Carp Fishing- Gravel Pits

Carp. I've never had much affinity with them really. I enjoy fishing for them and I enjoy catching them, but that is probably because I feel like every one I have caught has been some kind of minor miracle! I have spent probably more blank hours after carp than any other species, scratching my head (and my arse) for days on end, wondering why I can't get them to take a bait. And then you get one and realise they are about as daft as every other wet fish on the planet... With several other species of fish, I always felt like lady luck has been on my side and I was always going to spawn out a few nice ones, but carp? Well I always feel like I should be doing better, but don't know how to!

It perhaps doesn't help in that a few of the places I have fished are pretty tricky at the best of times, and that in recent years quite a bit of the carp angling I have done has either been on gravel pits where I have no idea where the carp are, or on rivers where I'm never sure if there is a carp within 2 miles of my pitch. But nevertheless, every one of them that lands on the mat is very much cherished as a result!

Moonrise down t'pit.

Then I awoke to a Fenland pea-souper.

The early morning mist clears over a big gravel pit again.

"Come on... Give me a sign!!"

All the carp in Baston were the most beautiful, pristine fish- like this 26 pounder taken from literally inches under the rod tip in a weedy, overgrown corner.

This one in fact, where occasionally you could watch the carp swim under your rod tips, eat all your freebies, and then leave your hookbaits looking a little lonely.

Many of the nicest spots were tiny corners down at Baston Fen.

A really handsome 18lb Baston mirror that looked like it was carved from mahogany.

Another Baston fish- sometimes they were so dark you could hardly see them!

Still some of the prettiest Carp I've ever caught though.

Carl with a lovely 23 pounder from Baston.

And a low 20 mirror extracted from a hole in the bountiful weed.

Little it may have been, but the feisty little swine still ended up taffling itself up in a weedbed. So what are mates for? In I went and out came the carp...

... and Carl ends up with a lovely little Mirror Carp.

The carp halo finally slipped though.

Golden Balls with a Baston Carp on my first night on the lake. There were a few blank ones to come to make up for it though.

Baston Dawn.

A carper's dawn.

Finally managed one- a gravel pit 20 plus common.

A long range gravel pit capture.

Followed by another ugly sucker. The fish isn't much better.

And finally a 22lb mirror, and part of a catch including 3 twenties that night. If only all my carp sessions were as active.

Lovely day to be there. Not so hot for the carp getting their heads down though.

Showing off for the camera... and ten seconds later the rubber hooks came into play again and it fell off. Serves you right.

22lb Leather Carp taken tight to the margins of a distant island.

25lb 4oz. A rarity that weekend in that it stayed on the hook, since I only landed 3 from 9 takes. It's those bloody rubber hooks I will insist on using.

Trying to catch a carp from a big, wild pit in March. What was I thinking?

Though it could still be pretty at times.

Four shots in a row from a perfect dawn over a large gravel pit.

No. 2

No. 3

And finally No. 4 from a different angle. Just a nice spot, even if I did catch sweet chuff all as usual.

A 17lb mirror from Northey Park's Catfish Lake. Very pretty fish, and after the first time I tried to catch em there I had nearly convinced myself they were impossible, having had several fish feeding right over the bait with not so much as a twitch. Next trip, this one screamed off with a piece of plastic sweetcorn on a method feeder in 3 feet of water in bright sunshine... they obviously aren't as sharp as I thought!