| Following this single fish things were again hard going. Steve was constantly, pardon the pun, ringing the changes. Two casts and something different was being tried. The only thing he didn't do was up his feed rate by changing the size of the feeder. " By using a small cage", he explained " I am putting feed out sparingly in a general area. There are a lot of small fish in here such as skimmers and roach that can attract bigger fish such as the carp to feed. A large bait, such as pellet, is not getting a response, so I believe that a large amount of feed won't get the carp to respond, little and often will be the better approach. Remember we are still winter fishing."
13.05 and Steve was again on the finer gear when the rod went round in a violent pull. Fish on and this time you could tell it was a better fish. Not a monster, they go 26lb in here, but never the less a better stamp. A short scrap later and a nice 5lb Carp was having its photo taken.
It seemed to be the order of the day that a single fish would be taken and then a lull, but Steve never stopped working. It is so easy to do nothing but moan when the fishing is hard and sit back and wait for things to happen, but as someone says on this site, you have got to 'Mek em ave it' (wonder who that could be?) and Steve was certainly trying very hard to do that.
An hour and five minutes passed by without another indication. He was now on a longer tail with a double pellet hook bait when the swim burst into life. The tip went round once more and another carp came to be unhooked on the bank side. Five minutes later and another was doing the same.
  
The action continued with a fish being taken every five minutes or so right until I called it a day at 3.05pm. In total Steve had taken 14 Carp ranging from 1 1/2lb to 5lb, in just under four hours. The day had been hard going to start with, but to some it would have been harder, I've no doubt about that. But Steve demonstrated that you get out of this game what you put in, sow the seeds and reap the rewards.
  
If things aren't going to plan keep working and trying different things. Eventually the fish will respond so don't give up. |
