Alice In Wonderland

After a painfully long four-week exile from my beloved Tarn Pond I finally found myself back, however I was surprised to find that things had changed; gone were the days when a typical Saturday consisted of four anglers; Tarn was now rammed. After the capture of a thirty pound fish the place has suddenly bounced back on the map after its nine year exodus since the fish kill in 2004, and on Saturday my favourite swim 'the beach' was hosting three bivvies. We were left with no choice but to move on. . .

After a short trip down the Hog's Back we arrived at the picturesque Alice Holt Forest to fish Lodge Pond. Lodge is a water classed as 'easy-medium' on the FAS website so would not be my natural choice. However I have a fondness for the place as it was the first Farnham water I fished and where I caught my first 'considerable' PB at sixteen pounds, the biggest of a memorable 23 fish haul on the method feeder back in June. I initially set up in peg 18, but after the anglers in peg 21 departed an hour before nightfall I quickly settled in there. I edged up to a likely looking spot on the 'dam' margin on my left and clipped up, and had a feel around with the lead to find a smooth spot in the open water in front of me, assuming at this time of year the fish would be in the deep water. Tactics were four Mainline Cell boilies in A PVA stick, with one hair-rigged on a KD-style hair with half a Sticky White Chocolate Popup to make a snowman. The trap was set. . .

After a line bite on the margin rod which I foolishly struck at (knowing full well there was nothing there) I recast and as I clipped the bobbin on I realised, by chance, that the bobbin on my right rod was right up and the line was tight. It had to be a fish! I initially assumed it was a bream that had took the line so slowly it had not registered on the alarm, but I was confused further when it felt as though I was bringing in a dustbin. A massive slab? I still had no idea what it was as it was not fighting, then when he broke the surface of the inky blackness he made a single half-hearted attempt to set himself free. I soon had him in the net and marvled at him for a while, amazed at the sheer size of it. 

At 22lb 6oz he was a lovely ghost common, even if I had been quietly suspecting I had broken my PB whilst examining him in the net. 

I was overjoyed with my catch and the fact it was not a personal best didn't matter at all. From what I heard throughout the evening and from speaking to a few anglers the next morning most had blanked, so I was glad I'd done better than most. I admire those who bravely spend hours on the bank fishless in pursuit of the 'big one', but I am sure that at my stage in life it is not for me. I enjoy learning as much as catching, and every carp I catch is a learning curve, regardless of size. I am still relatively inexperienced and consequently every catch is important, and even if I could catch the odd fish here and there on rock-hard waters, I wouldn't want to. As a mark of my lack of experience it was the first fish I have ever caught on a proper snowman! I have my whole life ahead of me and most certainly will find myself at some point on difficult waters, but not now. For now medium waters are my choice. There is a time for everything, and I still have so much to learn, and the only way of doing that is by catching carp. 

Autumn leaves and the South Downs

My latest angling trip was a far more relaxed session than usual, for the main part because I only went for a day. I was on holiday in Bognor Regis in an area that seemed starved of specimen day-ticket waters, so instead I ventured deep into the South Downs and opted for a fairly straightforward trip to Mill Farm Fishery in Bury, famous for holding the British Record silver bream. However I was not here for bream (I never am), so I opted for the specimen lake, which contains a head of around three hundred fish, mainly doubles with a good handful of twenties and a sprinkling of magical 30's, but not the sub-10lb tiddlers present in the other two ponds on the complex. Due to not being on the bank every weekend in the past few weeks I decided I would use the opportunity to guarantee myself a few runs, as with winter fast approaching I may have not got the chance to do so again before the years' end. 

I arrived on the bank at nine o'clock, and was set up and in the water by ten. Due to Mill Farm's boilie ban I instead opted for tiger nuts, fished snowman-style on KD rigs tipped with fake corn with little sticks of crushed tiger nut done in Korda's 'funnel web' system. Knowing that the bottom was even and lined with clay plus the fact I was short of time I left the marker behind and chucked one rod in the middle, and with the other edged up to the island sixty yards to my left until I was six inches off the bank, where the leaves and their golden autumnal hues would not have looked amiss in one if Turner's watercolours. I did not bait up, knowing it was a waste of bait seeing as I was only fishing for a day, and instead decided I would have to find the fish as they were relatively high in numbers. 

The picture does not do the leaves justice

KD Rig with balanced tiger nut 

It was dead on one o'clock when I was sitting down admiring my handsome new matrix buzzbars and Korda bobbins that I had my first run on the island rod. The run was hardly a one-toner due to the angle the line left the rod, and I was alerted to the bite as much by the rod tip arching over as the bobbin shooting up. I struck and immediately felt the reassuring nodding accompanied by the fish stripping line from the clutch, so much so I had to hold the spool to keep the creature from the sanctuary of the snags. After the fish gave a good account of himself I slipped the net under a handsome 13lb common.

