Mid-Summer in the Wilds of the Southern Shires

22 December, 2025 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

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Andy continues his Summer fishing after an epic session on Frimley’s famous pit 3. Can he continue his run of great form?

After the last session at Frimley, I was buoyed by success for exactly one week then, I was brought crashing back to reality with an emphatic blank on my next trip. I dropped into Fallen Tree for the first night but the only thing of note was a big red moon.

The fish had decided that they were in a no-show mood; which is a stage they seem to go through at some point each year. Many of us are sure they migrate for a month for a bit of a holiday.

There had still not been an obvious spell of spawning so we were still expecting this to happen in the near future. However, with hindsight, I think they had spawned quietly earlier in the spring as some of the big females were caught at post spawning weights.

After two blank nights with not a single clue of how to have made the trip successful, I skulked off, still expecting the fish to spawn and the lake to be closed.

The following week my wife had booked us a few days away in Northumberland so I had organised a full week off work. We packed up the car and pointed ourselves northwards for the long trip up-country.

We spent our first night away at Chatsworth in the Peak District, which still looks like something out of a period drama.

Before breakfast we had a wander around the village to stretch the dog’s legs and prepare her for the sausages she had been promised by the kitchen staff.

We were in the middle of the first heat wave we experienced this year, so we were out early and were surprised to see an elderly couple tending their garden already, I assume as it would be unbearably hot by 09.00.

We had a chat with them over the garden wall and they epitomised the adage that Northerners are more friendly.

The conversation turned to the number of Swallows and Martins flying around and they invited us in to see the Swallow nest in the lean-to, next to their back door.

There, at head height, five expectant heads were looking at us waiting for an insect laden parent to return. It was a fantastic way to start our day.

After breakfast we continued on our northern trajectory with a sausage filled hound asleep on the back seat. A few hours later we reached our ultimate destination Alnmouth a lovely little village with miles of sandy beaches, on the shores of the North Sea.

We had a few days exploring the local beaches and castles that were sadly, not as quiet and deserted as they were the last time my wife had ventured here.

After two days of looking at hordes of open-toed sandals, borne by retirees with more fungal nail disease than any man should be exposed to in one lifetime, we decided to head home with a detour which was my favourite part of the trip.

We boarded a boat to the Farne Islands and spent a couple of hours being expertly ferried around this nature reserve. The main aim was to see puffins; we saw so many of them that we became almost blasé by the end of the trip.

With Kittiwakes galore, Gannet, Grey Seals and Guillemots aplenty we had a really great trip, a few Razorbills and Sandwich Terns on the trip back to shore capped off a perfect ornithological smorgasbord of sightings.

We made it back to the civilized South on Wednesday evening so I had the option to do a few extra nights carping. Frimley has a 48hr rule and as I had been sure that spawning would be on the agenda while we were away, I had planned to spend four nights on the Kent coast.

On the Friday morning, I got up really early made some strong coffee and headed to a club lake I have written about previously in the Romney Marshes, a stone throw from the beach.

I arrived to a quiet lake as it was still early, only a couple of anglers present, and did a few laps looking for a plot to drop into.

There were a few fish showing randomly around the lake but no-where seemed to have more fish present than anywhere else. On my second lap I heard a bird singing from the telephone wire that crosses the access road to the lake.

I didn’t recognise the song and couldn’t see the bird clearly enough with my ageing eyes to identify it.

On my phone I have an app called Merlin that I would encourage everyone to get. It is a bird song identifying app, which is really reliable and accurate and tells you what you are listening to.

We spend a long time on the bank and being able to identify the various bird songs that surround us greatly enhances my trips.

The reason I didn’t recognise the birds call soon became apparent, it belonged to the super rare Corn Bunting, which I hadn’t seen or heard previously.

The next day it returned to this perch so with the aid of binoculars I got a great view of it as well as hearing it. I decided to start on the car-park bank on the end of the SW wind that was pushing down the lake.

It was an area I hadn’t fished before but a little time with a marker float I identified a plateau at around 40m from the bank that was 6ft deep, with 9ft of water around it.

All three rods were positioned in a line on this feature and a bucket of bait was made up.

With the water temperature being up I had started to incorporate some oils in my ground-bait mix, mainly hemp oil and garlic oil but also some krill oil that I had recently discovered in the Dynamite Catalogue.

