Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

30 April 2008.

More carp off the top.

I've sort of got the carp bug. Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not sitting in a bivvy for weeks on end but at this time of year, on a nice, balmy, April day it's wonderful to spend an hour by the lake waiting for a carp to suck in your floating bread-bait.

Anyway, be that as it may, I had another go this week. The first place I chose was among some gorse bushes and it was a bugger to find anywhere to sit down (so I stood up). I lowered a crust under the rod tip and blow me down, five minutes later, down went the rod top and I was in. The fish was fat, partly scaled and only about ten pounds but it crashed through the reeds and generally rushed about before I managed to get it in the net.

As is my usual practice I moved on to another spot after catching the first fish. I baited up with a big lump of crust and this time I lobbed it across some reeds to keep the line off the water. As I waited (and waited and waited) another angler came past me carrying a carp in a sort of holdall. He was in a hurry to get to his pal's pitch on the other side of the lake. Anyway, ten minutes later, he returned - the holdall now empty, so I asked him about his fish. It had been 16lb 10oz - a cracker! I found out that the angler was a fishing friend of my pal Ben and we chatted away for a while before he returned to his pitch. By now my crust had been in the water for the best part of forty minutes and must have been getting distinctly soggy but I decided to wait a while longer. Good move! After a little while a nice fish came up and glooped it in, hooking itself in the process. Again there was a lot of crashing and splashing before I got it in the net but the barbless hook held well (they are good). this one was a beautiful, fat, fully scaled fish of over 18 pounds - wonderful!

Two bits of bread, two fish, lots of anticipation and excitement - I do enjoy carp fishing.

My first fish

A fine, fat, leathery little fish.

On the bank.

the hook still in but ready to go back.

My second fish.

Almost ready for the net.

Got it!

I like these scaly ones the best of all.