Chris Gardner is back with the second installment of his time spent on Burghfield. Click here to read part one...
40 Burghfield Carp - Part 2 | Angling Masterclass
40 Burghfield Carp - Part 2
A Pattern Emerges
I was building up a good picture of the fishes habits; they would only feed on this spot in quite a fine window during the day and this was the only spot out of many I'd baited that received any attention. Entering the bay as soon as the sun was up, the fish would cruise tight to the margins as long as the sun would hit them. As the day wore on and the sun moved round, the shadow of the bank would increase out into the lake and once it had covered the spot, no fish would visit it. The fish always stayed in the direct sunlight, never leaving it into the cooler shadow. Also the fish would only feed in the first couple of hours they were in the bay, as soon as the sun had warmed the water for a while, they would stay on the surface and baits on the bottom were ignored. This meant you had a two hour window when you could expect the fish to feed on the spot, on warmer bright mornings this would be say between 8am and 10am, and on cooler cloudy mornings between 10am and midday. But by 1pm the shadow would cover the spot and it was a complete no-go.
It was now Tuesday evening and once the sun started to lower, I watched the fish move out of the bay down its left hand-side. I quickly packed up and followed them setting up on a point at the bay's mouth. Fishing out into deeper open water overnight I saw no signs of fish and just caught a few bream and tench. I suspected they had travelled a long way to wherever they were spending the nights, and were probably not even in the same half of the pit as me. The Usual Suspects
Back in the same swim in the bay at 7am, the weather was a bit cooler and I caught tench after tench action all morning. At 9am the 'usual suspects' plus another 'new' fish, a really golden 20lb plus mirror cruised in. Nothing showed any interest in the bait and all the fish just sat in a weedbed to my right until, at about 10am, out of the corner of my eye I saw a large fish come into the bay. The fish was very dark and look noticeably larger than Cut-Off. It came around the right-hand corner of the island at the bays entrance, which was strange because all the other fish had been using the left hand channel to enter the bay. I watched and the fish just swam straight up to me. Approaching the spot directly below me and fed on the gravel. I sat frozen in the tree and watched this enormous common feed just feet below me. I didn't really want to hook such a big fish while sat in the tree, but feared that if I tried to climb down I might spook it. I wasn't overly concerned though, as I could see it wasn't feeding on my bait, but on naturals in the bare gravel. It fed for about 10 minutes before lifting up off the bottom and moving over to where one of my little patches of bait was, it picked up a couple of broken baits before moving off the spot into the open water. Twenty feet away it rolled on the surface pushing its shoulders out of the water before diving down to the weedy bottom and flapping its flank against the weed. I could see every detail including the missing scale on her right-hand shoulder!
As if a switch had been flicked, all the fish in the bay suddenly became interested in the baited spot. Firstly a couple of stockies moved in, I did not want one of these to mess up the chance of the Common, so quickly flicked a few baits at them, moving them off the area. Then a 20 plus original came onto the spot and although I would have loved to have caught it, again I moved it off the spot by dropping bits of boilie on its head. Cut-Off Appeared
The Common returned a few minutes later and again fed on the bare gravel, then once more picked up a few bits of bait from the same little pile it had previously visited, before moving off into open water. Cut-Off then came onto the spot, I was sure I wasn't going to try to scare her off, until seeing the Common half an hour beforehand, she had been my target fish and I was happy to let her eat all she could. She moved off the spot for thirty seconds and gave me the ideal opportunity to slowly lower myself down from the tree and go and sit next to the rods. I could still see her from the ground as she returned and fed again.
A few minutes later one of the rods rattled off as I saw her quickly exit the swim. I let her run for a few seconds to make sure she was well clear of the tree before tightening down hard. She took line as I waded out to the end of the bar where I hooked her, making sure she couldn't suddenly run into the over hanging branches. A few minutes later I netted her as another angler walked into the swim. I carried her back to the bank and quickly tried to weigh her, but as I thought she bottomed out my Avon's. Quickly sacking the fish I ran back to the car to pick up the big scales. A few minutes later two other anglers and myself weighed her at 41lb 1oz.
