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Preparing for the Junior Carp Championships 2006 [Part 1]: - By Crazycarper

Seventeen minutes past eleven, Thursday 3rd of August, I'm worrying about the competition in less than two weeks time. After filtering the internet for every bit of information and tips about Linear fishery's Brasenose 1, it is looking more and more like RMC's Thorpe Lea. An action water, and a big one at that.

The competition layout is 50 competetors in each qualifier, with random swims, total weight of all fish caught and top 10 go through. So now I have to make a game plan, what am I going to do which will make me stand out from the crowd ?

Brasenose 1 is 32 acres in size with just over 3,000 carp, mostly mirrors, resident there. The articles and reports I have read present stories of mega hauls of carp in single day sessions, one of which reporting 514lbs of carp in 36 hours. Most of these mega hauls were taken by some sort of boilie with an accompanying PVA bag or mesh full of pellet.

So with only 2 rods allowed, I have my first rod sorted. For the second rod, I have decided a different approach will hopefully produce the goods, so there are a couple of options in mind.

- The first is a zig rig, or for those of you who don't know, an extended hair rig (usually about 3-6 feet in length), with a pop-up high-vis boilie cast into the same area as my other rod. With this I would be covering mutiple depths and catch the fish at whatever level they are cruising around. This was also reccomended by someone who knows the lake very well (no names lol).
- The second option is a piece of fake bouyant corn counter-balanced by a piece of fake sinking maize on the hair, and a PVA mesh bag filled with groundbait mix including, mainline fusion chopped boilie, sweetcorn, mainline fusion 2mm pellets, bird seed (tried and tested !) and heathrow baits nutty groundbait.
- And of course the other option is to use the boilie and pellet filled PVA bag the same as the first rod.

So now with the baits planned I can move on to a game-plan. Because I have never fished the water, and it is similar to Thorpe Lea, I am going to take exactly the same approach as I would at Thorpe Lea. This means getting myself into a rhythm and having everything organised so my fishing flows properly and without any distractions or complications. Using my invaluable marker rod to search for those ever important gravel bars and getting some feed and my rigs on it accuratly. After finding the gravel bar and placing the marker there, I plan to throw some balls of the groundbait mix around the marker to get that first carpet of bait down (I usually put balls of groundbait out first as it gives a cloud effect to the water which draws fish in so much quicker than just boilies or pellets, Danny Fairbrass inspired me with this). Then introduce pellets and boilies, and then finally the hook-baits.

So I have 9 hours and 49 other people to compete with, I think with a organised and strong game-plan I can qualify into the finals, or at least give everyone else a run for their money ! Thanks for reading everyone and will let you all know how it went !

Luke Thomas
Crazy_Carper

Despite still suffering the effects of a chest infection and subsequent muscle strain from coughing so much [god I'm getting old !!] I was determined to get out of the house, get some fun on my face and hopefully catch some fish. I decided to hook up with my mate Steve at his "local" venue, Manor Farm in Bedfordshire.

Manor Farm is set amongst 86 acres of grass and woodland, and as such attracts a wide range of bird and wildlife. The site currently has 5 lakes, a match canal and a stretch of the River Ivel made famous by local fisherman Dick Walker. They offer a range of types of fishing including a fly-only trout lake (Damsel Lake), an any method trout and mixed coarse fish lake (Becks Lake), a 2 acre mixed lake (Blunham Lake), a 4 acre specimen carp lake (Carp Lake) and a very popular specimen carp lake (Winters Lake) stocked in 2004 with fish from 18lb to 36lb.

By the time I dragged myself up the A1, the rain had already given way to clearing skies and Steve was already set up on Carp Lake. I chose the adjacent swim to him and set up a simple ledger rig using pva bags of crushed boilies and pellets with hair rigged boilies. I set up a splashing waggler on the second rod as there were plenty of carp showing up on the surface. Using banded pellets I reckoned we could be in for some fun

It soon became sadly apparent though that the resident carp had other plans. Neither of us had a bite or take in the first two hours. The bailiff lifted our spirits somewhat though as he explained that plenty were being caught on the neighbouring Becks Lake. As it truned out, one bloke had caught a few but despite lugging all our gear around to the new lake and perservering for a few hours, we still ended the day with nothing to show for it.

Hey, that's fishing I guess. If you've had better luck recently, why not send in the details to Fish South East or even send me some pics for the gallery.

Til next time, happy fishing!! Paul @ UK Fisherman