A base of Milky Mixed Particles and Betaine Swim Stim pellets was enhanced with krill liquid, crab extract and fish gutz.

This was all mixed together with Swim Stim margin mix ground-bait, balled up and slung into the lake using a method-blaster.

This is an efficient way of getting a-lot of bait out quickly an 11 litre bucket around 100 spombs worth was happily bubbling away on the lake bed within 20 minutes.

At around 17.00 it became evident that I had made a mistake fishing this lake over a weekend as the 8-acre lake began to fill with anglers. Eventually every swim was taken and I even had someone in a little gap to my left that wasn’t even a swim a mere 5m from my rods.

The general etiquette of these carpers was pretty poor and leads were crashing about all over my swim. I felt really hemmed in and claustrophobic, I am not sure how people get enjoyment from fishing when it’s this crowded.

The banks on this lake, being so close to the sea, are fairly devoid of trees so it felt like everyone was pretty well sat in my lap.

The guy 5m from me turned out to be a nice enough fellow, ex-forces with some interesting stories but, when you can clearly hear someone snoring all night it detracts from the solitude that makes carp fishing so important to me.

I had my first take at 22.00 a blisteringly fast affair that is characteristic of most of the bites I have had from this lake. The fish fought like a demon and refused to give in, managing to pick up one of my other lines.

After some swearing and grumbling I managed to bundle the 18lbish linear into the net.

I had left the camera gear in the car so just took a quick mat shot with the phone and slipped the lovely looking fish straight back into the lake.

The takes were fairly regular through the night and another four carp succumbed to the paste-wrapped bottom baits, the last one coming at 04.00.

A few Bream and Tench interspersed with the carp through the night meant that by morning I was pretty well wiped out.

The trouble was that the heat wave was still persisting; so by 10.00 my bivvy was like an oven, my weather station recorded a temperature of 55⁰C in the sun.

I, therefore, tried to sleep on the now dry un-hooking mat pushed into the only shade I could find under a small bush. The wind that was blowing into my swim keeping the temperature down the day before had petered out, removing the comfort it had provided.

The extensive reed-beds that surround the lake are beautiful but provide scant little protection from the blazing sun.

As the suns angle dropped a little in the afternoon, another bucket of bait was made up and deposited on the plateau in a ‘just press repeat’ sort of way.

Nothing happened during daylight but as soon as it got dark the feast of Dynamite Bait laid out for these fish worked its magic and another five carp and numerous bream found their way over the net-cord.

All the carp were lovely scaly beasts, a few showing heavy damage from their recent spawning activities, they seem to spawn in the snags on this lake smashing themselves into the woodwork.

The largest again maybe just over the 20lb mark. I normally love the occasional session I do at this lake but, with it being this busy, I was hating it.

There is usually a plethora of wildlife to see when I am here but even the usually raucous bird song was drowned out by farting and belching anglers all with radios playing crap music.

The only thing I had seen so far was a rat so big it would have had Andy Mackie screaming from a’top a bucket and just about the ugliest Greylag gosling ever to grace these shores.

I was the only one having bites so that morning it felt like I was under siege as leads rained down from all around the lake.

Finally, Sunday evening signalled a mass exodus and peace began to descend on my surroundings. Just as the light was starting to fade, I saw a large Bird of Prey glide over the far bank bushes.

It had disappeared before I could get the binoculars out but I thought it may have been a male Marsh Harrier.

The swim was re-baited with another bucket of bait deposited on the plateau and the evening wait for action started again.

The first bite was earlier than previously and a lovely 20lb linear was safely guided into the net at just after 20.00.

The rest of the night was fairly constant action, where hardly an hour seemed to pass without some buzzer activity. Another five carp were landed amongst a hatful of bream and tench.

By morning I was utterly spent, could hardly remember my own name and had the beginnings of a migraine develop. For the first time ever, I decided to pack up early.

I had had enough, how the boys fishing carp matches manage to continue working for bites is beyond me, I will stick to my mediocrity and catch a fish a month.

It does show that on these busy well stocked waters, if you are prepared to put in a good hit of bait and do it at the right time of year, post spawning the fish can be very catchable.

My migraine meds had kicked in enough to allow me to drive home safely but the lake had one more treat in store for me before I left.

Above the far bank bushes a pale coloured big Bird of Prey seemed to float into view.

