Fishing report from: Jon, Dan, Ian & Steve

A fantastic week’s fishing with 2x 100lbs+ catfish, 3 x 40s plus a load of upper 30s!

This week we welcomed back brothers Jon, Dan & Steve along with their American cousin, Ian, who’d flown over just for this holiday. Jon & Dan visited us back in 2019 and had been itching to return ever since. As Ian and Steve are both relative novices as far as carp fishing goes they chose to book me for the tuition on Sunday. I’d already done a session with Jon and Dan last visit but they were eager to bring themselves up to speed with my latest tricks.

Off to a flyer

Ian is the first American angler we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming to the venue. Ian is a skilled angler in a variety of disciplines. With his job he’s a regular visitor to the UK and in recent years he’s invested in some gear that he keeps over here to save shipping it back and forth. His UK carp PB is already 32lbs and obviously he was hoping to top that this trip.

Thanks to our YouTube channel, Ian was very well prepared for the session. In fact, even before the tuition started, Ian was the first angler to put a fish on the bank when he landed the sturgeon within minutes of casting out… that’s how it’s done boys! The next morning he was the first angler to catch a carp which at 40lbs smashed his previous PB clean out of the park… What a way to start!

Carp park

It was easy to see where the majority of the carp were this week, they were almost lined up like buses round the rear side of the island. Jon was in island point which gives him exclusive access to this area so it wasn’t exactly  a surprise when Jon’s bobbins started to do the dance we all love. By Wednesday he’d had six carp from 28lbs up to 43lbs and was grinning like a cheshire cat. Can’t blame him really.

Channel hopping

Dan originally opted for the home swim hoping that the carp would move through the bridge and play ball down the shallows but after the tuition he decided to up sticks and get in the big double. It was a wise move! Dan really fancied tangling with one of our large catfish. He’d had a big one last trip but it didn’t break the three digit mark. By Wednesday he’d only had three fish but they weighed in at 97lbs, 108lbs and 124lbs! That’s crazy fishing.

With that box ticked he really wanted to catch himself a nice carp or two so I suggested a switch to particles and tigers. Literally 5 minutes after setting the trap with the bait boat he was in and what a corker: Scalpel at 38lbs! 

For our full Spring 2023 fish gallery, click here

Spinning around

Steve was under the weather unfortunately but he was determined not to let it stop him from enjoying his holiday and the boys were on hand to help him out where needed. Steve’s first carp was another cracker at 42lbs. He then hooked a decent catfish from close to the bridge. The zone in front of home swim and point ‘A’ is shallow, rocky with two large fixed obstacles, the aerator and the bridge. This is definitely not the place to be fishing for catfish and to be fair to Steve he wasn’t even trying for one but the cats do love Scopex Squid! By some miracle, the cat decided to head to deeper water rather than go through the bridge but this created another problem.

When the catfish was in open water in front of the big double, it is possible to play them from point ‘B’ but if they go further left towards Snake Bank, there’s a small clump of trees that separates point ‘C’ and ‘B’ that poses a problem. There were two options: take to the boat and resume battle from the water or climb around the clump of trees with the rod connected to the catfish. They chose that option and despite a few hairy moments, they successfully landed the 76lber from Ian’s swim, point ‘C’. As it was a true team effort, Steve and Ian agreed to share the honours on this one.

Rigs & Bait

Yet again Scopex Squid accounted for the majority of captures this week and the tigers proved again to be more selective at targeting the carp. Rigs were kept very simple and most were tied using the awesome size 6 Nash Chod Twisters and Armourlink. All the big cats were caught on these which goes to prove that you simply don’t need anything heavier.

Rigs were a combination of the blowback multi and my simple knotless knotted double bottom bait rig. Lead system was either the classic inline Beausoleil rig or a simple free running swivel arrangement. Perfect stuff! The guys only suffered two hook pulls all week which considering the catch list is a testament to their diligent approach.

Thanks for the memories!

It was a pleasure to welcome the boys to the venue. The week was filled with top quality banter and some brilliant captures by all the lads. We were truly spoilt for choice when it came to which photos to feature in this report so make sure you head over to the full gallery to see the rest of the captures. Congrats guys, great work!