10 október, 2024 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

0 Comments

Matt Heath: My Fenland Carp Fishing Campaign

In June 2024, Matt Heath embarked on a new challenge – tracking down carp on his local river in the heart of the Fens. By no means an easy feat with miles of water at his disposal and with no real clue of the size or numbers of fish that reside there, Matt certainly had his work cut out! None the less, with lots of patience, water craft and the right bait, he managed a pretty successful Fenland Carp Fishing campaign…

 

My Fenland Carp Fishing Campaign

During the first few months of 2024 I was enjoying my carp angling as I always do but felt a change was well overdue.

I’d held a ticket on a local water that I’ve fished pretty hard since joining in 2018 and although I still had love for the place, the magic had gone for me once I started repeating the repeats. I knew it was time for change.

My style of fishing is little and often and I nearly always arrive around tea time and are nearly always gone before 7am – at least apart from Sunday mornings when I get a lay in if I’m fishing, which, nine times out of ten I am!

I thought long and hard about where to go with no obvious places springing to mind. I did have a few options but none that really set my heart on fire.

Aside from carp fishing I had been spending a good bit of time perch fishing on the River Bure through the winter and barbel fishing on the river Trent in between my carp fishing and was loving every moment of it/

there’s something special about river fishing that you can’t find on a lake. I think the main attributes are the freedom to explore so much more with miles of untouched areas that see little or no angling pressure throughout the year, but most of all ,the complete unknown and giving myself the challenge to find and catch some carp that don’t have names and have maybe never been caught.

Being a “river carp” virgin, I knew it was going to be a learning curve.

Thankfully I’m fortunate that my place of work is on the Cambridgeshire/Norfolk boarder so in the heart of the fens and a stones throw from Lincolnshire, I have lots of rivers and drains to choose from that I could feasibly put some time in on overnighters between work.

Once choosing my target river, Google Earth became my friend for finding areas of interest for investigation.

I spent many hours visiting different areas after work during the close season and after generally scouting about, it soon became apparent that finding fish wasn’t going to be easy.

I was hoping to find them spawning in an obvious looking area where I’d been told they had been in the past but never witnessed any fish in these areas during my investigations.

It was fast approaching the end of May and I was dead keen to start getting some bait in somewhere so I chose the mouth of where a small field drain tees into the main river next to a road bridge.

Over the next two and a bit weeks, I visited the spot nearly every day – sometimes missing one but more often then not every day and and loaded it up with a bucket of maples and maize and a healthy spread of 20mm Peppered Squid boilies.

By the time June fifteenth came around, I was so terrified another angler might be in my spot I arrived at 10am AM.

Once set up, I sat out the fourteen hour wait until midnight before I could cast out  but it was during this time that I realised I need not have worried about losing my spot as I was in fact the only angler on that stretch for as far as my eyes could see!

I had booked some annual leave from work and fished three nights and four days over my baited area. I didn’t catch any carp during this time but I had attracted huge shoals of bream. This was inevitable as the fen drains are full of them and as they probably out number the carp a thousands to one, I knew they could pose a big problem in me getting any sleep at night.

For this reason, I started off using a 20mm Peppered Squid Hard Hookbaits topped off with a matching 15mm Peppered Squid foodbait pop up presented on a size 4 beaked point hook with a rig kicker.

Should I have experienced a lot of pick ups from the bream, I could always go bigger but as it was my first trip I thought I’d stick with this rig and just see what happens… in the end I had approximately 10-15 bream…

After finishing my first little three night stint on the river I wasn’t happy I was doing the right thing.

As I stood on the bridge gazing up the river to the horizon, I wondered just how many carp were even in the stretch at any given time and was subconsciously thinking I’d maybe bitten off more then I could chew, but, I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up without giving it my best shot!

I had originally had my eye on a really carpy-looking part of the river that I had written off to prebait as I knew it was a heavily fished area and feared somebody else harvesting the fruits of my labour, however, once we were in the second week of the season I had noticed that no one really fished the area at all Monday to Thursday, and it only seemed to attract a few at the weekend.

So I made the move and concentrated my energy into keeping a steady flow of bait going onto my new spot.

My first encounter with a river carp was to be on my sixth night in my new chosen swim.

I was fishing to the far marginal shelf in about six feet of water and I had a system going where I’d hike on foot with the bait around half a kilometre to the far side spot…

Fishing it from here was out of the question for several reasons but mostly because the bank this side was just too steep to safely get down.

I’d bait up from the top of the bank and then walk back to the van and drive back over the bridge and park up for a short barrow run down to the swim. This was at least quicker then Spombing thirteen wraps to the spot.

