Norfolk's greatest Carp Lakes, Part 1

Every carp angler is dreaming of finding an unfished pit containing uncaught carp. Do they really exist? After finishing on the Felthorpe Lake for a long while I started looking around Norfolk for a quieter pit. I really enjoy lakes where the stock is a bit of a mystery, and always wanted to find a nice place which did not see many anglers, the kind of place which is rarely talked about.

This lake came to my attention through a recommendation from a very good friend, Dave, who works for a fishing tackle wholesale shop. He overheard one of his customers talking about this charming little lake in the south corner of Norfolk which was very quiet and untouched by anglers. After a long talk and some discount on fishing tackle, Dave found out the exact location of this lake and we decided to go investigate.

Not being open to fishing, the lake was overgrown without any proper swims. In order not to draw attention to it we would have to be discreet. We have walked around it a few times and thought that it looked carpy. Dave had seen a couple of fish there which got him very intrigued. He decided to stock up on some carp fishing tackle at his wholesale shop and have a go for them fish the following weekend.

The weather was quite good. The days were still warm but the night were just starting to get a little bit chilly. He did a single night at the lake in his waterline nerus beach shelter and caught a 28 lb mirror. However, what was most interesting was that he had seen eight fish that day. He recognised the one that he had caught and it looked liked it was the smallest of the bunch. He decided to give it a proper go again the following weekend and I left him to it, planning to start fishing myself in spring 2012.

A couple of month had passed. On a hot day in October 2011 we had a good mooch around the lake and climbed a few trees. The lake was not particularly snaggy, but there was one spot that caught the sun in the afternoon. Peering through the crystal clean water there was a couple of cleaner looking spots on the bottom among the prolific weed growth. As we made our way a bit further round, we stumbled across carp sunning themselves in a whole in the weed 鈥?two commons and a mirror. All three were lumps, the smallest one of three looked to be at least 35 lb. The largest, a common, looked to be around a 40 lb mark.

Dave stocked up on some carp fishing tackle at his fishing tackle wholesale shop and again did a couple of nights at the lake later that week. All went well as he duly banked a brace of commons. He rang and asked me to come over and take some photos. When I turned up, he was sitting in his waterline nerus beach shelter with a huge grin on his face. He had a good session. The first carp was huge – probably just under 38 lb. But the one that impressed me the most was the smaller of the two, which was 36 lb. It had a small head and fins and was a silvery blue colour with a very distinctive tail. At that point I was thinking that it was going to be my target for the spring. I was not bothers by the fact that there were only going to be a handful of carp in the lake and was very confident that armed with good carp fishing tackle I would have a good chance of catching the one a wanted. I decided to do a couple of day sessions, mainly to plump around and open up a couple areas from which to fish.

Come January, my campaign began early. We weather was surprisingly warm for this time of years so I decided to give the lake a try. Armed with some discount fishing tackle I got on January sale at Dave’s fishing tackle wholesale store I was ready for action. But before I could even start I had to prep the area with some bait.

I had arranged my work schedule so that I had enough time to do what I had to do. About 3 times a week I was putting the bait in my rucksack, drive to the lake, park up in the residential area and jog over a couple of field, all before work. Initially, I didn鈥檛 bait the lake in any particular area. I was spreading boilies in all the corners and out into the lake. I just wanted the fish to get a taste for the bait. I did this three times a week, giving out between 1 and 2 kilograms of boilies at the time. It is a good job that I stocked up on that discount fishing tackle at Dave’s tackle shop as I was going through a lot of stuff. A couple of weeks later, I decided to target two main spots at either end of the lake. One at the end of the south-westerly wind and the other on the easterly. The first was the corner where Dave caught the fish last time, and the other is where we had seen the big fish sunbathing last year. I began to put hemp out to try and clear the spots as both were in the margins surrounded by thick weed and pretty visible. I wanted to be able to see what was going on. This baiting went on for about a month, and although I had not seen any fish yet, the spots were being cleaned. My first session was planned for February 1st. I hope for some good weather.