Carp & Sharks – Mike’s Vlog

this time he ventures back to the crazy park in search of a small family of carp that run the otter gauntlet each year while sharing the lake with Lilos, loud music, BBQ’s, swimmers, ramblers, ravers and everything in-between. The place is not for the faint hearted and neither were the huge sharks he encountered along the way…….

Full transcript below.

Back at the Crazy Park: what’s changed

He’s not happy, that’s for sure, but a lovely carp, maybe mid-20, bristling. Look at the size of him.

What is going on with this weather? It’s not quite the middle of May and it just feels like it hasn’t stopped raining. Torrentially, for what seems like weeks, months even. The seasons feel a month behind, like we haven’t had a spring. But it’s good to be back. I’m back at the park, or the predation pit as I called it in my last diary. You could class it now as the Crazy Park, and I might refer to it as that, because haven’t things changed since I was last here.

I last fished the end of October through to December, a short six-week period, and it was bliss, very quiet, not used by the public, just me and, unfortunately, the otter. But things have changed. It’s great to be out angling again, it feels so good for the soul. The Crazy Park has come alive. It’s not just the anglers who wanted out of the house, the public have been chomping at the bit too, and this is a public park. On the odd glimmer of sun they descend and it turns into absolute chaos: boats, barbecues, people sunbathing everywhere. This little family of carp are just used to it, the craziness, dogs everywhere, people screaming, live music, ravers. It’s a crazy place, unlike anything I’ve done in the past.

The litter problem

There’s one downside. When the public come out to play, some feel it’s okay to leave litter, which has been a big part of my daily walks. It amazes me that some think it’s fine to leave all their rubbish after a picnic or barbecue. It’s a poor excuse for a human being. I feel sorry for the park rangers, who do a great job, in every morning at six picking up litter, making the park look spick and span, but only for a short time before the public descend again and litter it with bottle tops, beer cans, everything. It’s part and parcel of what you endure if you want to catch one of these park-lake carp. So if it’s you leaving the rubbish, please pick it up. Every morning I walk round looking for a carp or two, I find myself picking up litter, trying to keep the park in a lovely state.

The other big change is the weed. It’s blossomed, boomed, big beds of Potamogeton everywhere, and if you’ve ever fished in Potamogeton, the stems are really strong and can cause you problems if you hook a carp near it. We don’t actually know what’s left in here from the winter after the otter was here, so fingers crossed there’s the odd carp still. As the weather warms up, that’s when we hope they’ll pop up like corks and we’ll see what we’re fishing for.

The two golden hours

You get two lovely times at the park. This time in the evening, as the sun sets, the public go home, so you get a peaceful period and the wildlife comes out: kingfishers darting back and forth, the heron doing his thing in the margins looking for small perch. The other golden period is sunrise, because the public aren’t up. At five or six in the morning it feels a completely different lake, it’s bliss. But when the public wake up, everything changes.

Where carp fishing sits: Dapper and priorities

I know it’s raining, you don’t seem too keen, do you. I’ll get your harness on. This is life for me, I’ve got a lot of time demands, and one of them is this little monkey. Fourteen years old, still acts like a puppy, and likes a little walk with his ball, but he’s got a bit of arthritis these days, so he’s not the fastest off the blocks, are you, Dapper. One or two throws and he’s spent.

It’s important to understand where carp fishing sits on my time spectrum. This little monkey comes only second or third, after my family and work commitments. With a young son too, time is never on my side, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. In the past I’ve pushed carp fishing up the priority ladder, put it in front of family and work, and I’ve lost relationships from it, not done as good a job professionally. I know other things suffer. Sometimes I question my own sanity, whether these really difficult campaigns are the best use of my time. Probably not, to be honest. But angling is very personal, and the adventure I’ve chosen means I might not catch anything all year, and that’s fine, because it’s personal to me. The odd bit of time I do have, I’ll dedicate to the prep and the pre-baiting.

Baiting-up day

This old battle-axe has seen better days, this poor freezer. Tomorrow is baiting-up day, so I need to get some boilies out to defrost. I’ve already got some particles defrosting in the bucket, and I’ve put a few extra tiger nuts in to compensate for those tench. I’ll get up nice and early, leave the house by six, and get some bait in. I always add a little Himalayan rock salt to the mix, it goes a long way, and they seem to like it this time of year.

That’s the prep done, and there’s nobody here this morning, which is great. I’ve done my laps, picked up the litter, and put a bit of bait in, not too heavy, between 10 and 15 spombs and a couple of handfuls on the margin spot.

