31 July, 2023 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

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Ian Russell’s Diary July 2023

Another incredibly busy month of fishing for Ian Russell is now in the bag! Here’s what he got up to in the month of July…

 

First up this month was my son Sammy’s wedding. It was fantastic to see my son and his new wife Gemma so so happy and surrounded by family and friends. Truly a mega day which I spent mainly with various grandchildren getting up to mischief like Grandads do lol.

Then it was off to France for a filming trip with Carp Spirit/Dynamite Baits which sadly resulted in my first ever European blank trip.

To be fair, a lot of nice carp where caught from the obvious favoured areas but unfortunately I spent five nights in an area which was vacant of carp and I never felt I had even the slightest chance of a take. However the area was inhabited by possibly half a zillion extremely loud frogs just too rub salt in the wound! lol.

For me the trip could not end fast enough but we did film lots of new products with the French guys so workwise in that area it was deemed worthwhile.

Moving on I was next out with the Go Catch guys Dan and Craig filming on the river Test (yes I do fish for other species) and whilst trotting bread flake I managed lots of grayling, dace and brown trout but the day was made for me by a new PB river roach of 1lb 10oz. I’ve had much bigger before but on carp gear so to catch this intentionally was somewhat special to me.

With the River Test filming completed we drove across to Tony Campbell’s lovely Island Fishery to shoot a venue promotional film. With myself and Dan Murrel in adjacent swims, we not only had a real fun couple of day’s fishing but we felt we made quite a cool little film with me nabbing 11 carp and numerous Tench all on small red pop ups or wafters over chopped Source Luncheon Meat or pellet and corn.

Dan had the largest fish in the shape of a lovely scaley upper 20. Fantastic trip and it was great to catch up with my good mate Tony Campbell who for some strange reason arrived wearing a Jennifer Anniston face mask LOL.

I now had a small piece of time to grab some personal fishing before my next Total Carp Trouble Shooter feature so I was off to my fav W1 North Lake for a couple of days. Setting up in a swim known as Blakes, I fed a whole bucket of mixed Sweetcorn and 12mm CompleX-T baits over 2 different areas.

Come the evening there were lots of shows near the baited areas but it was 5am before a take occurred and one of the recently added stock fish was soon returned to its home. Surprisingly, nothing else happened until early evening when I had two quick takes from the same area which resulted in a very spawned out 28lb VS mirror and then a gorgeous scaley 36lb mirror which I personally had never seen before.

 

I have quite an extensive file on my phone of W1 carp but it did not include this one until now!

The night was quiet until again at 5am I had another W1 baby carp which was quickly followed by a low 20 mirror before it was time to go home. A great trip on a lake I dearly love fishing!

Surprisingly, after a couple of days at home I found another window of opportunity for a couple of nights personal fishing so again shot off to W1. On walking round with my trusty bucket, I was amazed to find the Stile swim empty and with quite a few fish popping there heads out it was a no brainer to claim the area for a couple of days.

I say surprised it was empty because with the phone network amongst some of the members, the favoured swims are usually taken before the angler is even on the complex. This is something that is slowly coming to the boil with most of the members nowadays…

My usual bucket of sweetcorn and 12mm CompleX-T was deposited on an area they were showing in and I placed all three rods tight together in said area. Weirdly enough, (yes you guessed it) at 5am I had not one but two little stockies which also managed to completely wiped out all rods both times.

So guessing that the baited area had probably been wiped out, I popped to the van and made up another bucket of mix and launched it all onto the area with the hope of drawing in a better stamp of carp and push out those little munchkins.

Well it worked as late afternoon I had a flurry of action in the shape of a 31lb mirror, a 28lb mirror, a 25lb mirror and a slightly bigger W1 baby at about 10lb in weight. 6 carp in a day was pretty good going even if three were little scamps.

I was to be off the next day mid-morning so only fed the last little bit from the bucket and got my head down.

5am came again and what can only be described as a fast and furious battle took place with a mental turbo-charged carp which smashed through weedbed after weedbed before a big ole common was netted. At 36lb 4oz I was proper made up!

Before the pics I reset the rod and as I returned the common the same rod whizzed off again and a carbon copy fight ensued. A rather long and again spawned out 31lb mirror was to be my parting gift from the lake.

My tally so far this year from W1 was 8 nights for 15 carp – I’ll take that for now!

Home and the next morning I was off to Swan Valley Lake 2 with Matty from Total Carp to shoot our Trouble Shooter Feature with a young man named Aiden.

I won’t give the game away but suffice to say it went well but you will need to grab a copy of Total Carp to see how well.

That’s my July out of the way – I have lots of work planned for August which includes an open day at Browns Angling in Leighton Buzzard, a filming trip to Norton Disney and I may nip up to RK’s Jones Pit as the big Stockie which usually hits big 40’s has yet to make an appearance.

Until next time, Tight Lines

-Ian Russell