18 May, 2023 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

Ian Russell’s Diary April 2023

Another incredibly hectic month of fishing, and filming saw Ian visit venues in Essex, Oxford and France! Read below to find out how his April unfolded…

Ian says…

What a hectic month April has been for me. it started off with Andy Mackie and I attending Two Open Days at Essex’s Outlaw Pro and Farlows Fishery. I have to say both days were brilliant and we got chatting to so many fellow anglers and the interest in our new Hot Crab & Krill range was amazing to see.

So onto the angling part of April. I managed to fish the last night of my RK ticket on my favourite W1 venue and even managed a 29lb mirror.

This 29lb W1 mirror kicked-off Ian’s April in style!

I’ve not spent much time really this past year on W1 because of work but hopefully the new ticket will see me put a bit of effort in on there.

Next was a short four-day visit to Blue Dart Fishery in France with Andy Mac and Adam Whittington. We flew over as the fishery supplies all your tackle if so required and it’s all top end tackle I can assure you.

First impression of the fishery is just how beautiful the area its situated in is. The lake itself is nothing short of stunning with a some small islands and at the deeper end a dam wall which you can fish too.  Myself and Adam chose to fish at opposite ends of this Dam wall and Andy fished long onto the shallow part of the lake.

Andy was first away with an impressive 50-plus mirror – wow what a start! His second take came soon after and this turned out to be a 40-plus mirror, so we were celebrating almost straight away!

The trip went well with all three of us taking a good stamp of fish and being looked after royally as well . Whether it’s a short fly over trip or a week’s fishing in really quiet, tranquil conditions you’re after, then please do check out Blue Dart Fishery I promise you will not be disappointed. The bait is supplied by Dynamite and ordered prior to your arrival too. We used Hot Fish & GLM and Monster Tiger Nut all soaked in Shrimp Liquid which seems irresistible to Mr Carp.

For me a venue I had not visited for quite some years was next on my radar that being Gaunts Lake on the Linear Complex and the fact it held an upper 50lb mirror helped me on the journey to Oxford for my next trip out.

Now I never get to concentrate solely on one venue as my work commitments require me to visit lots of varied venues so I knew I would only ever get, at most, a couple of trips to Gaunts until Winter. Anyway, a couple of nights lay ahead of me and off I went.

These syndicate lakes have always responded well to a boilie approach so it was a no brainer for me to take a good few kilo of CompleX-T and Crave in 20mm sizes. A simple, clean approach.

I set up at the far end in what can only be discribde as an area of mud! Now my usual OCD had to be set aside for this trip as I spent the days sat in Welly boots wadding through brown soup.

A proper swamp fest at Gaunts!

The far tree line was the area I knew held a large head of carp so I wandered around there and gave them 5 kilo of mixed 20mm baits, firing them over to the trees.

It was my intention to just fish the daylight hours and reel in overnight as I really did not want to be rolling around in this mud at 2am and also the far side as already stated was quite snaggy and the pause to get boots on and find my slippery path to the rods may have ended with a snagged fish so fishing days only was the order of the trip.

I needn’t have worried as the days produced 16 takes from carp to 35lb and I had two really good nights sleep. All were taken on either 20mm CompleX-T Hard Hookbaits and Pop-Ups soaked in the ever faithful Shrimp Liquid.

CompleX-T soaked in Shrimp Extract. You can’t beat it!

All in All it was a great trip in what can only be described as savage conditions! I’ll be back at some stage…

The end of April saw me attending a Total Carp Trouble Shooter feature at Twynersh Fishery but you will need to grab the Magazine to check that out!

Last but not least, I’ve literally just returned from making a short film for YouTube with my good friend and fellow Dynamite/Carp Spirit team member Michael Poulter at Ed Matthews’ beautiful Dawford Pool.

Again cold winds played their part which made the fishing slow but we still managed a good few to mid 20s. My go-to bait this year – CompleX-T mixed with XL Sweetcorn came through for us in the end. Keep your eyes peeled for this as it was lots of fun at a stunning venue.

Well that’s it for April and yet again I have an extremely busy May ahead of me so Tight Lines for now!

– Ian Russell