Back To Where It All Began- By James Constantine

This session I take you back to early summer before my target water for the season opened. I decided that I would return to a little estate lake where my carp fishing career properly took off for a couple of nights armed with some new products i have started to use from Cheshire Particle. I return to this lake every now and again to bring back some memories and for a chance to land one of the larger commons that lurk in there. This particular lake was where I properly got my teeth carp fishing scene, I targeted this water for at least 2 years and was where Increased my knowledge of the sport. i fished this lake hard throughout one summer, fishing 5 nights a week whilst also working in a tackle shop as a teenager. During these times i managed to bank the majority of the lakes stock at the time including the big mirror know. As 'Trevor' on 2 occasions, both around the 28lb mark. Unfortunately the larger commons had always seemed to either avoid me or drop off at the net!! I returned to the lake late in a Friday afternoon one summer evening, hoping to get where I wanted to be. The lake is notorious for becoming extremely busy very early on a Friday, however on this occasion things weren't so bad.
A Friend of mine managed to get there before me and dropped me a text to say it was quite. To my surprise when i reached the lake, the shallower bottom end was free apart from my mate...winner. I dropped my gear off in my preferred peg where I'd had some a amazing sessions over the years feeling extremely confident as the carp boshed out all over us! Before I'd even had a chance to get my gear set up my friend next door was away with a nice old scaley low 20lb mirror. I flicked my rods out over to the spots i knew the fish patrolled and baited both rods with the brilliant mixed particle and a scattering of boilie. The left rod was on my all time favourite rig, a simple bottom bait trimmed down with a trimmed down pop up on top, simple! The right was on a balanced tiger nut blow rig, the TNT pots are amazing if our into using tiger nutsI 
 
love fishing with tiger nuts and been able to use a white tiger nut over a normal one is a real edge in my eyes. Simply drilled out with some cork to balance them out and your onto a winner! The evening drifted by quickly as we sat there drinking brews watching the carp top all around us, a hot topic of the conversation was the known few commons that's are upper 20 sometimes pushing over the 30lb barrier swimming around in front of us. I'd also just had some custom built rods made and made a suggestion that it would be nice to christen them with one of the commons I'd wanted for all these years, we joked as having new gear had always been a curse for me in the past.
After a decent night sleep i was awoken at first light by a couple of bleeps on the delks, i stood next to my rods and could see the line twitching. I hit the rod and reeled In for about 20 yards before connecting with a carp, fish on!!! E fish quickly head straight for the rushes on either side of my peg, at first the fish felt small as it was shaking its head from left to right as I tried to stop it was doing me in the rushes. This was till it rolled infront of me and I seen the length of the fish i was connected too. Straight away I knew i had one of the commons I'd wanted so badly over the years, my heart was in my mouth as i played the fish for a further 10 minutes until it finally slipped over the net cord. Buzzing was an understatement!! The fish went 28lb 12oz, after weighing her and doing some pictures in the early morning summer sun 
 
we slipped her back and reminisced on the conversation the night before and couldn't believe I'd finally had one of the big commons. The fish was in amazing condition and I finally felt like i could say I've accomplished what I wanted from the lake Over the next 24 I managed a further 5 fish,they were all taken on the great mixed particle mix, 
 
around 5k of it in total. This particular mix has everything a carp could ever wish for and screams out attraction to any passing fish. Using this mixed with the TNT nuts i think you'll catch anywhere if you put it in the right place. Anyway, that's it from me. 


 Hope you enjoy the read and i'll see you again soon.

Jim