Reading the spot with a bare lead

One thing I’ve noticed: every time I bait up, on the last cast I run a bare lead through the spot to gauge how clear it’s getting. It started with a few soft thuds, but as the bait has gone in over two or three weeks, the lead now goes crack, slide, crack, tap tap tap. Something is clearing that area off. With maybe 15 to high-teens carp in here, the likelihood of seeing them show while I’m here is slim, because I’m in and out within half an hour. So my only gauge for whether to keep baiting is how clear it’s getting, and this little lead is telling me the spot is getting clearer. It might be tench, I might be wasting my time, but if the spot keeps telling me it’s clearing, hopefully I can attract a carp. It’s all in the lap of the carp gods, and at the moment they’re winning and I’m losing. To fish a place like this with a low stock is just a mindset. It could go all year without a carp, but that’s what I enjoy. It feels like Everest, but I know when I get one it’ll feel amazing.

The weather breaks: finding the fish

The weather continued to be atrocious, and it’s not much fun packing up at half seven, or setting up, when it’s hailing down. But I kept ploughing on, doing my one overnighter a week, because I knew there’d be a break, and as soon as the sun warmed the upper layers, surely those carp would make the most of it.

I was right. As soon as the sun popped out, I found them, first in the edge, really close to my margin spot, which looked really good. Then, as the sunny days continued, I bumped into what you could class as the King of the lake. If I was ever to meet this one, I’d be a happy chap. That’s the target fish, I’m pretty sure. Great to see him up close. He looks far bigger than anything else. It’s great to know he’s alive and the otters haven’t had him, but the likelihood of catching him is slim, because he’s one crafty old carp.

Fishing clear water

I’m back doing a Thursday overnighter, rods out sweet. With the weed booming, not only am I seeing fish regularly, the lake is becoming clearer by the week. It looks like tap water, you can see the bottom almost across the whole lake, which doesn’t do your presentation many favours with line lay and weed. So I’ve been extra careful. I’ve put new fluoro leaders on, with little mouse-droppings of putty all the way up, increased in size, and even a few bits on the braid, so it’s pinned right down near the hook. A bit of extra paranoia, maybe. I’ve also scooped some gravel out of the margin and got my lead man, who lives round the corner, to impregnate some of that dried gravel into the coating of my lead. It’s all the extra little percentages. Whether it makes a difference, I have no idea, but in my mind’s eye I’m fishing confidently, and the rest is down to the carp.

I’m not actually fishing my baited areas yet, because I haven’t seen definite signs of carp on them, and if you fish pre-baited areas too soon with lines running through them, I’ve always found that detrimental. So I’m dotting myself around the lake, still baiting the two areas, ready to drop on them the moment I see something. Now I’m seeing them, it makes a massive difference, because you can fish with your eyes instead of your gut.

I’ve failed miserably here. I thought I had a tin of tuna to go with my rice, but I haven’t, so it looks like I’m having rice with rice. Appetising. The life of an overnight angler.

An hour before an interview

I’ve got a bit of a trot on, slightly out of breath. I was on my way to Baitworks HQ to conduct interviews for a new Saturday shop assistant, but as always I swung into the lake on route and had a look in the margin spot. There’s one on the spot, a big tail wafting at me. Can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I’ve literally got one hour, so next time you see me I’ll either have a carp in my hands, highly unlikely, or I’ll be back at HQ.

The fish are just the other side of this bush, and I’ve just seen the one that was feeding go out around the weed, so I’ve got to get this rod in without them knowing, be as stealthy as I can. Here goes. Right, it’s either going to go very well, or I’ll be sitting with my tail between my legs in the interview. Fingers crossed he comes back from the weed bed still chewing, glides down onto the spot, totally unaware there’s an additional freebie there with a hook in it. The art of stealth, a bit like a hunter. I’ve got one percent battery, so let’s hide behind this bush and sit tight.

I couldn’t be happier. After a lot of effort, a lot of miles, a lot of baiting, I’ve actually got one. It’s a mirror, and I’m really chuffed. I’ve only had an hour, but an hour in the right spot is all you need. He’s not happy, but a lovely carp, maybe mid-20, bristling. Look at the size of his pecs. Mr Angry. He gave me a right merry dance. Let’s get you back. Typical, I’m running late, I knew I was cutting it fine.

Like buses

Well, this is always a great sign, I haven’t seen it for a long time: wet slings, nets and mat propped up on the work fence.

