Jack Sowdens Carp Fishing Blog

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.

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

[View with PicLens]

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