By Craig Parkes

I have always believed that the more time spent on the bank the better. Not only because you obviously have more hours and chances to hook and land fish but because you will constantly learn from your failures, successes, blanks and pb’s. In fact, the session previous to this one ended in a nightmare. I fished two different swims with not a single bleep resulting in a 4 day blank. The ride home then ended with a broken car transmission costing $3000 (2000 british pounds). The car trouble was annoying, but not once during that session did I complain because it was all useful reconnaissance work, with the log book getting a lot of notes on a 50,000 acre water I had never fished before. When trying to single out the larger fish in venues like that one you have to be mentally prepared to fish all year for one bite, but 40lb carp and a 50lb plus state record fish is always possible. Having experienced 6 months of American carping and the brilliant madness of abundant 20lb+ fish it was time to let the alarms keep quiet until that special lump came along to visit. Experience has shown me that the carp gods reward effort and time spent chasing those sought after beasts…..eventually. This I am happy to say was one of those sessions, the type of session that you want to go out and experience again and again.

Now I am not saying that the amount of time on the bank beats quality of time, far from it. In fact, my first USA 30lb fish (33lb and 31lb brace) came on a short morning session before work, in a swim where I had fished several long weekend sessions with only fish to 25lb to show for my efforts. When targeting the bigger fish in America (fish over 30lbs) I believe it is time on the bank that is often needed to get through to these bigger fish, in addition to a quality bait and a touch of luck of course. My experience of catching 30lb+ fish in the UK was down to fishing lakes that actually contained fish of this size and trying to fool heavily pressured carp in taking an effective rig. However, in America the problem I find is that there are so many fish weighing less than 30lb that often the bait is not in the water long enough for the bigger fish to find it. It seems rather blasé to complain about catching ten 20lb+ carp in one day, but I prefer quality and size over quantity. You also have the problem that many of the lakes containing huge fish are larger than some European countries and so where and how do you find them? So, having recovered (both financially and emotionally) from the blank session a few weeks earlier it was time to get back out on the bank in search of the donkeys!

I had visited a new swim on a different 50,000 acre lake for the first time a few days earlier, taking about ten fish between to 25lb in 24 hrs. Two things we learned were that day. 1. The chod rig gave me extra confidence in the heavy scattered weed. 2. I could not really over feed these fish. They were about a month away from spawning and feeding heavily in the shallow bays, so I was consistently using around half a kilo of boilies per hour as freebies. I had been signed as a consultant by Dynamite Baits a few weeks earlier and had managed to get hold of some pineapple carptech and banana nut crunch boilies, and boy did these fish love the bait. Many of these fish have never seen angler’s baits, yet alone boilies, but they switched onto them instantly. My second visit to this swim saw the fish go absolutely mental for the bait, with around fifteen kilos being used in a 24 hr period.

Chod Rig

This was the first time I had really needed to experiment with the chod rig and it was extremely effective both in presentation and hooking ability. Rigs were tied up with a stiff 25lb mono, with a rig length around two inches long. This ran on a ring swivel up a 3ft length of leadcore.The top bead was pushed up the leader to allow the rig to be fished as high up on the weed as possible and also ensured the bead did not have far to travel off the leader for fish care reasons. Hooks were kept super sharp by filing them down with a file and stone after each fish. Once the hook point was either too short or too blunt the rig was binned for a new one.

Baiting Approach

I was fortunate enough to have around 20 kilos of boilies in my car so that I could constantly spread baits out over the swim to get the fish active and searching for food. The baiting approach was to initially fish a handful of carptech pineapple boilies over each rig and top it up after each fish. As the session developed more fish entered the swim and catches increased so I increased the bait I put in after each fish. Half way through the session fish were coming thick and fast. I was then baiting up whenever I was not busy playing, landing and photographing fish or tying new rigs. Basically, if my hands were free then a few handfuls of bait went out with the stick. This often spurred fish into feeding, as several times a rod would fire off just as bait was being spread over that area. (A wide range of Dynamite baits can be bought online at Big Carp Tackle (http://www.bigcarptackle.com/store/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=49).

 

Bite Detection

Lines were fished semi-slack so as to not pull rigs back down into the weed. When a fish moved off after being hooked on the chod I rarely got a screaming take, unless the rig hit either the bottom or top bead as the fish took off. What was happening with many bites was that fish would kite right or left a few feet to find sanctuary in the weed beds. Single bleeps would tell me to watch the bobbin, which would then let me know if I had a fish on or not. Most of the fish I hooked came to striking a single beep and a lightly twitching bobbin.

First Night Action

A couple of hours into the session, just as it went dark I had the first couple of bleeps. After a ten minute battle up popped a fish much bigger than anything I had seen in this swim so far. The scales settled at 32lb exactly and the wild fish was in absolutely immaculate condition. It was one of my finest ever catches to date.

Around midnight I retreated to bed because of a huge storm and torrential rain that had come in from the west. I was told by a guy who knew the swim well that this weather may suck now but that it should make tomorrows fishing excellent. He was to be proved right. The odd fish came through the early hours of the morning but nothing really worth a picture. However, I did spend a few minutes after each fish topping up the bait in the swim to hold the fish there. The wind had blown huge clumps of loose weed into the bank and it was clear the fish had followed the wind as they were crashing closer to the bank. I could see and hear the odd fish crashing out near to my rigs as the storm died down. About 7:30 am I had a couple of bleeps that made me jump out of bed and got me staring at the bobbin. A couple of twitches were enough evidence for me to hit it, and when I did all hell broke loose. The fish ran for about 40 yards flat-rodding me and then jumped clear out of the 3ft deep water, head, gut and tail all flying through the air like a dolphin. The fish now 80 yards away and in low light conditions looked absolutely huge as it leaped out of the water. Having already landed a 32lb fish in the night I knew this was a special fish. I don’t honestly remember too much about the fight, except praying several times that the hook would stay putt. About ten minutes into the fight the fish popped up about 20 yards out and took a big gulp of air. Its mouth was bigger than any carp I have ever seen! My knees began to shake, and although the fish had no fight left in it bringing the sheer weight and width of it that last few yards was tough and seemed to take an eternity. Eventually it waddled into the net and being quite modest I said it was probably a mid to high thirty and a new USA PB. The panic and excitement probably stopped me from being a bit closer with the weight because peering into the net I knew I had never seen such a wide fish. This thing seriously needed a saddle on its back.

I let the fish sit in the net to recover while I set about organizing the sling, scales, camera etc. Just as I was about to lift the fish out of the lake my middle rod started to run so I set about fighting another carp. This one also looked to be a good fish, and although I was convinced I had a 40lb/30lb brace it fell just short at 27lb. This fish was almost the same length as the forty, which highlights just how wide the big kipper was. The scales settled on 40lb 6oz and boy was I ecstatic. I was also pleased to provide Dynamite Baits with a great report in such a short space of time, only my second session with the new baits. The 24 hr session ended with a 40lb, a 32lb, ten fish over 25lbs and 12 fish over 20lbs. I will be keeping you regularly updated on my autumn and winter fishing, where I will be driving 16 hr weekend round trips to try and bag some of the rare USA 30lb and 40lb mirrors.

Get on the Dynamite……Boom!!!

Craig “Brit” Parkes