3 April, 2024 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

Ian Russell’s Diary March 2024: Wintons Fishery Success!

Another incredibly busy month of shows, filming and fishing for Ian Russell which culminated in a crazy trip to Wintons Fishery in France where he and his friend John Flewin banked no fewer than 30 carp between them!

Ian says…

The first thing on the agenda in March was the Farnborough Big One Show and what a weekend that was. There was a fantastic vibe around the whole show and I split my time between the Dynamite Baits stand and the Okuma stand and absolutely loved it.

Seeing so many faces old and new is something I just love! The new Peppered Squid boilie range was in demand as was my own Hookbait range from Dynamite. I managed a walk around the whole show and have to say the stands looked amazing – I even managed a man hug with a very tired-looking Danny Fairbrass who is someone I respect massively. I’m very much looking forward to next year already.

It was a great show all-round!

The very next day I was off for a 24-hour trip to the Essex Carp Syndicate’s Sanctuary Lake with my little mucka Joe Turnball. I had filmed here once before so had an idea where I needed to be so on arriving at a lake completely empty of anglers, I dropped my kit in a swim known as ‘The Double.’ Joe arrived soon after and went to my right.

Now bait boats are allowed on here so with the area I wanted to fish being 33 wraps out, and my Obsidian reels being loaded with 19lb Velocity mono, it was a no brainer to put my new Ridgemonkey boat to use. Loading it up with 12mm Peppered Squid and crumb of the same, I soon had three rods in play.

It was a couple of hours before one pulled up tight and the fun began. My first carp was an awesome-looking scraper 30lb common and from there on the action was fairly constant right through until the next day when we packed away at midday.

What a fish to kickstart the trip!

In all I had landed 10 wonderful carp up to 31lb 8oz and lost two. 12 takes in just over 24 hours I would say was damn good fishing! I also went through 5 kilo of 12mm Peppered Squid and 3 kilo of the coinciding crumb. All fish were taken on 15mm Peppered Squid pop ups or my own 15mm Choccy Malt pop ups on size 4 Medium Curve Razor point Ronnie rigs.

Thank you Mitch for allowing me to fish your wonderful lake and Joe for the invite!

My next work commitment was with Radio Woking as a good friend of mine Paul Worstencroft was DJ there and was starting a monthly two hour show with different carp anglers each month. This was a really great experience and from the feedback I have received, obviously went down well with the listeners!

Now of late I have been doing a fair bit of filming with another good friend of mine called Dan Murrel for his GO Catch App. This trip was to be at a place I love popping over for a bite or 2 and that is Mark and Aimee’s Willow Park Lake. We had 48-hours at our disposal and were put into pegs 9 and 10 for our work.

There are certain bait restrictions in place so I again went with 12mm Peppered Squid and Crumb and I started off with Spombing out a couple of kilo of each and it wasn’t long before the Willow carp obliged.

Over the 48-hours we fished through torrential rain, gale force winds and occasionally a bit of sunshine – but catch carp we did and I managed I think 12 bited which was topped by a lovely mid 20 fully for which Willow has become famous for. A great show was filmed for us by the super talented cameraman and friend Craig Ansell and it will be available soon on the Go Catch YouTube channel I’m told.

This was again turning into a busy hectic month for me!

Next myself and John Flewin were to take the Eurotunnel to my friend Rolly’s Wintons Lake in mid France for a 7-day trip filming our next instalment of Four seasons Carping. We had not done one for a while due to massive work loads for both of us so were excited to be back out again.

The lake on arrival looked lovely and we were soon installed in pegs 10 and 11 which is really one big big double swim. Again, our baitboats were required as the carp tend to hug the far tree line and rather than cast and possibly hang rigs in the branches, we would use the boats. Mine being my lovely bright yellow RT4 and the colour in these circumstances really comes into its own as its so bright, it can be seen at range tucking under the far tree line branches.

The banana boat stuck out like a sore thumb at distance!

Again there are bait restrictions in place so my choice was to be my ever faithful Monster Tiger Nut boilies in 12mm size mixed again with 12mm Peppered Squid and lashings of Dynamite Sweetcorn to give it some colour.

John I’m sure will tell his own story somewhere… For me, well I haven’t laughed so much on a trip in a long long time. Rolly was an excellent host, the food package was amazing and most of all those lovely big carp couldn’t get enough of our offerings.

We sat through again lots of torrential rain and gale force winds but loved every minute of it!

Between us we managed 30 carp which were mainly upper 30s and almost half were over 40lb. What an incredible place Rolly has created here!

When John has completed the mammoth task of editing it the film will again be available to view on YouTube.

Well that brings March to an end but after looking at my work diary, April is just as if not even busier for me so until next month – tight lines and stay safe out there.

– Ian Russell