This time I got a great view of what was a female Marsh Harrier, so I am fairly certain the one I saw the day before was the male of the pair. This capped off what had been a different trip but still provided some great memories.

By the 1^st July the Frimley fish still hadn’t obviously spawned and the lake had remained open. Never one to, ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’ I was heading to Hampshire for my usual 2-night trip.

My initial walkabout revealed a desolate barren fish free desert. Not a fish was seen in any of the bays and the snags were all devoid of carp.

On returning to where I had started Deep Point, some bubbling became evident so with little else to go on I plotted in here to start with.

My first night was action-free but with the lake still looking lifeless and with other anglers dotted around the lake I stayed put.

This lethargy and inactivity was rewarded when, the rod fished in Barry’s hole was away at 03.00. This spot was first discovered by Barry Hearn and has been a productive area for a few of us in the know.

In all honesty, I like having a bait there just so I can say ‘I have chucked one up Barry’s hole’.

The night was still and close, the slow ticking of the clutch as line was begrudgingly relinquished was amplified by the surrounding bushes while I struggled into chesties, then waded into the shallow margins.

The fish fought on the surface, the deep echoing booms as its tail slaps powered it away from me, created a warm anxiety in my chest.

The intensity of these battles in the dark, where time slows and silent prayers are flung skywards begging for a successful outcome make for indelible memories.

This one battle meaning so much more than the fifteen the week before. The pressure gradually drew the fish away from the numerous lily beds that litter the area.

The heavy wallows got closer, the sloshing echoes seemed to get louder and deeper, the dryness in my mouth becoming more intense as my vision narrowed, concentrating on the square foot of water that was filled with swirls.

I was greeted by the sight of a plethora of dark-brown scales as I switched on my head torch. Thankfully by this stage she was just about done so went pretty well straight into the net.

Before long I was smiling away doing self-takes of this dark chocolaty 36.10lb common, my lucky hat still working its special magic.

I had altered my ground-bait mix just a little, adding Big Fish Mega Margin mix ground-bait to the usual Swim Stim Margin Mix. It seemed a little smoother and balled up nicely, but I have no idea if it made and difference to the capture.

As Deep Point is close to the ‘House of Commons’ I had a steady stream of people stealing my tea through the following day as we received the miserable news that Charlie’s Mate had died and been buried after being found by one of the bailiffs.

At over 50 years of age the old girl had made many an anglers dreams come true.

She hadn’t been caught for best part of 12 months so we had been worried that all may not be well with her.

I have photographed her for a few people but hadn’t managed to catch her myself, the possible loss from the year before, the closest I have come.

Frimley for me has never been about Charlie’s Mate and the whole target type mentality I find a bit annoying.

I can understand that going to a lake you have a certain fish that you would like to catch but ultimately unless you can stalk that fish it’s a lottery as to which one picks up the hook-bait.

With so many big beautiful fish in Frimley, I just want to catch them all and hopefully at some point I would shine a head torch into a net and find her nestled within its folds.

The following week Mark closed the lake for a week to allow some work to be done and for me to get the dive kit on and get some of the lilies removed. Two bottles of gas and a few hours of graft saw a load of lilies uprooted and removed.

It took hours to wash all the silt out of my kit but the pile of lilies now residing on the bank was quite substantial. As Frimley was closed, this was the ideal time to do my first session on my new syndicate.

It was quite a revelation arriving at any point rather than having to time my arrival to a crossing time.

I was settled into a swim in the NE corner with a gentle breeze pushing in towards me.

All three rods were positioned down to my left staggered out from the margins to 15m from the bank. The lake is not super tough to get a bite from but can be moody.

I had chosen well though and I was one fish to the good before supper, a pristine 22lb common. The fight was an insane high-speed affair the fish refusing to give in.

The Doc popped in for tea and biscuits after a hard day playing golf, so he was on hand when my next run occurred.

The 15lb mirror was beautiful but smaller than the general stamp of fish for the lake.

In the winter the lake had been netted and everything below 23lbs was removed.

That night while walking up the bank it looked like someone had scattered isotopes everywhere; I have never seen so many glow-worms they were as far as the eye could see.

I had been asleep for a few hours when I was dragged awake by a protesting Delkim, the middle bait had been stolen.

The weather had stilled and the flat calm surface of the lake reflected the star filled night-sky, the surface only troubled by the deep, inky swirls generated by the hooked fish.