Talk about buses. You wait a while for your first, then catch two in the same afternoon. I finished the interviews, locked the factory up, pulled a few strings and came back, and I’ve only had the rod out an hour and I’ve got another one. This is far from the easiest lake for a take, but to get two in the same afternoon, I’ll sleep well tonight. Wow. A couple a year, a handful a year, is a good result from here with the volume of fish left. This one’s a blue-grey colour. That has made all the preparation, the regular trickling of bait, the regular stops with a pocketful of bait, worthwhile. Back you go, mate, thank you very much.

Otter signs return

Things were going well, but it died off, because as I suspected the sun dipped that evening and any fish in the margins melted out into the middle. Then last week I couldn’t fish, because I had that lovely thing most people have had in this country, my Covid jabs, and I haven’t felt great since, a little fatigued.

That brings us up to speed. I’m three weeks on from those margin fish, and last night was an evening of two halves. What I found when I arrived is never a good sign: a gill plate of something. It looks possibly too small to be a carp, but it could be part of one. A sad sign, a reality check that this place is heavily predated. If it wasn’t a carp, it’s an unlucky tench.

After finding that gill plate, I had a good look around, and you can see a perfect otter slide here, even the claw marks if you look closely, where the otter slides into the lake to do its hunting and comes back out. There are definitely signs of otters back hunting on this pit, at a time when hopefully food is plentiful, like crayfish, so they’ll leave the carp alone. But finding that gill plate and these signs again is worrying. I was hoping not to find any of this until the winter. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but that’s nature. They’ve used this lake as a hunting ground for a long time. You often find smashed-up crayfish or broken birds’ eggs where they’ve got easier pickings, so hopefully the carp are safe.

A surprise: the smallest fish in the park

I was going to go home, but I dusted myself off and got the rods out, and I’m glad I did, because I’ve had a ripping take this morning and I’ve got a fish in the net that I didn’t even know existed in this lake. I have no idea where it’s come from, probably somebody’s pond, an angler who slipped it in. I certainly wouldn’t advise stocking any fish without the required health checks. But he’s caught me by surprise, because he’s an absolute monster. Look at that. All of about two pound, maybe. A lovely carp, but not what I’m after. Off we go.

Carp and sharks: the trip of a lifetime

I’ve just got back from probably the best fishing trip I’ve ever experienced in my life. But first, remember I suspected I’d be covered in mosquito bites? I am. My legs are on fire where I’ve scratched them. I must have had 20 or 30 bites from one night’s angling. A valuable lesson: don’t forget your mozzie mesh.

I needed a pick-me-up, and when you need one, you call your best mates. They offered me an olive branch: why don’t you come down to the south coast, I’m off shark fishing and there’s a space on the boat. I was like, wow, I’m in. Slightly nervous, because sharks to me are a kind of nightmare and a dream come true. You immediately think of Jaws, but then you think of the amazing dream of seeing a shark up close, the majestic animal that is a shark in our British waters.

We were hoping to catch a porbeagle. Some of these can be in excess of 300, 400, even 500 pounds. To me that’s Jaws. I can’t imagine seeing something that big. Dave picked me up at the unearthly hour of 3am, a couple of hours’ drive, but in good company it never feels long. By the time we got down we met the rest of the guys, Chris, Andy and Danny. Like any fishing trip, it’s not necessarily what you catch, it’s the company you keep. Before we knew it we were testing some of the tackle, and I was in awe, I’d never seen tackle like it, but we were fishing for the biggest of big fish in British shores. Chris was testing the boat rod, and the skipper was trialling the wire traces, freshly tied.

We charged out of the port. Sunrise was beautiful, 6am, all full of anticipation. That was short-lived, because I nearly lost the inside of my stomach when the skipper started mixing up the rubby dubby. Anyone who knows shark fishing knows the rubby dubby is a bucket-load of stinky minced fish that creates all the oil. You put it in a bucket and chuck it over the side as you drift, and it creates a chum line, a trail of oil and stinky fish, with the view that the shark will detect it from a ridiculous range and follow the oily slick line closer to the boat.

We had three rods between six of us and took turns holding, because the fight of a shark can be a long, tiring thing, so it’s a shared experience. We went all morning without a single sign. Aaron, the skipper, said that’s not unusual, these porbeagles are tricky characters to tempt. So we did a bit of mackerel fishing, plenty of banter, plenty of cups of tea, caught some pouting, just good fun, while Aaron kept his eyes on the sea the whole time.

Then, completely out of the blue, one of the rods bobbing along in front of the boat dipped under. Aaron saw it at the corner of his eye, lifted the rod, said there’s one on there, boys, who wants it, and handed it to Andrew Parkinson. Andrew didn’t have a chance to think before this thing took off like a nuclear missile. Sadly the high was short-lived, because just as he was setting himself for a battle, the hook came out and it was gone in the blink of an eye. We’d waited all morning for that one chance.