It was around 9pm now in the beginning of July and a beautiful warm sunny calm evening.

The rods had only been out a couple hours when I received a huge drop back on the right of the two rods I was fishing. I wound down and struck in but nothing…

Not really thinking much of it, I re-wrapped and recast the rod – feeling down to a firm drop. I then placed the rod on the buzzer and was just clipping the bobbin on when I heard a familiar voice from the top of the bank.

It was a mate of mine who lives local and was just out for a stroll along the river enjoying the evening.

We stood chewing the fat for just a few minutes before we were interrupted by the high pitched squeal of the Nev going into meltdown on the right hand rod that I’d just recast!

The spool was churning and so was my stomach as I picked up the rod and tightened down the drag. The fish had ripped up the far margin to my right in between the reed lined margin and a row of pads a couple of feet off.

As I levered the fish away from the far bank my braid cut through the Lilly pads like a laser beam and I was now pulling the fish toward the centre or the river.

It erupted on the surface amongst the floating severed pads that were now all over the place before kiting further to my right and into the near side reed bed.

I quickly kicked my boots off and plunged into the margin. I could barely move much further then a couple of small steps before I’d be way in over my head, but it gave me just enough to get an angle to pull the fish away from the edge.

Once I got the fish in front of me the fight was by no means over.

I went on to endure an arse nipping few minutes that felt like an hour of the fish just lunging and tearing about in front of me,.

With poor clarity and deep margins, I had no idea what I was attached to! No sooner had I first noticed it was a common, it was coming over the cord of the net and all the tension just fell out of my body. The feeling of relief was incredible – I’d done it!

I’d set myself a challenge and fulfilled it pretty early on although it was by no means the biggest carp I’ve ever caught this was and always will be the most meaningful to me.

Just a nineteen pound common in anybody else’s eyes but it’s only when you actively try to search for these fenland carp or find any information on them that you really appreciate just how unknown and elusive they are.

After my success I got a big boost of confidence and all my doubts were long gone. I now knew it was possible and the obsession had begun to get the next fix.

I soon came back down to earth however as I put in another twenty five nights with no more carp for my efforts… I knew I needed to move as the fish clearly were no longer present.

Back to Google Earth I went and soon spotted a nice-looking area a good few miles up river but the only down side was it involved a decent barrow trek.

This didn’t put me off though and I simply had to go and investigate.

On doing so I fell in love with the stretch and wasted no time in carving out a swim right opposite some thick overhanging bushes that I intended to fish to.

This place was a lot different to the previous stretch I had fished and far more remote.

The banks are ridiculously steep and the tow is a lot harder. It was clear back leads were going to be a must and maybe a rope or ladder wouldn’t be a bad shout either.

If you zoom into the picture below, you can just about see my rod tips on the tiny standing area at the bottom.

On only my second night of fishing my new swim, I landed a smaller common of just over ten pounds.

Although it was only a small fish, I’d not minded at all – especially after the near thirty night dry spell! It again meant so much and gave me confidence knowing I was on the right path and was sure there had to be more close by.

Things started to get tough after this capture as I started getting monster rafts of weed and cabbages floating down the river – some of them were like garage doors drifting down and hanging deep and wiping out everything in its path!

I had stopped using the maples and maize now and was solely using Peppered Squid boilie and tigers.  These I could catapult across to the far margin as walking around this time wasn’t an option.

Three nights of fishing after catching the small common, I was rewarded with another carp. This one went nineteen pounds and fourteen ounces and definitely got my blood pumping at 6am. When it picked up the double Frenzied Black Tiger Nut tipped with corn I’d been fishing.

After catching these two from the new swim, it became seriously unfishable due to all the floating weed. I decided then to try baiting a near margin spot just a few hundred yards down the river.

For three weeks I gave it my all and put a hefty amount of bait onto my new spot with a plan to book some holiday and have a last ditch attempt before the silt dredging began in October. That really was going to call a halt to my river campaign!

Unfortunately it didn’t work out and I never caught from the new spot before time ran out the silt  dredging is scheduled to run until autumn 2026 so it looks like I’ll be targeting a different river next season for the carp

While fishing the river through the summer I had a play at catching a few other species and enjoyed catching some nice Rudd, tench, bream and zander.

Never a dull moment on the rivers! I for one can’t get enough of it.

My first year targeting carp on the river certainly won’t be my last.

I’m very much looking forward to getting my teeth into a new river season but until then, I’ve got some carp to try and catch in a large gravel pit that I’ll be spending a bit of time on this winter…