Tom said:

“It’s a very rare occasion that I get to just choose a lake and enjoy some time behind the sticks without commitments with Sticky, Fox or CarpFix, so when this week came free I knew there was only one place I’d be going for a session in the hope of holding some big girls, and that’s Linear Fisheries.

“Brasenose One now holds a ridiculous amount of big carp, and I recon there’s around twenty known forties and one fifty in there now, and by anyone’s judgement that’s some stock! I got there on the Sunday afternoon for my usual look about, but in the area the fish seemed to be present and getting caught from, no one was leaving until Monday afternoon. As is sometimes the case, I dropped my bucket behind one of them for 24 hours and looked forward to getting the rods out the following day.

“The next day soon came and I found myself targeting a similar area to the previous angler off the back of his success, just shy of 100 yards if I remember rightly. Standard procedure ensued with a mixture of mulched up Manilla Active, sweetcorn, hemp as well as an inclusion of some chopped worm… edgy. It was only a matter of hours before the first bite came my way, which turned out to be a low thirty. The second bite, which followed shortly after, I originally thought was a mid-thirty, and when I landed it, I thought nothing of it… but the scales told another story! It turned out to be the start of a crazy run of big carp, settling on 42lb 4oz… happy days indeed!

“The action continued throughout the night, and because the session was for me to escape, I really wanted to push my limits and see just how many carp I could catch, especially with there being so many big carp in there. With plenty of D Rigs ready to go, baited with my favourite trimmed down Peach & Pepper pop-ups, I think I was on either seven or eight carp during the night and into the morning, and a few during the course of that day too.

“Heading into the second evening though, just before last light, I put more bait out than usual in the hope it would not only keep the action going, but hold the carp there too. This was clearly the right decision as a triple take into darkness ensued, with a thirty pounder and two twenties coming my way and then all of a sudden the action went quiet, which did surprise me to some extent. By this time I was shattered, but I got more bait out there and powered on through the night in the freezing cold whilst sat in my waders which was far from ideal. By 2am, I was done, I needed sleep, so I wound the rods in with the plan of casting them back out at first light once my horizon marker was visible.

“With only a few hours left of the session, I decided not to bait again and just fish singles to the productive zone where my bites had been coming from. That morning, I had a 42lb 2oz mirror just before first light, followed swiftly by a 33lb mirror, then, about an hour before Tom Gibson was passing on his way to Dinton, another forty at 40lb 10oz! My mind was well and truly blown!”

“The total tally of carp at the end of the session came to 22 fish, 6 x 30s and 3 x 40s. Looking back at the session, I think the reason I caught so many larger fish, was not topping up instantly after the bites. Constant baiting will bring you bites, but not necessarily the bigger ones which I think lurk on the fringes of the pack. I’ve since been back, this time with CarpFix as my challenge is to catch a 50lb from the complex, and although I only did one night on B1 again during that session, I managed more manic action which I’ll save for you to watch when it comes out!”