After a bit of a lay-off Mainline carper, Jim Wilson has been back to his syndicate water to enjoy yet more cracking results! Over to Jim:
"I arrived at my syndicate water mid Sunday afternoon having not been for to the lake for several weeks due to moving house, and boy did it feel good to be back out in the fresh air again.
On arriving I was surprised to find nobody else fishing, and the conditions didn’t look too bad either. I spent a good hour or so looking in some of the more favourable areas for the time of year, but didn’t see anything that had me racing to the van to fetch the gear, instead I fetched the brew kit and sat in a swim, which gave a good view over most of the pit.
By around 3pm I hadn’t seen much to inspire me and opted for a swim which has been really kind to me this year, and gambled on the same spots that hadn’t seen my bait since my last trip in August. I walked the lines out to the spots and set about baiting-up, which consisted of whole and chopped Mainline Cell and Hybrid. All-in-all I deposited around six to seven kilos around the three spots. I knew I had 48hrs at my disposal and the fish in this lake can hit beds of bait hard at this time of year so gambled a little.
I put my trusty little Stiff Hinge Rigs on two rods, with mini Milky Toffee pop-ups as the bait and razor sharp size 8 Choddy’s the chosen hook and the third rod was fished on a balanced bottom bait rig.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the following morning when I had my first action of the trip and landed an upper double stocky. I soon had the rod sorted and back on the spot and a few hours later the same rod was away with a low-twenty common. I was absolutely chuffed to bits with two bites on my first night back after such a break, and felt there was the chance of another.
Around midday with no further action I decided to top-up the spots and again baited quite heavily with chopped and whole Cell and Hybrid. This time leaving the rigs in the butt rings for a few hours to let the area settle, which is something I choose to do quite regularly.
Around 5pm I got the rods back out for the second night and it was midnight when I was first brought out of my slumber by a screaming pick-up - I made contact and unfortunately the hook pulled, and I was gutted but got a fresh rig on and got the rod back on the spot along with a few spods of bait just to top the spot-up.
Around half seven the following morning the same rod pulled-up tight and after an awesome battle I slipped the net under what was clearly a massive carp - once on the scales my thoughts were confirmed when the needle whacked round to 46lb 2oz! A new PB common and one of the ones I dearly wanted from the lake.
I popped her in a retention sling whilst a mate came round to do the photos and whilst sat having a celebratory cuppa one of the other rods pulled-up tight and after another awesome scrap another stunning common rolled over the net cord, this one weighing in at 35lb 12oz. What a welcome back!"
