Jack Sowdens Carp Fishing Blog

Well I was supposed to be off fishing tonight, but i am just too busy having three websits to get finished and this is not including my day job! I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who have been reading my blog and the odd none spam comment I receive. I really wish I had more time to write and go fishing of course.

The other day I got all of my old fishing photos out and showed them to a few friends. They where amazed at what i had achieved when I was only 14 to 16 years old. I used to fish on Emmotland ponds during this period and also won a few county and nationwide awards. I would love to have the time to write up some of the experience’s I had during my early fishing years as they are still imprinted in my mind to this day.

Not only did I fish at Emmotland, I visited a few other Yorkshire waters on a regular basis, including Hull and Districts Bransburton complex. I used to spend as much time as I could out there fishing and one Christmas I spent from the 20th of December to early January on the bank. It was in this session I caught my first english 30lb plus carp and this was to turn out to be the first 30lb er of the year caught on new years day.

I remember a few good trips to france during the period. I fished at Les Quis, Dream Lakes and the Fishabil lake. I have some really good memories and I am definatly going to write a few of these trips up, just means I am going to have to scan the photos in. Its so much better now with digital cameras dont you think! I must have spent thousands of pounds on getting fishing photos developed only to find they are no good!

Below are some old photos that I have already scanned in. Over the next week I will add a few more and add breif descriptions on where these pictures are from etc…

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Jack Sowden

Over the past two weeks I have managed two very short evening fishing sessions on Barmston Farm. I just popped for 3 hours after work with  just the one rod! On both visits I have managed a few Carp to just over 10lb.

I have been fishing on the surface and moving around to find any feeding fish. Its been nice taking a small amount of gear, as there are no worries when you get back home, cleaning etc. Also its nice not to have to lug it to your peg and spend twenty minutes setting up. The weather has not been great during both session and i am looking forwards to hitting it right and bagging up in the following weeks.

I am hoping to get back out this week, but again it will only be for a couple of hours at the most.

I have just been fishing with Bread Crust on the hook and Chum Mixers for the free offerings. I had bought some imitation bread and was going to give that a go too but have not really had the chance as I have been rushing to get the rod in the water upon arrival at the lake. My mate was using this and he did not seem to be getting as many takes as me, in fact I don’t think he had a proper take at all!

imitation Bread
Over the last few sessions I have not been getting bothered by little nuisence fish such as Roach and Rudd so bread has been ideal and convenient to use. I was wanting to get a bit of confidence using imitation bread, as it is a handy tool to have in your armory when been bothered by small Roach and Rudd on a water like Barmston Farm. I like using bread as you can totally burry the hook inside and there is never a problem hooking the carp.

The is the fake bread I had bought, looks spot on.

Zig Rigs
This is something else I am wanting to have a go with on Barston farm as I have heard a few people have been catching the Carp whilst fishing a foot deep. I am going to try this method out this week and I shall let you know if it does work. For anyone who does not know what a Zig Rig is, you basically fish say a 6ft hooklength in 8ft of water. There are many diffrent versions you can use but the main idea is always the same.

I have posted a few photos from the first short session I did but unfortunately on the second, I forgot the camera.

One of the my Carp from short session at Barmston Farm.

One of the Nicks Carp from short session at Barmston Farm.

One of the my Carp from short session at Barmston Farm.

Jack Sowden

Some video I made a while ago, not to be taken too seriously as I had to make them for uni! I might shoot some more soon as I did enjoy making them and editing them..

Sorry I have not posted this earlier. Whilst I was fishing I got a phone call offering me a full time job throughout the summer! I jumped at the chance, as it will help me learn the things I need to get the best grade possible next year at university.

This means that I wont be able to go fishing every week and to be honest I cannot see myself doing much more fishing this summer!

Well lets get on with what happened at Newbridge Lake. Well it rained and rained and there were some amazing electrical storms. I tried to get some photos of the lightening but I missed it every time!

I set up early afternoon and had a good plum around to see what was out there and found some nice spots to put the baits. I spodded pellets and sweetcorn out, in the hope of getting the smaller fish such as bream and tench feeding first.

To cut a long story short I did not have one bleep through the night and I was extremely surprised by this. I learnt from a few anglers I spoke to that the peg I was fishing was not a very popular one. I would not have said it was a bad peg as I found some really nice clear areas on the bottom to fish amongst the weed and thick smelly silt!

I opted to do a bit of stalking as I had seen fish in the marging to my right early in the morning. I just fished bread crust amongst the lillys. After a good wait I hooked and landed a fish of around 14lb. It was hell of a fight as there were snags every where, a fight I certainly wont forget for a while.

