Carp and Water Voles

I made 3 trips to my regular Essex fishery in 2012. Once in April, June and August. We later 2 trips, I fished with a friend and his nephew, we saw water voles which is always nice as they are not all that common these days.

On the first trip I had a few smallish carp and a few really nice bream. Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama Bream - Abramis brama

The second trip in June, there was a little more variety. Roach - Rutilus rutilus Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus Bream - Abramis brama Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio European Water Vole - Arvicola terrestris

The final trip in August was extremely wet and we fished it in thunderstorms. The fish were still feeding and we had a lot of really nice sized carp in the middle of the storm. Roach - Rutilus rutilus Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus F1 Carp - Cyprinus carpio x Carassius Bream - Abramis brama Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio Leather Carp - Cyprinus carpio

Catching up on Coarse fish

With about three quarters of the year now over, I wasn’t content with having only caught two species of freshwater fish for the year, so I decided to go to a venue to increase my count in a big way. My pick was Sussex fishery where I had caught 10 different species at last year and with a possibility of Golden Orfe and Catfish as well it was worth a trip and I knew it would probably be my last change for these this year.

The trip to the fishery is quite long for someone who relies only on public transport but is well worth it. After a lengthy train and bus ride and about 20 minutes hike through a nice little nature reserve, I went straight to the non-carp lake and starting fishing a float and sent a ledger to an island. The species starting flowing in, with Roach, Perch, Gudgeon, hybrids and Rudd coming onto the bank quite regularly.



European Perch - Perca fluviatilis



Gudgeon - Gobio gobio



Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus



Roach - Rutilus rutilus



Roach Bream Hybrid - Abramis brama x Rutilus rutilus

I had some cracking good roach and by lunchtime I had also added a nice Crucian Carp to the tally. All species so far had fallen to waggler floated maggots. The ledger wasn’t a lost cause though, pulling in a nice Bream and a Tench in the mid afternoon on hair rigged halibut pellets.



Crucian Carp - Carassius carassius



Bream - Abramis brama



Tench - Tinca tinca


Later in the afternoon, I had given up hope for an Orfe so I moved on to one of the carp lakes hoping to get a catfish. I fished with sardine flavoured catfood as well as maggots using both rods. First cast landed a nice looking skimmer bream, followed by a few perch, gudgeon and more skimmers. It went quiet for a little while and then the float just disappeared and I held on to dear life as a large underwater creature took my catfood on the end of my waggler rig with only 4lb of mainline. I was really hoping it was a catfish that took my catfood but after a 10 minutes of run after run, I had a nice 9lb 4oz Common Carp on the landing mat. The same thing followed for another 3 carp, a mirror, a leather and another common all around 6-8lb on the waggler as well.



Bream - Abramis brama



Gudgeon - Gobio gobio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Leather Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

After the 4 carp I felt I had caught enough of carp and so was happy hike back uphill to the bus stop. I had caught over 50lb of fish of 8 species, which so happens to be the total number of freshwater fish caught so far this year.

Carp and only Carp - Essex

It was mid September, and the only freshwater fish I had caught all year was a few tiny rudd back in March, so I wanted to add a few species to this dismal tally. The idea was to go to my good old favourite Essex fishery and fish the mixed lake since I knew that they had matches on the match lake on Sundays. Wrong, the mixed lake was also booked out for a match so I had to fish a carp only lake around the back. This was a little bit disappointing but I still had to get carp onto my year list so I started to fish. I decided that I might try the mixed lake when the match finished

As usual I used standard two rod combo. A semi-fixed rig fished with corn to the island and a waggler fishing corn or meat to the near bank. It wasn’t too long until I had my first fish, with a little Common Carp of about a pound. A few more did follow. These were probably the smallest carp I had ever caught.




Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

I said the previous few carp were the smallest I had ever caught, but I beat my personal worst with this fine specimen (of a goldfish). It must have been only a few ounces but you can still see the little barbules on them so definitely a common carp. It was almost time to move to the mixed lake, but finished with the best fish of the day so far with a little common at about 2lb. All of them had been taken on the waggler.



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio




Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

After a quick move to the mixed lake I setup in the exact same way. I had a few takes on the waggler but couldn’t convert any into solid hookups. Just before closing time, the bait runner started clicking and I wound into a nice little carp of about 3lb.



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

Having two rods seemed to paid off today with each method working on a different lake. The fish were all common carp but I had also doubled my year list for coarse species. I would have liked to have added a few more today but there's still time to get some more this season.

More Pike and Carp, Sussex

Since the previous trip I made here where I caught my first pike, my mate who originally put me onto this fishery had always wanted to catch and pike and to make use of his many lures that he had collected over the years but had never caught a fish on. So when we arrived at the fishery, we went straight onto the predator lake and plugged for the pike. A couple of hours went by and we hadn't had a pike but we and several follows and takes but no solid hookups.


White Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Red Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Bream - Abramis brama


Brown Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus

We decided to move on to the ornamental lake to take a crack at the goldfish and koi. Not much happened for a while and had a couple of missed bites. I did hook up on a few tiddly rudd which came off the hook before I could land them, no big loss. I then had a solid take which ended up in a beautifully coloured white goldfish. I think it may have been an albino, but it did have blackish eyes and a lot of orange on its body where there we no scales. Shortly after I a second goldfish which was a proper red goldfish with quite a long 'comet' tail. We decided to fish the main lake to get something better, so I set up a ledger and waited. I kept on getting tempted to fish the ornamental like with my float rod and pulled out several tench, goldfish, bream, rudd and two carp, a little 1lb ghost carp and a common of about 3lb. Unfortunately, no koi this time. My mate managed to get a decent 1lb goldfish from the main lake, but I was unable to hookup getting only several missed runs.


Tench - Tinca tinca


Ghost Carp - Cyprinus carpio


Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

After a while, get got a little bored and wanted to take another crack at the pike. I wanted to try to catch some decent carp or bream from the predator lake as we were told there were some nice fish in there. My mate persisted with the lures and managed to get a nice little jack of about 2lb. Not a very bit fish, but was beautifully marked compared to the one I had about a month ago. After that I tryed a little bit of spinning but wasn't very successful. I went back to fish a different corner of the main lake setting up a ledger and a float. Nothing much happened, I did have a few takes on the ledger, and lost either a small carp or a large goldfish on the float. I had the float rod in the water and walked up the bank for a chat. When I came back, the float was gone and I reeled into a heavy weight. After several minutes, I had a nice near double Ghost Carp in the net. I would say that it was a little under 10lb, the biggest ghost carp I had ever seen. A nice end to the day.


Northern Pike - Esox lucius


Ghost Carp - Cyprinus carpio