been eying up. I was filled with anticipation and excitement as I passed the last poolside tree to find at least 30 reasonably sized carp cruising the upper layers of water. So as delicately as I could I set up the rods and planned out where I was going to fish. The first spot I decided upon was at the end of a spit that protruded out into the pool and had a large lily population. I have recently developed a technique for casting around corners, I love this idea because I'm almost certain you will get a take if you can get your hookbait somewhere that people don’t normally use. Literally I cast over the lily's with a light cast, as soon as the lead hits the water I flick the rod tip in the direction I want the line to sit and with the aid of a flying backleads I can achieve almost 50degree corners in my line. Try it sometime!

I generally throw in a mixture of different sized boilies (about 10-15) on the exact spot fished – I do this because I want to catch one opportunist fish at a time not the entire population - plus, think of the odds against you if you chuck 50 in and some carp will actually spook from seeing large amounts of bait. I know this is probably wrong but I generally use the rule - if you put 9 boilies in and your hookbait you have 1 in 10 chance of a take, if you put 50 in, 1 in 50 chance and so on.

With the first rod in place I set my sites on the rushes opposite me where I had seen the fish jumping the previous day. I cast the lead to the spot I wanted (tight to the rushes) and clipped up the spool. I always use different tactics for each rod to experiment so with this one I used Martin Bowlers tactic of putting around 50 boilies over a larger area but along the margin so there was a sort of line of bait rather than a scattered/random arrangement. I use a hooklength of around 6 inches for longer distances and longshanked 10 hooks (I have found the Fox range to be outstanding). I always add a stringer to the distance rigs with a pva nugget threaded over the hooklink to give peace of mind that the hookbait will eventually come to rest on top of debris (not buried). With all the vitals in place I set about making myself comfortable with a fresh brew and a just warm bacon, egg and mushroom sandwich!! Can't beat it!!

The second hour rolled by and I was starting to think the carp weren’t feeding when I had a couple of beeps on the lily rod followed by a take that nearly pulled the rod off the pod! I lifted the rod (lifted not wrenched) and I was into a sizeable carp which put up an almighty scrap until it was secure in the bottom of my massively oversized net. It was a perfect mirror carp of about 10lbs!

I rebaited, throwing 3 boilies in followed by my hookbait followed by two more boilies to try to make the carp think I'm baiting up rather than positioning my trap. Within minutes the same rod was off again with a slightly larger fin/scale perfect common. This was unhooked (on the unhooking mat of course) and safely lowered back to the depths. I was starting to think the other rod was not sitting correctly or had somehow tangled on the cast when it too screamed off in the usual fashion and I struck into what felt like a dead weight that slowly made its way across the pool. I could only think that it had some form of weed on the line, so slowly I weaned the creature towards the bank to find no weed on the line and to see a very broad looking common.

The legs were trembling by now and I nervously drew the fish towards the net when it bolted off very a fierce run taking as much line as I had originally cast out! 10 minutes of a fight finally saw the specimen grace my net. It was a gorgeous fully scaled untouched common, there was not a scratch on this fish and I could swear that it had never been caught before. What a Fish! I weighed it in at 17.5lbs. This is the best I've caught from this pool and was the second biggest fish I had ever caught! Unfortunately I was on my own so the picture is of the fish and my hand propping him up! My mind holds my best pictures!

The day couldn’t get any better, or could it? The rain was still coming down but this didn’t deter me in the slightest. My patience was rewarded again with two more fish coming from both lines. Both perfect, Both 14lbs! After these I decided to quit whilst ahead and return at a later date to pick up the ones that got away, I'm sure there are a few biggies somewhere in there – I just haven’t seen them yet.

There is a lot of patience required when carp fishing but the rewards are always excellent – I'm sure you’ll all agree!

Anyways, until next time!

Slack lines!

Dave B