Full Moon Party

With the tail end of the hurricane hitting the UK, the weather was not the best conditions that I had been fishing in but with dropping pressure and the new moon arriving on Sunday night – I couldn’t resist.

Not surprisingly finding the lake almost empty with my mate and only one other up there, I had a whole side of the lake to myself. Instantly slipping on the polarised glasses and looking for any tail tale signs of fish movements – 4 fish rolled simultaneously about 50 yards out which I knew was just short of a drop off.

 Loading both rods with hinged stiff rigs and mainline pop ups – I hit the spot, one either side of where I saw the ripples and put just over half a kilo of cell boilies and spread them about the area of a snooker table.

Making sure that the tent was well and truly pegged down and strapped up to the nearest tree – the wind seemed to be picking up and blowing all over the place – had just enough time to bring the kettle to the boil before the right hand rod let out a few beeps and pinned the bobbin tight to the rod. After lifting into the fish the line was kiting back towards the other baited rod so applying more pressure – the fish came in easily and gave a small bulge to the bottom of the net. At just over 10lb, it was a nice start to the evening and as another angler came over to say that that was the first carp to be caught all weekend –I couldn’t complain. Re-baiting and sending the rod back out to the baited area – the next trap was set.

The rest of the evening past with talk of the moon and if it actually made any difference to the feeding patterns of fish. We both came to the conclusion that a lot more investigating need to be done and that we should start a log. The night drew on and nothing but the odd bosh could be heard about the ever increasing wind speed.

Half asleep and still wondering if the tent was going to blow away – the right hand rod let out a series of beeps and stopped, the bobbin remained in the same position and thought that a twig had hit the line. But all of a sudden the line peeled steadily from the reel indicating a fish was on. This fish gave a slow plodding thumping which gave me great confidence that this was much better quality and had thoughts running through my mind that this could be one of the 30lb+. After a very easy battle and practically reeling it straight in, I lifted the net into a very healthy looking common carp.

Dropping the scales at 23lb – this was one of the better looking fish that I have caught. Now all I have to think about is if it was down to the fact that the bait was cast to showing fish or if fishing while to moon is out really does affect the fishing.

More fishing is needed to decide the outcome but one thing is for sure – the pop ups seems to be doing the bizz for me right now!