After catching this fish I had no further action and all the fish in the area had spooked after catching.

Please see photos from the session below and I will try and get back out there soon!

View from peg 25 Newbridge Lake

View from peg 25 Newbridge Lake

The carp I managed to catch in the end!

Jack Sowden

I have just got off the phone with Michelle from Newbridge Lake and have arranged to go down next Tuesday night. You have to book your pegs before you go, I have picked peg 25. When I visited the lake to have a look around the other week I saw loads of fish in this area. There were other pegs I would have favoured but unfortunately for me these where already booked.

I am not only going to target the Carp in the lake on this visit, it also contains Tench and many other specimen sized coarse fish species. I am hoping to get into some of the Tench, and for this reason I will be using small particle baits such as Sweet Corn and Pellets. I am going to try and get the smaller fish feeding first with the hope that the Carp will move in at some point. It seems as if the lake has a fairly big head of Carp and these come in all sizes. I have seen Carp as small as 2lb swimming around but the fish do run to over 30lb.

From what I have been told there has been 3 different 30lb plus Carp caught. Looking at the photos on the website there are also many 20lb plus Carp to be caught. I am really looking forward to this session as I can see this venue being somewhere I will carry on visiting regularly.

I am going to have to use the bait I have been using on previous sessions as I really can’t afford to spend any money on anything better. I will make some better hook baits as I want to be sure they stay on all night without been damaged by the smaller fish. I will use Egg Albumin in the hook bait mix to create a tougher more durable skin.

I have not got a clue what to expect from this session, so I am going with a pretty open mind. I will learn a lot of valuable information about the lake on this visit, which will be used in future trips.

Until next time, Jack Sowden.

Just found the time to write up yesterday’s hectic carp fishing session. I arrived a little later than I would have liked and found the lake extremely busy. The weather was good for sunbathing but bad for fishing! Extremely hot with no cloud in the sky, must have been over 25C.

I had wanted to get set up in the snaggy area of the lake but these pegs had already been taken. I also wanted to do some surface fishing but due to the breeze this was not possible at first. I tried to get them feeding on top early on in the session but they did not want to know.

I had to opt for the area I had fished in recent visits, peg 29 next to my usual peg 30. I had a little plum around to see what was actually out there and to see how deep the shallow area I had previously found was. After a few casts I found a nice shallow area, which was 3 to 4 feet deep and only 25 yards out, immediately I spodded out a mix of pellets and sweet corn. I knew from recent sessions I needed to put a little more bait out there, the lake is stacked with fish and I thought it would hopefully create a feeding frenzee. By using pellets and sweetcorn I hope to keep the Carp searching around for more food in the swim. Obviously the smaller items are harder for the Carp to find and keeps them interested in feeding in the swim for longer compared to just using large free offerings.

I placed two rods both with PVA bags full of pellets in the area of the spodded mix and sat back and enjoyed the sun. Soon I will document some of the techniques and rigs I use. At the moment I am just using up some of the hundreds of old rigs I have already tied up, as I used to sell them!

For the first four hours I only had two carp but I was getting loads of liners. It was clear the fish had found the bait and was starting to feed heavily. For the next four hours the action was none stop and I landed another 12 Carp. I also lost a few, including a pretty big one right at the net (still trying to forget about that one!). During this period I spodded out some more bait and catapulted pellets out several times.

By 8pm the breeze had stopped blowing and the surface had become calmer. I had been firing in Chum mixers for a while and had noticed a few fish starting to take them. I was more than happy with what I had caught on the bottom so I made the decision to reel these rods in and concentrate on taking one off the top. By the time I got my hook bait out to the area of feeding fish, they where feeding extremely confidently.

My hook bait was gulped up within seconds and I had a good fight for around 7 minutes with a double figure Carp. I was using pretty light gear so I had to be very carefull. At this venue I generally use light gear, I have 2 Greys Prodigy Specimen rods with a 1.5lb TC – which makes playing small Carp pretty fun.

After this, I had two others off the top in the next 20 minutes. I was well chuffed with getting a few off the top as I love this style of fishing. All in all it was a great day and probably one to remember for a while! I felt that I had put a little more thinking into what I was doing and it paid off.

Here are a few photos from the day.

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Next week I will definitely be starting my fishing adventure on Newbridge lake.

Till then, Jack Sowden

I was getting all excited about going to Newbridge Lake tomorrow. I have just unfortunately found out that Nick my mate who was going take me has to work!

