I snuck a quick nights fishing in what was a very hectic week, work wise, and no better remedy recharges the batteries like a night on the bank. I rushed around the last few clients I had for the day and was loaded ready to go by 4pm. The weather looked like it wasn’t going to be too kind but what the heck, I was going fishing and even if the unseasonable brewing thunderstorm lashed me and the fish were more interested in naturals than the bait I had on offer, it still didn’t matter, I was off fishing.

The water chosen was another one of those secret carp waters us Carp anglers keep to ourselves and on arrival it may well of just been that as no other soul was fishing the water. The weather was overcast and looked threatening, but at least with this cloud cover, the night would be a little warmer than the typical early winter, clear skied ones, and it may just be what the fish have been waiting for to get their heads down, hopefully on to my bait.

The 30 min or so drive from my place, gave ample time to decide on what strategy I had in mind for the evening's session, and on arriving at the water, I decided to fish in an area which I had previously caught a few fish from during the summer.

I am not an advocator of heavy pre-feeding nor do I fish at range if there are other reasons to fish closer in. If I can find some feature within my chosen swim, I will always try these areas first, however should the prime fish holding areas be 200 – 300m out, so be it.

In this case, fish had come from all areas of the swim, mainly from about 50 – 60m regions from left to right, so this was to be my target area. The depth ranged from 12 feet, where my left hand rod was going to go, to 10 feet where my middle rod would be, to just over, 6 feet on a gravel bar I would be fishing to the right. On arrival, I baited up these areas with a wide spreading of about half a kilo of loose mixed boilies, and then set about getting the gear sorted.

Tackle would consist of three rods together with the Shimano 8010’s, and Big Pit Reels loaded with Berkeley Big Game 15lb line. The terminal tackle would be all In-line set-ups complete with anti-tangle tubing running into weed green 75g powder coated leads. Hook-links however would be slightly different.

On the one rod, I would be fishing with a combination, of a 18mm Strawberry Cream together with a CVB Cream Pop-Up. Both Strawberry and the CVB Creams had proven themselves on the water and I wanted to give them another go.

The combination of two 18mm boilies may seem too large for some people, but when you see how big a carp’s mouth is in relation to the bait, these would pose no problem for them, and in some cases, anglers have been known to catch fish on two or three 30–40mm boilies on the same hair!

When using a pop-up and normal boilie in combination you get a different type of presentation of your bait than with a single pop-up, and I find it behaves more naturally in the water. You can also adjust the buoyancy of the pop-up, by shaving a little off the sides with a sharp knife.

This will create neutral or slowly sinking baits which rest just on the bottom or one which will lie suspended within the water. Baits, which neither sink nor float, are called critically balanced.

The advantage of doing this is that when prepared correctly they will behave the same as your freebies around your hook bait, which will not spook the fish, and may trick the bigger ones into taking your offering.

Another advantage of shaving the sides off any boilie is that you get a much higher and quicker flavour release, which really pulls the fish in. If you do this with your pop-ups though remember that they may not float for as long, because you are now allowing water to soak in at a much faster, which will cause your bait to sink quicker than usual.

The hook link material was 25lb silk braid, tied to a rolling swivel on the one end, and hair rigged onto a #4 VMC Fastgrip hook on the other end. The hair was made a little longer than usual to accommodate the double boilie set-up. A short piece of silicon rubber tubing over the eye of the hook and the knotless knot both helps protect the knot and stop it becoming frayed and to keeps the hook directly under the popped up boilies. If you extend the rubber to go further down the braid, about 8-10mm, it acts as an extension to the hook, helping in the hooking of the fish.
To prevent the pop-up floating too high in the water I used a small piece of Kryston Heavy Metal about 2cm below the eye of the hook, to keep the presentation, spot-on. If you cannot get any HM, a lead split shot should serve the same purpose.

