An Unforgettable Year in Carp Fishing

Rejoining Trakker as a Consultant

Hi everyone, I’m sorry I’m a bit late with this blog. I have had a really busy year for a number of reasons, one being, I am really pleased to be with Trakker as a consultant in the past. I was a Trakker consultant for over 10 years so it was nice for them  to invite me back to work together, and we hit the ground running with many films being made.

I also set up Warwick Baits – a bespoke specialist hook bait company that I am building with my son Guy and he’s learning the ropes from me.

Despite this I have had a fabulous year with many notable captures and some truly magical times especially with my two sons, that really is something special.

We had an amazing series of sessions on a Northern club water which whilst being quite a big water has a good stock of the most magnificent looking carp.

We decided to bait heavy  with  hemp, which I find easily the best when used as fresh as possible, preferably still hot.Sweetcorn, mixed small pellets 2/3 and 4 ml.

Chopped boilies for hook baits – we used either yellow or orange wafters or double plastic corn.

Guy being young and keen, spombed relentlessly for the whole 48 hours including at night ( a huge edge on most waters). 

It went incredibly well;  we had 26 carp to upper 20’s with 18 over 20lb not that it matters – it was just great sport.

Then I returned to my Cheshire syndicate that I had avoided for a good few month as I like to leave it in busy spells and try new venues.
After much success on very fresh hemp, I decided to follow the same route on my return to the syndicate. I used the hemp, sweetcorn, mini boilies ( MB baits P1 ) food bait. Pellets mixed small, 2,3,4 ml and Chopped boilies.

I spombed quite heavy over all 3 chosen spots spending about 30 minutes getting each spot accurately baited. I was very conscious I may have blown it as by this time of the year the carp had been quite pressured, and the noise might well spook them.My fears were allayed the following day when I caught an 18lb stockie mirror.

That was better but  then it went quiet, on the syndicate it’s a 48-hour limit so as I neared 46 hours, I thought I’d blown it when my middle rod which was locked up solid, fishing to the thick lily pads gave a series of bleeps as the tip cranked over alarmingly. I pulled into the culprit and for the next 20 minutes had the most ridiculous mental scrap from a carp that I will never forget.

It was one of my target fish the very rarely seen BBQ common it weighed 40.10 and was simply perfect.

As I was doing the self-take shots and nearing the end of the sequence I had another take on a remaining rod. I carefully but swiftly returned the big common and lifted into this new fish, after another heart wrenching tense scrap, I netted a huge common that I recognised as “Jimbo” and it looked massive.

The next trip was a late July early August road trip to Italy to the stunning Ghost Park lake.
It’s around 40 acres in size I was there in a group of 14 friends. Guy and I got a good draw and got one of our top 3 choice swims, so we were happy.
I have to say the trees we had in our swim were an absolute life saver. Most days it was 37 or 38 degrees and at midnight it was often over 33 degrees!