Claudia Darga- My First Carp

This entry was posted on 3rd May, 2019

It was not my first trip to the UK, I have previously been on a few occasions, mainly to visit fishing shows or to do some sightseeing. Aside from fishing for barbel on the River Wey, I was yet to properly experience fishing in the UK. However, back in March and much to my excitement, I had my first opportunity to fish for carp in the UK. Knowing that I had only a short night session to bag my first English Carp, everything needed to be planned in advance. Together with Hassan Khan and the Angling Direct team, we planned to fish a quick overnighter at the Mill lake. I fancied my chances as the weather was not too bad, I even caught a glimpse of the sun!



After my visit to the Angling direct Headquarters and the Angling Direct Norwich Store, we arrived at the Mill Lake around 3pm - to be honest, I have never fished such a small lake. However, I have heard about the smaller waters in England when compared to Germany or France, I also heard that those lakes are especially challenging as the fishing pressure is very high. Luckily, I had the support of the Angling Direct team who kindly provided fishing tackle for me, just as well as I only bought a small bag of end tackle and some of the finest Dynamite Baits, of course. With help at hand, I was feeling confident of getting my first English carp, I was determined to catch and as a result I was using high quality baits and a tried and tested rig.

Once I arrived at my swim, I pulled all my baits and tackle out of my bag and prepared the rods. I had two rods to fish and decided to opt for two different rigs and baits. One rod was armed with a Dynamite Baits 15mm Monster Tigernut Boilie topped with half a Monster Tigernut fluro pop up, my other rod was equipped with a Source boilie.



Now the rods were setup, I was looking for the right spot, I wanted to fish close to the margins during the day as we had seen some fish feeding in the shallow water, in fact just as I was wondering where to place my rig, Hassan and I saw a fish feeding in the reeds just one meter in front of us. I placed the Source boilie on the bottom and waited. We watched intensely for a few minutes, urging the fish to take the bait. Sure enough, just moments later my reel was screeching, I was finally playing a UK carp. Just one minute later it was in the net – Wow! I caught my first UK carp in less than fifteen minutes, what a great start to my first UK session. Peering into my net I could see it was a gorgeous mirror carp, I took a quick picture and back he went.

The afternoon passed and I started thinking about tactics going forward, the night was going to be a cold one, around 4 degrees, therefore, I decided to place one of my rods in the deeper water, keeping the other close to the margins. I fed just a handful of bait over the top of my hook bait and hoped for a bite.

The weather forecast was not wrong, I was freezing the whole night, the fishing didn’t like it too much either, it was a relatively quiet night. I did, however, manage to get a second fish in the middle of the night from the rod in the deeper water, this one falling to Tigernut Boilies. It was worth the wait, it was even bigger than my first fish, I was delighted with my second UK carp, another good looking mirror.



The rest of the night remained silent and very cold. At 8 am I had to pack my stuff to go back to the airport to catch my flight home. In total, around fourteen hours of fishing produced two nice fish, I was more than happy. The company of the wonderful Angling Direct team was awesome and we had a great time on the bank - what can I say, mission complete. I got my first two UK carp during my first overnighter, a quite good result for the first session considering the conditions early in the year. One thing is clear, I will be back to get more UK carp in 2019.