A lean Mill Farm common

Before recasting I walked the line down the bank to the clip and measured the line on the right hand rod exactly the same, as I planned to put both rods out on the island. I cast the left rod back out, it again hitting the clip and quietly plopping in the exact spot as last time. I cast the right hand rod a rodlength to the right of the other rod, again tight to the island, but before I could even clip the bobbin on I could see the line on the left rod kiting off to the island, before the alarm roared off once more. For a moment it seemed as though the fishing was happening faster than I could handle, but after landing a pretty 10lb ghost carp the action all but dried up after a frenzied half an hour. 

First ghost carp

I tried different techniques to buy a bite, including chucking a rod under some marginal cover along with a few handfuls of tiger nuts as the shadows grew long,but the day had been done, but we had to be out by sunset and with sun dipping below the trees it was not long before I decided enough was enough and I packed up. 

I spend the vast majority of my time on the bank chasing 'lumps' and as a result I blank a bit more often than I'd like to. I enjoyed my session at Mill Farm, as did I enjoy coming home in the evening and watching the football. In my experience different is rarely better, but I like catching carp and in this case a change was welcome.  

Tarn II

After a three week hiatus from a proper session on the bank it was high time to get a set of rods out on my favourite pond, Tarn. The weekend prior had been spent at Farnham's annual pike teach-in which any club member wishing to fish for pike must attend. I do not intend on targeting pike but I wanted to have the stamp in my booklet just in case I ever fancied it. The teach in was conducted by Mike Slater who did a brilliant job in explaining everything from your bank side setup to handling the pike on the mat and so on. Despite the monsoon rain we endured and me loosing what seemed like a pint of blood when I merely grazed my index finger on the pike's gill raker I had enjoyed myself and learned lots, and after seeing first hand the technique and finesse required for safely unhooking a pike it amazes me that Farnham AS are still the only club in England who conduct such an undertaking each year. However, back to the weekend at Tarn, where I was not targeting pike but my usual toothless quarry of carp.

When we arrived at Tarn both of our favourite swims were occupied and for a few minutes it seemed as though the session I had planned was not going to happen after all. However the chap in our preferred swim was just packing up, and by coencidence he turned out to be the deputy bailiff and I picked his brains for whatever I could whilst he packed away his gear. His name was Steve and he was very helpful (he had three carp the previous night), which was the second time a bailiff at tarn had given me invaluable local knowledge of the water. 

We set up in swim 18 and I edged up to the trees that lined the far bank across the small bay, eventually clipping up about a rod length off a large overhanging tree. I did not get closer as Steve reckoned the new carp in the pond were not commonly caught right against them, however the bream and tench were. I went for my two bags of boilies only to discover I'd accidentally picked up Activ-8 instead of my favourite Cell. I was unimpressed to say the least but continued with the plan and scattered a kilo across the front of the tree and cast out a glugged cell tipped with fake corn and a PVA stick of crushed Cell I had taken out of the freezer from a previous session, which the ducks were on in no time. The second rod was cast out into open water with only a stick and one of Steve's Berkeley boilies he'd given to me as that was how he'd caught his. I'm not a fan of backleads but as I was fishing locked up with my new matrix banksticks and stabiliser (I have to wait until I can afford the buzzbars), so I clipped one on just to keep everything pinned down, such is my paranoia of a tight line cutting through my swim. The open water rod was typically slack, and by one o'clock I was fishing.

Steve's boilie and crumb

Setup complete

After a couple of hours I had a solid run on my far bank rod and it came in fairly easily, but pulled too violently to be a bream yet was too weak to be a tench. It stayed under right to my feet, at which point a duck shot out of the water! I netted it and covered its eyes with a towel and took the hook out of his beak. I can safely say he was not harmed, just shocked; as I would be if I were him! I returned him and he flapped across the lake back to his friend under the trees, and the two went about their normal business, but didn't nick anymore of my boilies! 

Never caught one of these before!

The rest of the day passed off uneventfully until night fell and I had a bream on each rod. I recast both and got a night's kip. I was awoken at around half past seven by the chorus of carp acrobatics, and I brought in my open water rod, rebaited and waited the next splash. Sure enough five minutes later a carp rolled under the trees around fifty yards further down the bank than my other rod, so I cast to the splash. Seeing the carp so close to the trees the next thing to do was to bring in my other rod and give another rodlength of line before clipping up. I cast and the weight plopped in gently less than a foot off the tree. The trap was set. 

