Bait test #1

Yesterday I had a few hours on a difficult water aiming for the carp and the tench. I had a rod for each species on the pod and I was fishing worms in the margins on the lift method. On the carp rod I was using marine halibut boilies and I was testing my homemade baits on the tench rod.

I had the water to myself until mid morning when another member turned up, after an extended chat he revealed that he had fished the water for about 3 years and hadn't landed a carp yet! However he had been successful with the tench, catching them to over 7lb.

I had a couple of liners on the tench rod but nothing positive, as I was repositioning the carp rod I noticed the float in the margin 'dancing', but by the time I made it to the rod it had stopped. Shortly after there was some movement on the float, a classic lift bite. The float rose, wobbled then laid flat on the surface, I struck in to a fish......

A bloody jack! Not what I was hoping for but it saved the dreaded blank (something that will probably happen a lot on this water).

The number of carp in the water is low (probably only half a dozen), but they are of a decent size. I'm not too concerned about the carp but it would be nice to land one, the tench however are another thing and I will be targeting them again next week.