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Sven van Kerrebrouck.

Late summer magic… The summer is almost at an end, the days are getting shorter and the carp are franticly looking for food to get through the tough winter ahead. While I was walking my four legged friend, I spotted some carp activity in the water. They were rolling and splashing about on a peg I fished 2 years ago. I knew it was quite deep in that area, sloping down from 7 to 9 metres. It's now end of August, beginning of September, still nice and warm, so why there in the deep end I don't know. The Lake bed is made up of black smelly silt. This water is 17 acres creating only for recreational activities. There is no night fishing aloud, but what can you do when the carp only feed nights, some rules can be bent and others broken. I wanted to give the carps total food bait, something they wanted most. Carp are like bears in the winter, especially the big ones, who have loads of fat reserves; they feed hard and then lay dormant until natural turns a new circle. So the plan was to give them some food, no attraction just pure food. So I found my spots and introduce 0.5kg Sorted-Fish 22mm boilies and 0.5kg I had to bait up as darkness fell, otherwise I would just be feeding the birdlife. On Friday morning I introduced a further 3kg. At last the time had come.... Friday afternoon and I'm all fired up and ready to go!! About 4pm I arrived at the lake, a half hour later both my rods are in. All week I hadn't seen any action on the lakes surface, but now it's turned in to a there's fishing crashing all over my spots. In a short amount of time I spotted about 20 carp breaking the lakes surface. The weather is warm; it has been all week, temperatures rising above 20 degrees C and not a breeze in the air. Not really ideal fishing conditions. Nothing was further from the truth, so it turned out.... Just after 6pm my left rod took off for the first time. After an easy scrap and a couple of minutes later, one of my target fish rolled in to the net. A mighty Linear Mirror that spinned the needle to 15.8 kg - 34.7lb! “34.7 lb…“ Not one of the lakes biggest inhabitants but for me this carp has that special something. At 7pm the same rod was off again, this time I netted a common weighing 13.5 kilo - 29.7lb. “29.7 lb…“ After that it stayed quite till 10pm and when darkness had total fallen suddenly my alarm sets off one single bleep. I stand behind my rod and watch the rod tip like a hawk. No movement, no short pulls, nothing....Just as I sit back on my stretcher, the bobbin crashes in to my optonic and starts screaming and a angry 9.8 kilo - 21.5lb common puts up a scrappy fight. By midnight I had landed 4 fish, but when I look on my watch after the next catch its 3am. A period of 3 past and already I'm in with another take. All the time I was catching the other fish were rolling constantly on the service of my baited area. Just as I was wondering what was going on, I started getting takes every half hour, unbelievable this carp really wanted the Sorted-Fish boilies. I found it difficult to bait up between takes so much action was coming my way. This kept on going till six in the morning! My end result was I landed 11 fish weighing between 9.8 and 15.8 kilo this with 2 beautiful linear mirrors. Very happy chappy. I will be back!…And I was that same day in the late afternoon. The carp were still jumping and rolling over my baited area. This instantly gave me loads of confidence. They loved the bait so much! This was going to be another session like last night. This time round the action started later at 10pm, some strange thoughts of doubt went through my mind, but they were soon washed away when I landed another a big mirror weighing 14.9kg - 32.7lb. After that, again the takes kept coming and coming must have been the feeding bell when my 4oz lead hit the water followed my plashed plashes of free boilies to bait up the areas. The fish continued to come 2.30am it turned in to a madhouse just like the night before but this time I was still catching carp until just after 10am. That night had 14 fish out, weighing between 11 and 14.9 kilo - 24.2lb -32.7lb. Could I make this work 3 days in row, only one way to find out ;-) On Sunday evening I'm back in business Sorted! Again the carp where all over my bait, jumping around all over the place, but there wasn't as much carp around as the last two nights. Could this be angling pressure or another reason? Only the bigger fish had now taken over this feeding spot. In total I had 4 fish out of respectively 14.6kg - 32.1lb, "The Italian" at 15.6kg - 34.2, another leather at 15.5kg 34.1lb and a 13.4kg - 29.5lb, all of Mirrors. “29.5 lb…“ “34.7 lb…“ Each rod was fished with PVA Stringer with 3 x 18mm Sorted-Fish boilies and my hook bait. At the start of each session I baited 3kg of boilies, accept on the day I baited up in the morning. I had to wait till dark, for the reasons mentioned earlier. After each landed carp and a recast, I baited a further 0.5kg scattered in the area. On the left rod a bit more than the right one because the takes where 2/1 for the left rod to jump onto action. I did try baiting more but the results were the same.... so less for the right was the sensible choice. My gear I keep quite simple, a strong and reliable leader made up of 30lb amnesia, lead core and a 35cm Korda IQ 25lb hook link. I mostly use Korda wide gap 8 for hook. I also put some led putty on my hook link to weight it down so it lays flat on the bottom; this gives the fish less danger to detect. A 4oz riser on a safety clip makes this a bolt rig, with always the best hooking potential.The next week I tried to create the same situation, I fished 2 nights that weekend which resulted in 20 takes, 16 landed fish, got cut off once and lost 2 fish right in front of the net and another one half way in the fight, a bent hook was the reason why. Hmm 1 in 30 fish is not so bad. The weights were in the same category as the week before, between 8 and 13 kilo. A note of attention: On the second night of the second week, I had 5 fish out that I had hooked the week before.....! Like those two beautiful linear mirrors, I'm always happy to them again.   Sven van Kerrebrouck.