Fifteen minutes later I had a screaming run. The bobbin shot up and I was convinced I had managed my second Tarn carp. The creature put up a hefty fight and I assumed it was a low double due to the spirited battle but lack of any real weight, only for a tench to stick its paddle-like tail out in front of me! I, unlike many other carp anglers, don't mind tench too much as I don't catch many of the green devils and they always give a good account of themselves. Judging by the lack of alarm noise overnight I'd managed more than anyone else, save for the pike angler who caught a jack opposite me. The tench weighed in at six lbs, not bad for a male by any account, and a definite surprise for mid October. 

A good tench, and probably the last of the season. 

The rest of the day passed off uneventfully, and to my disappointment yet again I failed to catch a carp from Tarn. Tarn is a tricky water by anyone's standards (even in the club newsletter one of the writers has not yet caught one) however I cannot shake the nagging truth in the back of my mind that this is the best time of the year for carping, and winter is fast approaching. My stubbornness will keep me at Tarn until I crack it, but things will definitely get harder between now and then. 

An evening at Tarn

My last session on Tarn was a surreal experience to say the least. Conditions were perfect, a mild south-westerly blowing gently across the dark, choddy water with the barometer reading low in the mid 900's. Now Tarn is not an easy water by any means, which made it all the more special when the screech of my alarm awoke me at 0830 Sunday morning. I was chuffed, playing what felt like a good fish, so chuffed in fact I didn't realise the furious fish was heading straight for the trees thirty yards to the left. I was snagged in no time, and even though the lead clip did it's job and dropped the weight instantly, the carp was gone. All the previous hours spent on the bank at Tarn waiting for one fish, only to loose him. I'd done the hard part, yet failed to land him. 

Fast forward a week and I was on the same pond, the same peg in fact, but this time I was determined. I had a score to settle with Tarn; and the elusive beasts that lurked within its silty, one thousand year old depths. First thoughts couldn't have been more different from the previous week, with high pressure, however the increase in temperature inspired me.

Tarn, complete with marker

The week previously the bailiff had  informed us of the old river bed in front of our swim, as the pond had originally been created a millennium ago by damming a tributary of the Wey. It was the only area without two feet of silt, and with the marker in place I fired out half a kilo of Mainline Cell to give a good scattering along the riverbed, despite the gulls hassling me. We arrived at 1600 and I was fishing by 1800, ready for dusk.

rigging up, complete with hat-hair

Feeding completed I opted for my usual KD Rig, as it was what had worked the week earlier. The rig itself was a longer-than-usual length of supernatural, as even though I was fishing on a relatively hard patch I erred on the side of caution due to Tarn's choddy nature. On went a 15mm Cell popup, along with a stick composed of crushed cell. Paprika and salt added and smothered in Goo, the rig was cast to where I'd baited. On the second rod I had a snowman rig, this time with a Cell bottom bait tipped with 10mm pink popup, and a dozen free Cell offerings, again oozing with Goo, and again casted to the baited area. Setup complete, the only snag was the top of the bobbin that sits on the alarm screw had broken, so I had to sellotape it on, but now everything was ready! Time to sit back and relax. 

KD Rig and Snowman (bottom). Which would work?

Goo, plus goo'd hand

A long and action-free evening passed, save for dad getting liners on his margin rod. Luckily it was a mild night with the cloud providing a quilt of insulation, and I kipped down at 2330. I slept well until 0830 when the trill of the alarm awoke me in glorious fashion. I shot out of the sleeping bag without even unzipping it, and before I knew where I was I was doing battle with a hard-fighting Tarn carp, nodding around the swim while I was shaking my hot water bottle out of my pyjama leg. He fought hard like the one the week before, but this time I was focused, I was in control. I could barely contain my excitement, I had caught a carp in exactly the same fashion in exactly the same swim within an hour of the last one, but this time he was mine. When I first caught a glimpse of him the beauty of the creature struck me, with a dark head and chocolate-brown flanks fading to a cream belly. As I edged him into the net he suddenly shot out and I panicked, remembering the time not long ago dad lost a monster tench in the same fashion. I swiveled down to absorb the lunge, and before long he was in the net again, secure this time. It didn't enter my mind the size of the fish, as in the water it only looked around mid-doubles, and it was only when I hauled the net from the water did the size of the fish register in my brain. 23lb! My new PB and a strikingly beautiful fish with no mouth damage and deep colouration, the sort Tarn is known for. After a few trophy shots and a weigh I released him, and before I could even turn him upright he shot off, back into the murky depths where he came from. 

Job done! A superb 23lb Tarn Mirror, my new PB

(again with bed hair)

 The rest of the session was uneventful, save for a change from the snowman to another KD Rig on the right-hand rod. Hope you enjoyed reading, join me on my carp quest next week as I attempt to (hopefully) tear Tarn apart and better my PB.

Tight Lines!