As with the others, this carp was fighting like a demon and it was a full 20 minutes before she was within netting range

Eventually after plenty of effing and jeffing from yours truly an out-sized mouth, coughing water, slid towards the spreader block. Even with it kissing the spreader block I had to shuffle the net to get this long fish to fall into the mesh.

At 31.07lbs the super lean athletic looking common, didn’t have an ounce of fat on it.

This was the last of the action for the session so, by the following lunch-time I was heading home my first trip chalked up as a success.

That evening my wife brought home what was destined to become my next great love affair, a baby swift.

It had been found on the ground and taken in to her surgery so we started a round the clock regime of hand-rearing this little ball of black feathers.

The swift numbers have been declining for years so each individual is important, the difficult bit is you need to get them re-habilitated and released in time for them to get to Africa, you cannot take your time and look after them for the winter as, when they are ready to fly, they just stop eating as a protest.

We spent the next few weeks feeding this demanding, screaming little monster wax-worms, locusts and crickets all the time falling completely for her cute little feet and big expressive eyes.

She was getting towards being released but one of her wings had really poor primary flight feathers, then disaster struck as she managed to snap these feathers through their weak points.

I initially tried to use her own feathers to repair them but this didn’t work she couldn’t fly.

I contacted a swift rescue group who store the bodies of dead swifts for just this purpose. What I did was use the donor feathers from the dead swift to recreate the wing on my very much alive swift.

This is a process called imping which in birds of prey is relatively easy in a bird as small as a swift it is more challenging.

I broke up an old carbon baiting pole section to give me some sections of carbon to make implants that are pushed into the donor feather shaft and the remains of the feather on the wing.

These have to be filed and sanded down to be small enough to fit snuggly inside the feather shaft, then using an epoxy resin, glued in place.

This creates a join that is strong enough to with-stand the forces of flying but light enough to not unbalance the bird. When she moults next year, the feather will just drop out as normal.

The repair went well so we took her to a local steep hill so she could get airborne easier, then without a backward glance or a thank-you Taylor (obviously wife’s choice of name) flew strongly away.

My wife and I were ecstatic but knowing that she needed to get to Africa with her new wing, some trepidation was mixed in with the joy.

Lou (wife) must have been overly emotional as while walking the dog after Taylor’s successful release she described our 25-year marriage as ‘perfectly fine’.

When recounting the story to Adam he thought she was being overly gushy as he has described her as Granite in the past ‘not born quarried’.

That weekend Mark the owner of Frimley had organised for a few of us to go to Brands Hatch as he sponsors a motorbike race team.

We spent a noisy day, watching high speed bikes hurtle around the track, the highlight being, one of the Frimley Team riders managed to win.

I therefore had just the one night available to fish so decided a trip to my new syndicate was called for.

On the trip down while going through the narrow lanes leading towards the fishery, about a mile from the entrance, I rounded a corner and was confronted with a male peacock, bold as brass stood in the middle of the road.

The locals that live near the lake are obviously a bit bougee, I thought on my last trip I had heard one but I was a mile from the lake, they either travel further than I realised or lots of the locals have them.

The fishing this trip was a bit disappointing, just a single bite that resulted in a 5lb mirror confirming the winter netting had definitely missed more than they realised.

The beginning of August saw me heading west again on the Sunday afternoon for my allotted 2-nights of angling at Frimley.

There was a bit of wind this week and this, combined with some fish showing in the area encouraged me to plot up in Fox Point for the night.

As the evening progressed a few fish started to show down to my right in Fox Corner, I should have moved straight away but as I was prevaricating Carl arrived and dropped into this generally unpopular swim.

That evening he had a take from a fish that came straight in, a substantial common was soon engulfed in the net. At 44lb this was a significant fish and initially neither of us recognised it.

However, before long we realised we were looking at Charlie’s Mate the recently departed Queen of the Lake. For a dead-un she was looking ok – just 12lbs down in weight.

She had obviously been ill but hopefully, will now make a full recovery, the big question is, which fish got buried behind the lodge, maybe it’s Clarrisa. I have suggested that just due to my veterinary skills, me walking past its grave has given it the power of re-animation.

The following week I was again heading to the lake. I had organised my time off much better this summer so have managed more time fishing. I am just really lucky to have a very understanding wife.

The weather was settled and warm, ideal conditions for The Lawns, so it was here I set up my temporary home. The first night passed uneventfully apart from an onslaught of mozzies as soon as the sun lowered in the sky.

