The Luckiest (Or Best?) Angler Alive!

To fill in the story, can you tell the readers what’s happened—what have you caught?!
“This was our first ever in-session film, live for the Carp Academy cameras. I chose a fairly big challenge in tackling the famous Bluebell complex in Northamptonshire. It was a place that I’d never caught a carp from before. Whilst we did get lucky and more than once too, every time we have been, we have arrived on the gate with everyone else, queueing up for the real life experience—no preferential treatment. In our first 30 or so hours on a lake—that we had never fished before—we caught the biggest fish in there and arguably the most sought-after common on the complex: an amazing chocolate-coloured carp called Tilly.”

Incredible! Tell us a bit about the lake: how pressured is it, how busy was it and how would you rate the difficulty?
“The lake we ended up fishing on that first session is called Sandmartin. It’s probably about 6 or so acres and home to well over 200 carp. It’s very deep in places and extremely weedy in others. The lake is, like most on the complex, exceptionally pressured, being more than 50% full on every single day. Very often it is, of course, busier than that and sometimes all of the swims are taken. On each trip we fished there (once for the in session film and subsequently when I returned to film a vlog), the lake was very busy, with a small number of spare swims. In actual fact, on the second trip, every single swim was taken. 

“In terms of difficulty, I’d say it’s probably around a 6/10. I’ve only fished it twice but caught both times and from totally different areas so while it cannot be that hard, you do need to fish it well to catch and it is certainly true that the lake sees many, many blanks.”

So on that first trip, what was the game plan? How did you approach it differently to other anglers? 
“On each of the two trips, I didn’t have any intention of fishing on Sandmartin. Certainly in the first film, we spent a good six hours walking the entire complex looking for an opportunity. I had no idea which lake out of the five that I would be fishing and no preconceived ideas either. At that point I had never caught a fish from anywhere on the complex so whilst it felt like a real challenge, I was also open to anything that presented itself. I had no swim, area, or lake in mind, it was simply going to be walk and look, walk and look—real life carp fishing. 

“In terms of fishing it differently, whichever lake I was to end up on, I intended to just use straight boilie tactics and hope that it worked! I did have some particle in the van as back up but I was confident that if I got near some fish and angled well with a bit of Krill Active, I’d get a bite. Realistically, we were hoping for a single fish—that would have been a result. Two fish or more would have been exceptional. 

“I eventually found some fish that were in an extremely weedy area. Luckily the area was free and so after hours and hours of looking, I was finally able to settle into a swim and start making some sort of plan. On that first session I fished Krill Active, matching bottom baits and baited lightly with both the catapult and the old boilie rocket.”

What were the other anglers doing—did they appear to all be fishing the same way? 
“The venue seems to be dominated by bait boats, so there were plenty of flotillas out there and many of these were state of the art: GPS fixing rig droppers, equipped with cameras and sonar. Along with this there was of course the obligatory heavy baiting with ‘mixes’ using the Spomb. 

“Looking around, it was clear that many of the swims were occupied by long-stay anglers. Almost every swim had a 2 man bivvy in it along with a separate cooking tent and sometimes a toilet tent too! On top of that, there were lots of people fishing out of fully fitted vans with big awnings. It was clear that most people were doing a week, and some were doing more than that. To me this clearly  meant that much of the pressure the carp were used to encountering involved very heavily baited areas. That was something I was keen to avoid but that’s also true in most of my fishing—I just want to get a bite and hopefully build from there so I think I began by fishing over ten or so baits.”

What about the second session: did you approach it the same way as the first? 
“The second trip I’d hoped to get onto the adjacent Swan Lake but it was simply too busy. Because Swan has a few catfish that I was keen to avoid, I’d swapped the Krill for Manilla Active. After a lot of looking about, I eventually found a spare swim on Sandmartin and stood there for a while watching to ascertain whether it was worth fishing. It quickly became apparent that it was seeing some traffic and it gave me a good chance of intercepting fish travelling close to the bank and so I dropped in there. So the bait was different, the swim was different and I fished really close in with 12mm baits on a short, supple hooklink. On that occasion, I baited by catapult and by hand.”

And then you went and caught that amazing chocolate-coloured carp called Tilly again!
“The odds of doing that absolutely literally fried my brain! The fish comes out a few times each year and considering the pressure is by no means overly friendly. The lake is at least half full probably the entire angling season, and often fuller. There are around 250 fish in there and when I caught her the first time she came after only completing a single night on the lake and was, I think, my third or fourth bite. 

“The second time we met came on the first night of the second trip and then was just my 6th or 7th fish from the lake. So in total, very little fishing time, and in reality, very few bites. In all my carp fishing years, I don’t think I can find another example of such a double fluke against such mammoth odds—it really is incomprehensible to me. 

“On the first occasion the great beast weighed 46lb 6oz (after spawning) and on the second, barely 5 weeks later, she went 50lb 3oz. Absolutely astonishing! It was nice because my only ‘regret’ (if you can call it that!) with the first capture was that we were only able to do night shots. The second time came just on dawn and so I was able to record Tilly in all her amazing chocolate coloured glory. What a fish she is!”

Do you think the way you approached the sessions led to you catching this two-times-a-year carp? Was it because you were doing something differently to the rest which meant the odds were stacked more in your favour? 
“I have to put this out there: the biggest factor was luck, absolutely no question about it. I didn’t target or visually select the fish, it just came along. AlI I did was angle as well as I could with exceptional bait and a sharp hook, in an area where I’d observed fish to be present. Actually, if you fulfill all the criteria of the previous sentence then as you go forward in your angling, not only will your results improve but you will get ‘luckier’ too!”

What else can we expect from the film and where can we watch it? 
“The thing I like about the film is that we took up the challenge of trying to succeed on arguably the most pressured venue in the country, live, with a camera in our face and with zero favours granted. There were no roped off swims, no prebaiting, no inside information, nothing—just real world carp angling. Not only does it demonstrate what is possible for virtually anyone but it also proves that in a world of tech you can still succeed with just an old catapult and a glued together bait rocket, both of which are literally from the last century!” 

WHAT IS CARP ACADEMY? 
Creator, Adam Penning, is here to explain all about this new, exciting and totally unique angling service.

“Carp Academy has been designed with a very simple premise: to help YOU catch more carp! The content is designed to solve all your angling problems, to help you transform your results and become the angler you always wanted to be! 

“I have been running carp tutorials for over ten years now. During that time, I have amassed a lot of experience in dealing with everyday angling issues. Vitally, I have learned how to provide the solution in an easily communicated, digestible format. The issue I have had lies in addressing the huge demand as I am of course, just one person!

“The idea for Carp Academy came from wanting to solve this self-limiting reach and take things to the next level. From the number of enquiries I get, it is clear many people need a service but perhaps can’t book due to geography, finances or time. I wanted to create an easy to access platform that is affordable for all, a detailed syllabus that will deliver educational content to carp anglers wanting to progress their angling, from grass roots upwards. 

“There are two ways you can consume the content we’ve created. The first is a monthly subscription, which sees four pieces of filmed content released throughout the month. These range from in-sessions films (like the one detailed here) to my own personal vlog to a live Q&A and a detailed rig studio film. The second are the Success Packs—one-off purchases or rent modules. These range from 30 mins to an hour and cover a massive range of subjects, from hook sharpening and using marker sticks to margin fishing and slack vs. tight lines. There are over 15 currently live on the site with more being added each month.

“If you want to move your angling to the next level head over to https://penningscarpacademy.com/ now!”