On the second rod, I was trying out a hook link called a “Stiff Anti-Eject Rig”. This works on the principle that with the hook link being stiff, once it is in the fish’s mouth it is very difficult for the fish to eject, causing either the hook to penetrate the mouth or the fish to bolt off, again causing the hook to set in the Carp's mouth.
The anti-eject rig was made using stiff mono, in this case 25kg Maxima (I would normally use much less, around 10kg mono, but was experimenting to see if line this heavy would still be effective.)
I tied on a VMC #6 Californian style hook, using a loop rather than a standard knot, to give the rig more flexibility, but all the while retaining the stiffness of the set-up. The other end was tied to a rolling swivel, again using a loop. As you can see the rig is very stiff, but it is this trying out of new ideas which helps you to grow as an angler, regardless of success or failure; you learn from both.

To this I tied on an 18mm Mega-fish boilie, using a bait band, which is a small rubber band, which makes it easy to position the boilie off the shank of the hook in any position you require, either directly under the bend or off the middle of the shank.

The third set-up was to consist of a standard hair-rig with a single 18mm Mega Fish boilie fished on the bottom.

By now, it was about 5.30pm and it would soon be dark. I had seen a few fish showing over many areas of the water, but non at this stage over my baited areas. After threading about 10 – 12 boilies on to 30cm of PVA string, it was wrapped onto the hook of the first rod and cast out to the area to the left. I over shot the baited area by about 2m, so quickly wound in a few turns of the reel, which brought it back on target within the freebies I sent in earlier.

The PVA string will dissolve within a minute of so and leave loose boilies around the hook bait.

The second rod was cast in without a stringer, just to see the reaction from the fish using just singles amongst the other loose boilies previously cast in.

The third rod was loaded with a PVA dissolving bag, into which went some chopped boilies, loose mega fish boilie mix and the entire terminal rig, including weight and hook link. I tied this at the top and cast this to the third pre-baited area. On feeling the bag land, I wound in little line, tightening up the set-up, ensuring that the rig on the bottom was lying correctly.

I checked the alarms and swinger settings one last time and then set about getting the rest of my things ready for the evening, should something happen during the night I wanted to have everything to hand so I wouldn’t be scratching around in the dark for things. The kettle also went on.

By the time I’d finished it was already 7pm, dark and over cast, and I’d knocked back a couple of cups of coffee and was already into half the sandwiches I’d brought along.

On short sessions like this, I don’t bring too much gear, just the essentials, for the night, a bite to eat and the brew making equipment, plus the small hip flask containing the medicinal OBS, especially on the chilly, and not so chilly evenings.

I normally just sleep in the back of the Venture if I can get close enough to the water or if I have to park further away, I sleep under a small tent which is quick and easy to assemble.

I’ve got a very good sleeping bag which is good down to –5ºC, and has seen many a snow covered night when camping and fishing in Europe during winter, so our mild winters by comparison are a fairly comfortable affair. The ever-present beanie, wellies and headlamp complete the night fishing essentials.

The clouds were still building up, and in the distance you could see the odd flash of lightning, lighting up the tree line on the far horizon. The water was still fairly active with fish being heard crashing on the water, which was mildly rippled by a breeze indicating that the storm would be coming my way sooner or later.

Things remained quiet, and I decided to turn in for the night, it was still early, about 9.30pm, but I was pretty whacked from the day.
I must have dozed off quite quickly because I woke to the sound of the Micron screaming and the familiar bait runner buzz as the line streamed off the reel to the left.

I picked up the rod, turning the double handle enough to disengage the bait runner feature onto the main drag settings and leaned into the fish at the same time, the combination of the two, setting the hook firmly into something decidedly fishy.
The fish upon feeling the added pressure turned and began kiting to the right crossing over the middle rods line, I wasn’t worried though as I knew the fish was well past where my other terminal set-up lay and there was no chance of becoming tangled.

I turned the fish quite easily and the fish was now coming in quickly, and I could see where the line entered the water, the boil of the fish turning told me that the fish was near the surface. The head was soon lifted and the fish came quietly to waiting landing net.