Luckily, I had used a tin of mixed particles in my mix so made a smoker again. This kept the blood thirsty little buggers at bay but all my kit had a bonfire smell to it by the end of the session.

A busy lake and little in the way of fish showing kept me in The Lawns for a second night. This proved to be very fortuitous as at 01.30 the tree-line rod dragged me from a warm bag.

Sadly, my tackle was found wanting and after 30 seconds of maximum side-strain the fish had begrudgingly come away from the wood-work when, disaster struck, the 30lb hook-link let go.

The end looked frayed and damaged so maybe the fish had found something sharp and abrasive, losses are hard to handle when getting a bite in the first place is so difficult.

I was still sulking and feeling sorry for myself a couple of hours later when a little before 05.00 as the dawn sky was beginning to lighten the close in right hand rod roared off.

Panic and drama erupted as I scrambled to get a hand on the bouncing carbon. The speed of that first run was insane and I was certain a Tuna had been dropped into the Hampshire gravel pit.

Eventually the fish slowed enough for me to get into the chesties and clamber into the margins. This few seconds of respite disappeared; I was stood in the shallow margins hanging on to the rod for dear life as this jet-propelled lunatic of a carp tried to pull it from my hand.

As it swam past me it didn’t look very big – a common of around 18lbs.

I therefore crammed the pressure on a bit more than I normally would; this had zero effect on the fish.

Time after time it just charged off at unbelievable speed, slamming the rod tip down as it took off – it was a very unique battle.

Eventually this adrenaline junkie of a carp ran out of steam and allowed itself to be engulfed in the Frimley net.

It took a bit more lifting than I was expecting, the Reubens stopping at a weight of 26.08lbs much more than I had originally thought.

This was the last of the action for the session but Frimley had one more surprise in store for me, I had the merlin app running monitoring the bird song going on around me, when I heard a call, I didn’t recognise.

Looking at the phone screen it said it was a Spotted Flycatcher, a lovely rare summer visitor that I have never seen before.

I was scanning the surrounding trees when, a in a shaft of sunlight, perfectly illuminated, the bird performed its iconic flit from a branch to catch a flying insect.

It amazes me how many exotic avian visitors we get to this little triangle of land sandwiched between railway lines, dual carriage ways, housing estates and an airport. Last year there was even a Redstart around singing, which I sadly didn’t actually see.

The following week I was yet again pursuing my selfish obsession that is carp-fishing, this would be my last trip for a few weeks which always focuses the mind a little.

No sign of any carp life in the pond made swim choice difficult but for the first night at least I dropped into Daisy Bay.

Nothing of note happened through the night or the next morning which left me a little despondent, not a single fish sighting anywhere on the lake, most of which I could see from my swim, did little to encourage a move.

Just after 15.00 the silent buzzers decided to reward my patience (or apathy) with a high-pitched warble, the right-hand bait had been stolen.

The fish had gone right into the edge of the pads I was fishing alongside, steady pressure had the line squeaking and protesting as the fish was pulled clear.

I was soon in chesties and waded out when Tom and Mark drifted into my swim. I did my best to concentrate on the job in hand while Bevis and Butthead started their repertoire of vet-based abuse and flung it in my general direction.

The fish was soon on a short line and was clearly a large-scaled mirror, it wasn’t big but looked amazing, its scales opened as it flexed and turned in the relatively clear water.

Before long I happily lifted the net around what was a stockie from last year, a beautiful Leney that Mark had bred in his stock ponds. At 11lb-ish it wasn’t huge but I was more than happy to be looking for a spot to take its photograph.

Tom stayed for tea and managed to drain my stock of teabags to a level that meant I had to introduce rationing for the rest of the trip. While he was sat in my swim, he took the piss out of just about every item of tackle I own. Then he spied the magnet I use to hold the teaspoon to my gas-canister, this is the only time a positive comment emerged from his acerbic lips.

Nothing happened over-night and my pack up was brought forward slightly due to the lack of teabags. Just after 12.00 I was beginning to get the kit broken down when the middle-rod started to bend and bounce in the rests.

The usual dance of dragging the fish into the deep channel while getting into chesties was performed. Before long after another hard battle the 22lb common became the last fish of the session and enforced angling break.

A thoroughly enjoyable trip again which would sustain me for the few weeks of six days a week shifts at work.