Helmut's Blog

[koiguchi]

Well Done Paul, nice fish, keep at it mate, that 20lbder will come.

[paulhthomas]

Cheers for the comments both. I will get that 20!

[paulhthomas]

It's been a long time coming, and no it's not my first 20!
When I started carping earlier this year, the plan was that me and a mate were going to start together, learn off each kind of thing. Unfortunately it never happened, I got the gear, he didn't....but he has now. So after many months of nagging him to buy kit and selling him my older gear as I've replaced it, we finally got out together!
We went to a local club water that I'm a member off and he got a day ticket on the Saturday, so we were all set for the Sunday morning kick off.
Well i woke at 6am on Sunday, after a 2am finish at the halloween party I went too, to the most horrendous wind and rain I've seen in a long long time!
But, mental to the core,and with 2kilo of boilies defrosted and air dried, the wet suit was put on and I loaded the car. Got the lake a few mins later, pulled up at the side of my mate and we both said "what the hell are we doing" as we both burst into laughter!
We left the gear in the car and just took our bivvies to the bank.
I had prebaited 2 swims which had been producing recently and with the wind blowing our way (and a warmish wind at that) it looked ideal as long as the rain calmed down.
Well, we got drenched and I mean seriously drenched. by the time I got the bivvy up the my green waterproofs looked black!
I got my rods out, and then went to help him get geared up.
well the first couple of hours were quiet, then we had a break in the rain and the alarms started beeping!
The rain finally stopped around half past 11, apart from the odd shower, and we contined to catch fish. we managed 10 between us, I won't say what the score was, but the more experienced angler caught the most, and of course, it wasn't a competition The biggest coming in at 10lb 6oz Mirror
Photo of the mirror here:

It was cracking to have a few runs after finishing my fairly difficult syndicate water!

Paul

[paulhthomas]

Not sure whats happened to the site of late, nobody seems to be posting on it which is a damn shame
As you may notice from my last blog above, it was November last year, but in my defence I've probably only been fihsing a handful of times since Christmas and it's only been to my local waters which have nothing worth writing about!
Anyway, I booked myself a couple of days off this week and decided to hit my syndicate water again as the ticket runs out at the end of the month and I wasn't going to bother renewing.
I went down the lake on Sunday afternoon to set up as it had forcast rain on Monday and Tuesday and I didn't fancy setting up in the wet, nothing worse than sitting there drenched is there!
Sunday evening was spent putting a kilo of boilie out over various spots that I fancied, I had 2 rods on the island and 1 just over a bank of weed about 3 rod lengths in front of me.
Sunday night was quiet, a few little bleeps on the alarms but no takes... or at least I thought there wasn't. I wound my rod in from the island around midnight to find a skimmer had hooked itself through the top of it's back. Very weird!!
When Monday morning came, it was boiling and there was a lot of action on the surface. I quickly, repurposed the reel off my spod rod with a 2.25lb TC rod I had in my rod bag and set it up a surface rod. Luckily I always take some mixers with me as you never know and I'm glad I did.
Monday afternoon ended with me finally beating my PB of 19lb and what's more.. I finally got over the 20lb hurdle, the albatross around my neck!!
20lb 2oz of lovely mirror carp, isnt it a beauty!



Unfortunately it was the only fish of the trip, I lost another one which felt bigger again in the weed yesterday morning, wasnt happy about that!!

The fish also cost me another £300 as I've renewed my syndicate subscription for the year on the back of it, d'oh!

Paul

[koiguchi]

Cracking fish.
Fantastic mate, chuffed for ya, there will be no stopping you now.
Ive not been able to fish for a while as my healths not been good, but hope to be back with a vengance in the next few weeks.

[paulhthomas]

sorry to hear that matey, hope you're feeling 100% asap so you can go and get those lines wet!!
And hopefully you're right, there'll be no stopping me now. It's amazing what some confidence does for you isn't it. I've fished some "runs" waters local to me recently just to get some confidence back with my rigs and bait after blanking a few times on the syndicate water. I went back there and not once did I doubt the rig or the bait. I know it works and that's it tied perfectly, and the bait has produced fish.

[Pescador]

Well done Paul.

A cracking fish and a new P.B.

Good luck to you in the future, and there should be no stopping you
with your renewed confidence.