I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but that was to be the only time in the next three years I was to see the Common eat bait.
I fished on all through the year including the whole winter racking up a total of 36 fish including 7 different originals and a repeat capture of Cut-Off. Nightmare Spring
That spring of '02 it was like fishing a different lake. The fish took a long time to come out of the woodwork and all of a sudden every carp angler for miles around seemed to have converged on the pit. The lake fished really badly that spring and I only managed a couple of stockies.
I spent that summer trying to get into Barbel, Bass and Trout fishing, but eventually ended up buying a Wraysbury ticket.
Back For More Punishment
I returned to Burghfield in January '03. At least I knew I wouldn't have too many anglers to compete with at that time of year. The first trip back was just after new years and I paid particular attention to a deep corner of a Bay where I'd tracked the fish down to the previous winter, on my second trip I had some success. Proper Winter Original
I'd arrived and set-up in the dark, but using a line-counter both rods were clipped up the required distance and cast accurately to a bar with small balanced trout pellet hookbaits and tiny pva parcels of crushed hemp. It was a cold Friday night, with temperatures below freezing. At 9pm I saw a few really gentle shows over the bar. At first I thought these were probably bream, but later a few larger fish showed and I was sure some carp were about.
The next morning Knotty and Nathan, two of Readings finest, came round for a visit; they were fishing on another part of the pit. I was reluctant to move the baits after seeing signs of fish but had nothing to eat, so after some pleading Nathan finally took pity on me and offered to drop by the shops.
That evening I saw no signs of fish at all, and at 9pm had rolled over to sleep thinking my chance was over. Then the right hand rod just melted off. I fought with the sleeping bag and eventually made it to the rods. The fight was quickly over and the head torch revealed a scaly original mirror in the bottom of the net. She looked a good size so I quickly weighed her in at 25lb 12oz.
Knotty and Nathan had moved swims to the Cunning Man public house, but were quickly on their way back to take a photo and wisely brought refreshments to toast the rare fish; a January Burghfield original. A nice welcome back and my proudest Burghfield carp.
The cold temperatures persisted and the following weekend I arrived just in time to get the rods out before the bay froze. I was relatively confident and thought there was a chance of another fish. So I stayed for the weekend, angling under the ice. Having found some large sticks and with the aid of waders; I had a plan to break up the marginal ice should I hook a fish. That weekend was very cold, down to minus 5 or 6 both nights, and by Sunday morning the ice was over an inch thick! But somehow there was a strange paradoxical pleasure to be had from the sheer hideousness of the conditions.
Third Spring 2003
The Big Common was more visible than ever that spring, regularly appearing in two of its favourite areas. One was simply a sunbathing spot and offered no chance of a capture, although the view was quite stunning, the other however looked promising.
I spotted her in there with another common about half her size. Sat in an overhanging tree she swam right underneath me a couple of times, leading the smaller fish around a little tucked away corner. They were deep down and looked very relaxed. I couldn't make out any of her give away features, but the shear size of the common carp below me left little doubt in my mind. The other common followed her every move, it was obviously a good fish, but was simply dwarfed by its chief. I set some marginal sweetcorn traps and early the next morning I banked what I presume was her swimming partner at 23lb 10oz; looking back through my fishing diaries it turned out to be my fortieth Burghfield carp.
Before we knew it the weed was right up and they'd spawned. The Wraysbury season opened and I was looking forward to some different surroundings, so headed off.
You Just Can't Leave It
Burghfield had certainly lost some of its appeal by this stage, but that Common just keeps dragging you back again for another little go. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate carp in the UK, it hasn't got that big by eating bait and getting caught. One thing is for sure, the next person to bank her will be very proud.
