Swim: Section of water undisclosed due to privacy reasons.
Date: 15th June 2015.
Session Length: 3.5hrs 7:30pm - 11pm (BST).
Weather: Probably no more than 8 Degrees Celsius and dropping; clear skies and no rain.
Party: Nic Haslem and Richard Short (Me) followed up at 7:30.
This is a post which is a long time coming and follows many years of research, pre-baiting in different sections of water, over night sessions, and fruitless returns to home.
With a slightly later than anticipated arrival and less than satisfactory gear packed I arrived at the pre agreed location which has many rumours associated to it.
A swim with little more than adequate casting space and a few low power / BT lines overhead had been initially selected by Nic. Upon review however the swim, as the light was fading looked cracking.
The bait I was using was a mix of Mainline activated hempseed, dyanbaits chill hemp, swetcorn, river water and maggots for hookbait in Van Den Eynde Vanilla powder.
After a few good sized roach laid to bank on a Drennan Specialist Feeder rod (the hooklink was a 16 to 5lb at this stage and lucky too) a cast mid water in an eddy to the rear of the bridge pillar was expected to be one of my last. The water was almost static (assuming the weir had been adjusting too and fro further downstream) and I was carefully considering a last orders pint in the pub.
All of a sudden a very gentle "pull" type bite was followed by a slightly stronger one and as I struck Nic's first comment was "oh, a decent eel eh" then was it a chub, however I suspected otherwise as the fish kited from left to right of the swim with little space and overhanging branches causing havoc. It was clear by this point that it was a carp but all of a sudden the thought of catching a river carp, especially on light tackle became quite daunting. The fish took me through branch and root, before,a fter some good netting from Nic and very gently playing by myself this edge of closed season Carp met with the inside of our net. BONZA!
It was agreed that after recording the fish with old coarse fishing Shakespeare scales which has seen better days the fish looked and felt considerably heavier than its weighed in result of 15lb! My first ever river carp and from my most local section of the River Medway; this really could be one of if not my fish ever and certainly most rewarding and pleasing return to this blog and fishing after my son had been born!
The night ended there with a repetitive comment from myself for the rest of the night....WOW....WOW....WOW!!!!
