CARPERS BATTLE THE ELEMENTS BUT STILL CATCH BIG!
STRONG winds, flooding, ice and snow didn’t stop these anglers from catching monsters…
In a ridiculous month of weather, which saw the country battered by torrential rain and flooding one week and freezing cold temperatures the next, it’s fair to say that Britain’s army of carp anglers were up against it in January. That didn’t stop them from banking some truly amazing fish though!
Topping the early year catches was the historic ‘Charlie’s Mate’, landed at a whopping 55lb 4oz from Frimley Pit 3 by Tam Oakes. The 40-year-old is the first female angler to bank the venue’s most prized resident.
“I was in shock,” she told Carpfeed.
“I never expected the first fish of my winter ticket on the venue to be the biggest in the lake!”
Paul Bacon, a man who was no stranger to 50lb-plus carp last year, also started
2023 with a bang, catching eight fish to 51lb 6oz on his first trip to Cambridgeshire’s Grenville syndicate. Paul used the conditions to his advantage. With the wind off his back, he was whacking solid bags of DNA Baits mini mix pellets and Bug crumb an impressive 43-45 wraps – that’s a big cast!
There’s no doubt it takes dedication for anglers to venture out at this time of year, and nobody can question that Dean Welsh must have had mountains of get up and go to travel some 310 miles down to the Yateley Match Lake, where he landed the amazing ‘Redmire Fish’ at 47lb.
“Not even four months into my ticket, and I’d caught my main target, I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
Dean’s whacker fell to a 12mm Sticky Manilla dumbell over around 200 10mm Manilla freebies, showing how small baits can bring big results at this time of year.
One man who really does deserve a pat on the back for fishing in pretty much the worst conditions is Jamie Kings. Enduring freezing cold weather and with snow on the ground at Staffordshire’s Baden Hall, he banked a new personal best of 38lb 8oz. Not seeing a show for over a day, when he caught the first signs of a carp, he wasted no time in casting a zig at it.
His black foam tipped with maggots was too much for the fish to resist, and he turned what could have quite easily been a blank session into a very memorable one indeed.