BIG FISH: Cruising carp are easy prey

Rapidly warming water temperatures and surprisingly pleasant Bank Holiday weather brought both anglers and fish out in numbers last week as the spring fishing shifted up a gear.

Early spring fishing tends to centre around carp and bream which are always the first species to get their heads down in earnest and, although they were still most prominent in catches, there were numbers of tench showing from local venues too with crucians, rudd and even catfish showing further afield for travelling anglers.

It doesn’t take a lot of sunshine to get carp basking on the surface and anglers with an eye for chances on top are often rewarded early on.

Such was the case last week for Simon Bridgeman who spent a couple of days carp fishing on a tricky Wokingham venue.

Standard bottom baits failed to produce during the first day and night of Simon’s stay at the fishery, but on the final morning he spotted a couple of fish cruising just below the surface in a bay just to the right of where he was fishing.

With no floater fishing gear in his kit, Simon opted to present a bait just under the surface and used a piece of pop-up foam whittled into shape on a zig rig which he anchored across the mouth of the bay; the bait sitting on a size nine hook on a mono hooklength just a foot below the surface in 14ft of water.

It took a couple of hours for one of the cruising carp to pick up the bait and after a 15 minute fight, Simon netted a mirror of 27lb 12oz. Keeping your eyes open and taking advantage of situations which arise is what angling is all about and Simon certainly proved that.

Carp of a smaller stamp continue to provide excellent sport on the commercial pools with fish well into doubles from venues such as Royal Berkshire and plenty of smaller fish coming up in the water for sprayed pellets on the match-style venues.

Bottom baits continue to score well too and most techniques should bring a few bites at present.

Tench fishing will not be at its prime until next month but prospects for the species continue to shape up well with the run of early season specimens now including a great fish of 7lb 4oz to Maidenhead’s Phil Cousins, who used the feeder and maggot approach, at Twyford to take the specimen along with others of between 4-5lb during a morning session. Phil presented a bunch of reds on a size 10 hook direct to 6lb line.