The combination “snowman” rig had done its job well and the hook was very well set in the lower lip of a beautiful Common Carp. The weigh scales were zeroed in earlier using a wet weigh sling, and the fish tipped the scales at 21lb or just over 9,5kg’s, not a huge fish but welcome all the same.

I always put the kettle on and have a brew after I’ve had a fish, just to sit and reflect on its capture and maybe jot a few notes down while it’s still fresh in my mind. So after releasing it back to the water, I sat with a steaming mug wondering if any more action would come my way, the time 10.20pm. The fish probably picked up the bait at around 10pm.

The rest of the session turned out to be one of those that you wished would happen more often, and no matter what you did, everything seemed to work.

The next fish came at, 10.45pm, a small 12lb, 2oz Common again to the left rod. At 12.45 the rain began and again the left rod went, this time to a 20lb 4oz Common.

On the re-cast of the rod, I missed my area completely, but decided to leave it out. The same rod went again at 3.00am this time with a 23lb 12oz Common. It was still raining and the last couple of fish had been reeled in quite quickly.

I was still busy drying my hands after the last capture when the middle rod went for the first time. The stiff rig! As I leaned into the fish I was careful when I played it because I really wanted to see how the fish had been hooked, and how the rig had performed, a fish had fallen to a 55lb stiff rig, I was amazed.

The fish did not take long to bring in and it was soon in the landing net. It weighed in at 19lb 10oz and was the first fish that I knew of to fall to such a heavy stiff rig. Its trial and error experimenting like this which just goes to show that no matter what people tell you there are always exceptions to the rules and who is to say those rules were correct in the first place.

I woke up at about 5am and again had the kettle on, checked the lines, all were in order, so I hadn’t slept through any takes, and I sat down and jotted a few notes of how the evening had gone.

While mentally replaying the early morning fish, the left hand rod went again, and again it was on the bait-runner. I had changed the bait over to Mega fish during the night because although catching any fish had been my main objective when I arrived the previous day, I felt that there must be bigger ones feeding if the smaller ones were and thought the fish meals would do the job.
This fish felt better than the others and in the morning light I could see much better now on how it was behaving. After a few last lunges, the fish was quickly in the net, but this one did look a much better fish. It tipped the scales 26lb on the dot. The time was 6am.

After about an hour there had been no more action so I fed up the last of the loose baits I had, into the various areas, which was about 3kg’s in all, which consisted mainly of fishmeal boilies.

At about 8.30am I began packing up the miscellaneous items that seem to get scattered around during the night and began drying out the weigh sling and landing net in the early morning sun. 8.45am another reel went, this time it was the middle rod, and the alarm was screaming non stop, a single high pitched note, told me the fish was running hard.

I set the hook firmly as with the other fish, but straight away, I could feel this was a better fish. The tackle though was well up to the task, and the bigger fish came easily to the net after a brief fight. A beautiful common, tipped the scales at 30lb 8oz or 14kg. It was the biggest fish of the session and what a session it had been, 7 fish, some small, but all welcome on such a spur of the moment outing as this, nearly all falling to the fishmeal boilies.

I decided that now was a good time to pack up, I still had work to do after all it was only Thursday and I had heard the cars on the nearby highway as people went off to work, since 6.30am already.

Leaving the rods until last, everything else was quickly loaded, and after I had already received two work related calls, my session ended, or so I thought.

One rod was packed away, when the rod to the right, which had seen no action the whole night, came to life. I was quickly to it and again another fish was on, another small one though this time, and it was soon on the unhooking mat, its late morning snack hanging from its lower lip. It weighed 17lb 8oz, almost half the size of the previous one, but another fish all the same.

An early winter session of 8 fish upto 30lb+, on fishmeal boilies, some on a 55lb stiff rig, and some caught in the rain. It just goes to show that trying out different methods and not sticking to the so-called rules can still produce the goods.