On Tuesdays I work with Upper Academy in Basildon. I have been taking these lads fishing for a few months now and they have learnt a huge amount, now they are starting to make decisions for themselves as to where to fish & tactics.

I took them to Puddledock Farm to fish the specimen lake, none of us had ever fished it before so it would be a good learning curve.

We took a walk around the lake looking at where we thought the fish might be. There were 3 old fellers set up on the area I fancied so we had to look elsewhere. After a look around we set up on the opposite bank to the other anglers, setting up well back from the waters edge so as not to spoke the fish.

Going with a boilie approach, the lads started baiting spots they liked the look of. Not as easy as it sounds as there are no noticeable features at this end of the lake.

Joe fished the left hand side in the deeper water at the bottom of the marginal shelf. He threw out a couple of handfuls of Fish Frenzy Tutti Frutti boilies in 11mm & 15mm, then fished a 15mm Tutti bottom bait on a stiff rig over the top. His second rod was on a chod fishing a high attract Pineapple pop up over towards the far margin under an overhanging tree.

Charlie set up in the middle, firing out a load of 10mm Scopex Squid boilies and fishing 2 rods over the top, one on Scopex Squid and one on White Chocolate.

Josh took the right hand side where there was a slope. The water shallowed up 3 feet towards the far end of the lake and this was going to be his targetted area. Josh baited up at the bottom of the slope with White Chocolate in 15mm and fished a zig at the top of the shelf.

It took Charlie about 5 minutes to get into his first fish, not a big fish by any imagination, but it was a good start. 20 minutes later and he was in again, this was starting to look good and hte Scopex Squid was leading the way. 10 minutes later and Josh was into a fish on the White Chocolate boilies, 5 minutes after that and Jow was in on the Tutti Frutti.

It didn’t seem to matter what bait it was, as long as it was in the right place it was going off. The fellers on the opposite bank hadn’t had a touch all this time and were watching curiously.

2 hours into the trip and they were up to 7 fish with a couple of missed takes. Now it was warming up a bit and the fish were moving mid water, a change to zig rigs seemed the way to move forward, so all th e lads put a zig on one rod and continued to fish a bottom bait or pop up on the bottom.

Things slowed right down as the temperature got higher and higher, it was like the lake had switched off completely. Finally Josh got a screamer on the zig rig but somehow managed to miss it completely!

Joe had one last fish on a Pineapple pop up under the far marginal tree on a chod rig and that was that for the day.

A great day out and really good fun. The lads managed to try several different rigs and baits out and they all caught fish. There wasn’t any monsters caught on the day, with the best going around 10lb, but we had a lot of fun.

Early December I did an article for my new sponsors, Peg One. The article was due to go out in Total Coarse Fishing magazine early New Year.

We went to Crowsheath Fishery and fished the main lake. On arrival I spent some time looking around, hoping to see some signs of fish so I had a chance of catching. It’s hard to make an article if you don’t cant!!!

After fishing for a couple of hours I decided on a move to another area where I had seen some signs of movement. We humped all the gear 200 metres along the bank and set up in a bay with a lot of reeds on the far margin.

I spodded out a mix of maggots, hemp, crumbed boilies amd corn. This was just off the reed line as I wanted to draw the fish out from their shelter. I then cast a rig just past the baited area so the first thing they found would be my hookbait.

For the next hour I could see silt being kicked up but was getting no signs of a bite, so I decided to cast a little closer to the reeds, landing just short of them. That was fishing with Nashy’s fake corn on a KD rig, on the other rod I was using a blow back rig with an Amber Strawberry boilie, a well proven winter bait.

I was still seeing silt kicking up around both baits so was hopeful of a bite. An hour later and still nothing! I reeled in the boilie rod to change presentation and put on a fresh bait when the other rod bent round. Grabbing the rod and leaning hard on the fish to get it out from the shelter of the reeds, I soon had it in open water and played it out.

Not a big fish at 8lb6oz, but seeing as nothing had been caught from this lake in over 2 weeks and the weather conditions were poor with very high pressure, bright sunny skies and a howling cold wind, a result is a result.

The article is now in the magazine and is in the shops.

Late December I had a call from Peg One to do another article for a magazine, this time Improve Your Coarse Fishing. A day on Churchgate Fishery was arranged for a photo shoot fishing with a rather unusual bait and Rock Salt tablets as an attractor.

Kevin Nash has made his famous Soluballs and Chain Reaction with rock salt, the idea is to get minerals into the water and use them as an attractor. Rock salt has a much higher mineral content to other salts, sea salt has a different make up and doesn’t have the same mineral content and table salt is processed which removes a lot of the mineral content.

I arrived on site for just gone 9 and went for a walk around the lake to have a look. I soon picked an area that looked like it would hold fish and set about setting up my gear.

I put out a bed of dead maggots and chopped peeler crab over an area just off the reed line in 6 feet of water, then cast a light lead with a long hooklink over the top with a peeler crab whipped onto the shank of the hook. To this I added a little PVA mesh bag with 2 rock salt soluballs in it and popped it over the point of the hook. This was cast over the baited area and fished with a very slack line.

Half hour later the guys from the magazine turned up and we set about the article, taking photos of the rigs used and the bait. We also did breakdown shots of the salt and how it works.

As we were talking the alarm bleeped a couple of times and as I looked I could see the line twitching and bouncing around. I picked up the rod and waited for it to start tightening up, as it drew tight I struck into a very solid feeling fish and the game was on.

After a very good fight lasting about 10 minutes a drew the fish over the net cord and she was mine, all 26lb1oz of it. A stunning Mirror Carp was sat in the net looking back at us...result!!!!

Weighing done, photo’s taken, recovered and returned....article in the bag and it was still early. The guys had what they needed and had a long way to go to get home, so they took off on the drive to Peterborough while I decided to carry on for an hour to see if I could winkle out another fish. After 4 Bream in quick succession I decided to call it a day and go warm up a bit.

That article goes out in Improve Your Coarse Fishing in the March edition which comes out on February 25th.