I do not drive so I have to rely on other people to take me, the only other person who can give me a lift is Rachel, my girlfriend. However Burstwick would be to far for her to take me in the morning before work. However she will be able to drop me off at Barmston Farm, so it’s not all bad after all!

I could do with starting my driving lessons again, but I cannot see that happening whilst I am at University. It would be so handy if I could drive and it would sure give the opportunity to fish venues further afield.

I am going to try my hardest tomorrow and wont just fish into open water and wait for the runs. If the snaggy area of the lake is free I will get in there as I could see plenty of fish in this area last week. I will also be trying to get them feeding on the surface, which is normally pretty easy as long as there is not too much of a breeze.

Jack Sowden

Just had a look at my bait stores and I was pretty surprised at how much base mix I still have. I have mixed a lot of old ingredients up and all I need to do is add a little Semolina, Soya Flour or Maize Flour to the mix to make it roll a little better. It looks like I have about 100kg of mix! Well that’s going to last me a few years.

Something I don’t have a lot of is the liquid ingredients. I probably have enough to make around 15kg of bait at the moment. I have mixed all of these up so I will have to have a little bait making session soon and get the freezer full.

I also found plenty of pellets and a shed load of method mix.

Jack Sowden

I have been back into carp fishing for about 3 weeks now, I have really got the taste for it again. I thought I would have been happy fishing nice easy venues this summer which are stacked with fish like Barmston Farm, but I went to look around a local venue yesterday, which was crying out to be fished! I started to get a feeling I have been fishing at the wrong venues.

The venue is called Newbridge Lake, in Burstwick near Hull. The lake is just under 7 acres and is set in a lovely woodland surrounding. I am going fishing there on Thursday so I will tell you a little more about it then.
I would not class the lake as being difficult water, as from what I saw it looked pretty well stocked. It would definitely be a challenge if I was to start fishing there as the lake owner told me that there have been three 30lb plus carp out. I would probably set myself a target of catching one of these larger fish.

Many years ago I used to be well up for a challenge but in more recent years I seem to be happy fishing anywhere really. Now is the time I think to step the fishing up a gear and try to start catching some bigger fish again. Even when I have been fishing recently I have not been putting as much thought into what I am doing as I used to. So things are to change now and lets see if we can start getting some fish that are worthy of sending into some of the angling magazines and newspapers.

Sometime soon I will write a few posts on the fishing I have done in the past. The main bulk of my Carp Fishing was done when I was 14 to 17 years old. I have loads of great photos and story’s to tell. That’s if I can remember them all!

One problem I have at the moment is that I cannot really afford to be spending any money on Bait and tackle. I have plenty of old bait in my garage but I feel if I was to start fishing more challenging water I could really do to get on a better source of bait. I used to sell and make bait for other people so I have plenty of bait ingredients left over still. I may try and mix them all up and see if I can come up with something thats worthy of a challenge!

Below are some photos of Newbridge Lake

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If you would like any further information on the fishing at Newbridge Lake please see the following link
Link to Newbridge Lake website

Jack Sowden

Well I did manage to get out fishing yesterday for a bit and it turned out to be a pretty good day! I arrived at Barmston Farm fishing lake at around 11am and got set up in a swim which has a shallow area out in front of it (3 to 4 ft).

The Weather
It was an extremely hot day with a nice breeze blowing across the lake and very little cloud in the sky. Even when the sun started to fall the temperature fell very little. I think the weather definitely slowed the fishing down and maybe I should have tried stalking for the Carp in the snaggy areas of the lake. However I had some important stuff to read for work whilst I was waiting for my runs so this was not an option!

The Fishing
I fished using pva bags full of pellets, boilies are not allowed on this water. I cast out to the shallow gravely area out in front of peg 30, you could say it was a Plato I was fishing too. Next time I go I need to inspect this area more and find out exactly what it is. I fired 10mm Halibut pellets around both of the rods I had in the water.

From dinner time to 6pm I had only caught 2 carp but once the sun started to fall, the action was more regular. In the end I landed 6 carp and lost 3 with the biggest been about 8lb. In past visits to the lake I have caught many more fish than this in a similar time period and like previously mentioned, i think the extremely hot and bright conditions slowed them down. I also did not have any hemp & sweetcorn with me as I have found this to be a very successful bait on this lake.

More about the Barmston Farm
If you want any more information about Barmston Farm please see the link for there website below.

Link to Barmston Farms website

Not to sure when I will be fishing next, I will start to add a little more detail to these post in the future. Please take a look at some of the photos from the day below.