Sussex Carp Fishing with Carp Girls' Elaine Taylor

Our most recent session at the beginning of February was a bit of a trip down memory lane for us. We went for a 24hr session at a local day ticket lake, which we used to fish on the odd day session over ten years ago. The lake is very picturesque and quiet, no big lumps to be had but the ambience of the lake is enough to enjoy.
Arriving in the rain we went for a walk round to decide where to fish. Not surprisingly, due to the weather, we had the lake to ourselves. Using M&B Contour Mapping we saved disruption and disturbance of a marker rod. I always like to have an idea of depth and bottom features whenever I fish, I feel more confident knowing even the smallest of information about my swim and spots, rather than casting at random, but we all have our own style and ‘pub chucks’ can often bring surprising rewards.

M & B Contour Mapping can be an advantage especially on short sessions. When you arrive at any lake, the decisions you make before you do anything will sometimes be ‘make or break’ for your session. We knew from the map that fishing at the island end of the lake was a definite no, too shallow for this time of year and weather conditions. This saved valuable time and we focussed attention on the areas that would be holding fish.

Daylight was fading and we were rushing to get sorted, we wanted to get some bait in the swim to draw the fish in while we could see the areas we wanted to be fishing. We decided to go for our own, new, mix of ground bait, we will definitely be using it again as it worked well. Sometimes the ‘old fashioned’ approach works best and it’s a shame that some modern day anglers and carpers can be fixed on boilies, (although on some waters the fish will only take a boilie).
By now after making up around 50 balls of ground bait, darkness had surrounded us but having the foresight that the fading light was going to beat us, we quickly made single casts on each rod with just a lead while we could still see, clipped up the line and remembered and focused on a land mark / treeline so we knew the direction we needed to cast back out to once dark. I do this because if you get a run you need to get your hook bait back out on the spot, the fish are now in the area and you don’t want to be casting randomly and fishing away from where they are feeding on your bait and where you have had runs from.

Having got the rods out, the rain had got heavier and was set to last for the 48hrs. We got dinner and went to sleep. Being awoken at 11:30pm by a small common, in the rain, was welcome the first fish of 2013. Although not a lump we knew the size of fish in the lake. I re cast back out on the spot and curled up in the sleeping bag. My alarm went again around 1:30am, another small common made it’s way into the net after a fight that far outweighed it’s size. I didn’t recast after this fish, a few hours of undisturbed sleep before daybreak would be have been welcome but I was woken by Debbie landing a slightly bigger small common at around 5am.

M&B Contour Mapping is a site developed by fishermen for fishermen, particularly aimed at a variety of anglers including those wanting to understand their local fishery. The system aims to save time by producing a detailed contour map showing water depths and main bottom features with the relative positions of swims. The rest as they say is up to you, the angler. M & B Contour Map Fishing spent time at the lakes to ensure that maps and information are both useful and accurate.