5 August, 2025 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles | Catches

Tony Gibson: My Brace of Carp for 83lb 10oz!

The full story behind the capture of two UK carp for Tony Gibson that totalled more than 80lb! Here’s the man himself explaining how it all went down…

Tony Gibson says…

After having caught a lovely mirror of 39lb 15oz mirror the previous week, I was itching to get back to the big pit and had organised things so I could have a 3-night session.

To both avoid the motorway traffic and to hopefully see some signs of fish, I’d got down super early and was walking the banks just after 5am. However, just like the week before, I’d seen very little to start off with and it was getting on for 7am when I finally saw the first ‘show’.

It was just a subtle ‘head and shoulder’ and a long way out, but was definitely a carp.

Then about 5 or 6 minutes later another one popped it’s head out, probably even further out, but in the same general area.

There was someone already bivvied up in the swim to the left of the empty one I was stood watching in, and the swims were a bit too close together for my liking, but it looked as though the swim over the other side was free. The swim opposite was a long way away, but probably put me as close to the carp activity as I was prepared to go without potentially interfering with anyone else’s fishing, and as it was a swim I’d had some success in last year I decided it was worth making the effort to get the gear over there.

Once in the swim, I kept looking as I put the rods together and was rewarded with another show that was definitely closer than the sightings I’d seen earlier.

So with fish possibly heading my way, I decided to start off with singles for the first few hours to minimise any disturbance and put two baits out to a nice spot that I’d discovered the previous year; right on the edge of a shelf. Putting one bait on the top of the shelf and a second further down on the slope.

As I pushed in the banksticks for the two rods I’d just cast out, I saw another show, still a good way out, but even further up the pit.

Thinking that the carp might still be moving up that way I decided to position the bait on the 3rd rod as far out as I could and a little ahead of the direction I thought the carp might be travelling in.

The bait for this rod was a bright yellow Banana & Pineapple 15mm pop-up, but carefully trimmed down with the aid of a craft knife and tested in the edge, so that it only just sank ever so slowly with just a single no.4 shot pinched on the hooklink, as I wasn’t sure what the weed situation might be like.

This was cast out and felt down to land with a nice “donk”, so thankfully didn’t require a re-cast.

It was nearly an hour after I’d got all 3 rods in, and while I’d seen another show in my general area, albeit quite a long way out, I was starting to consider that my best chance of a quick take that morning was starting to disappear. I was actually on the phone to my mate who was fishing another venue, but knew that I was out fishing and had rung to bemoan his own lack of action and to see if I was fairing any better, when I had to give him the quick, “I’m away!” message, as the alarm on the yellow pop-up rod suddenly chirped a couple of beeps as the line tightened up!

I was on the rod before the take really got going, but could feel it was a decent fish straight from the get-go.

No dramatic runs or anything, but a heavy weight determinedly plodding off up the pit.

After a while the determined plodding/kiting started to be a problem, as I had some serious overhanging ‘woodwork’, both to the left and right of my swim and needed to get the fish positioned at a better angle in front of me before it made too much of a sideways angle and snagged the line on a sunken branch.

Eventually I had no choice but to put some extra pressure on and basically wind the fish back to me, which fortunately it did without too much fuss.

It just skimmed past the dangerous branches and soon a deep-bodied fish surfaced just over a rod length out and I was able to quickly shuffle it into the net before it got a second wind.

It turned out not to be the prettiest of mirrors, but a proper old character, with a slight kink to the short, stumpy tail wrist, very few scales, but a bunch of old, dark purple and grey scars and scratches on it’s deep, brown and cream coloured flanks. And with a healthy weight of exactly 41lbs, it definitely made a very welcome addition to the photo album!

The 41lb mirror spelt the end of the action for the day and without any further shows later that afternoon I baited up the shelf/slope spot with a healthy dose of a mix of 6mm CompleX-T and 4mm Swim Stim Betaine Green and Krill pellets, Frenzied Hemp and crushed CompleX-T boilie, all given a good dose of Premium CSL Liquid.

With the rod that produced the early fish already re-cast to the general area of the take, the two rods on the other spot were re-cast with fresh hookbaits.

The rod on the top of the shelf, where there was some blanket weed about, had a 12mm Choccy Malt pop-up and the cleaner slope rod was baited with a 12mm CompleX-T bottom bait tipped with plastic corn.

Things went comparatively quiet for a while and it wasn’t until the 2nd night of my session when an alarm had me excitedly exiting the bivvy in the early hours as the pop-up rod on the shelf was suddenly ‘away’!

This second fish again felt heavy from the outset, but had more pace to the fight, with plenty of spirited runs.

I had to take special care of the sunken branches up to my right once more as the fish got close, and even when the fish was on a short line, it used the deep margins to keep ploughing up and down under the other two lines.

Thankfully it eventually rolled into the net and once I’d got everything ready for the weighing and hoisted the fish up onto the mat I started to hope that I’d got myself another over the magic 40lb mark.

Much to my delight, the scales agreed and the lovely mirror, with a sort of half-linear scaling on one side and unique-looking scale pattern on the other, spun the needle round to indicate a final weight of 42lb 10oz, making it a brace of “40’s” for the session!

Gear used included:

Carp Spirit 12ft Magnum X5 3.5tc rods

Okuma 8K reels

19lb Carp Spirit Velocity mono

Size 8 Carp Spirit Razor Medium Curve hooks