Then all of a sudden we saw the fin ball up in the chum, way back, a proper Jaws moment, and it disappeared. At that point you know you might just get another chance. Before we knew it, Dave, who was holding the rod, said, I think I’ve just seen the float bob. He didn’t even have a chance to think before this shark took off from zero to a hundred miles an hour in about three seconds. You could just see the pain on Dave’s face.

It felt like forever, at least half an hour. Dave manoeuvred himself round the bow expertly, making sure the braid didn’t touch any sharp bits of the boat, this shark leading a merry dance, constantly running. But he managed it expertly, tired the shark out, and slowly we realised we might win this battle. Like any fish, you treat them with the utmost respect, fish welfare is the most important part of the day. Dave carefully glided the shark to the boat, Aaron expertly brought it close, and we all got to see it, experience it, touch it, that really rough skin. A real boyhood dream come true, to see something so big. This shark was well over 100 pound and it was just majestic, the teeth on it like a mini Jaws. Aaron carefully unhooked it next to the boat, held it gently, and it kicked off strongly down into the deep blue, gone, but a memory etched in our minds forever.

We carried on and had a couple more chances. Chris lost a huge one through no fault of his own, the hook pulled. Then, right at the end of the day, an absolutely ginormous shark started circling the boat, easily over 300 pounds, maybe 350, the closest thing I’ll ever see to Jaws. Andrew Parkinson’s float slid under and it was gone on a huge run. This shark was massive, but it didn’t use speed like Dave’s, it just kept its weight in the water. You could see the distance from the wire trace at its front to its dorsal fin, and from there to its tail, it was huge, circling the boat on the surface while Andrew hung on, in awe. I was thinking, if Dave battled his for half an hour, Andrew had better sit tight for the next hour, because that thing looks like it could tow us out to sea.

It circled, went off on long runs, and Andrew passed the rod to his fishing partner Danny, who was sharing it. But just as we were beginning to win the battle, bringing it slowly closer, we think the wire trace got wrapped around the shark, because the trace snapped and the battle was lost. From that euphoric moment where we thought we’d see this huge thing up close, after half an hour of constant battling, gone in the blink of an eye. A real gut-wrenching feeling, when something so big is so close and you just want to bring it that little bit closer.

But what a trip. We drove back to the marina, gutted, Aaron especially, because he knew the magnitude of that shark. But we picked each other up, had a giggle, and thanked our host immensely for the invite. It’s left a long-lasting memory. I sit here in awe of what’s in our British ocean. You glance to the shore and see people sunbathing and hiking the cliffs, and yet we were attached to something so big that most people would be petrified of it. It’s funny how the film Jaws creates such a negative impression, when nothing could be further from the truth. They’re majestic, they don’t harm humans, especially the sharks here, and to see one up close is a dream come true.

Home: cooking the mackerel

I’m back, it’s Monday, no more scooters on the boat, which is great, and I’m already planning my return to the park. Yesterday, slightly tired, I managed to roll some fresh boilie pop-ups, because I’m running out. But what I’m looking forward to most tonight is the mackerel I brought home. I’ll cook them in a little bag of foil with garlic and herbs. Catching and eating what you catch is about as good as it gets. They’re really fresh, in the fridge, so I’ll gut them, invite a mate for dinner, and we’ll have fresh mackerel to celebrate a day shark fishing, before it’s back to Pot Noodles at the park next week.

Dawn finale

Good morning, and what a beautiful dawn. The park is blissfully quiet, the birds have just come alive, I can’t hear a car, and it’s only quarter past five. My alarm clock before work was the sound of an absolute ripping run. I scuttled down the steps and latched into a fish that’s beasted me, and he’s down there sulking in the net. At a quick glance in the dull light, I’ve got a weird suspicion it might be the same fish I had three weeks ago. If it is, it just confirms there are hardly any carp, or a small family, in this lake. I’ll get it up to make sure, because I don’t want to make a mistake if there’s a twin. For now, I’ll have a cup of coffee, take in the ambience, these lovely dancing ghosts of mist across the surface, the water clearly warmer than the air.

I knew that old bottle would come in handy. When I was litter picking the other day, I left it because I thought I could rest my net on it, full of water and festooned with zebra mussels. Sure enough, a perfect little net support. Happy days. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the same one, these three or four scales give it away. Got a hell of a tail on it.