We then had to decide where we were all going to fish. After a bit of discussing we all settled in and began the lengthy process of marking up areas out in the lake. We were lucky enough to have boats at the venue, so with the venue being relatively shallow, it was easy enough to prod around and find the harder spots within the silty bottom where the fish were likely to be feeding on. Once the spots were marked we then laid the traps. We started with Boilies and Pellets, but we soon found that this wasn't going to be possible. Every cast with a boilie, pellet, or even livebait, was coming in complete with a Poisson Chat (small Catfish). These little buggers become increasingly annoying and really tested our patience. We tried a number of different methods such as Meshing baits and rubbers baits, but it wasn't until we used tiger nuts that the problem decreased.

After baiting up all the rods with Tiger Nuts fished over Particles, we started to catch consistently. We all landed Carp in excess of 25lb but some of us were luckier than others.... Winky did not have a single fish until we were into the third day of our trip. He had however, lost the mother of all Grass Carp, which when it jumped clear of the water looked like a good 40lb plus; the point when this fish come adrift was not only devastating for Wink, but for all of us, it would have been the most impressive fish any of us had ever seen in the flesh without a doubt. When wink did get on the score sheet however, his luck we did start to change. His first catch turned out to be a great conditioned 20lb white Koi. Pretty much straight afterwards this was followed by a 30lb 4oz Common! On the fourth day Winky and I sat back and came up with an idea that soon turned out to be one we will never forget.

I had soaked all of my left over pellets, boilies and particles prior to our trip in a large bucket. By now this mix had properly broken down and after a bit of mixing we were able to roll it into stiff paste balls. We then decided to make a golf ball sized boilie out of this paste and then proceed to mesh it with tights in the same way you would create a PVA bag. Winky was the first to cast out one of these monster offerings, and it only took 2-3 minutes before it was off! Standing up to my waste in water, I patiently waited for whatever Wink had hooked to surface. It didn't take long until a large shark like fin broke the surface. Wink had hooked one of the large Diamond back Sturgeon. The fish proceeded to try and snag itself around anyone's legs it could find, causing us to start running around like a bunch of loons! Once the fish was netted (half in the net anyway!), it was unhooked and weighed in at 45lb; it turned out to be a fish known as one fin due to it missing one of its pectoral fins. From starting the week so badly, Wink had turned into the man everyone was envious of!

The final day soon arrived, and by this time we were all ready to go. The final tally before the last night stood at 7 Carp for Ratty, biggest being a 25lb Common; 13 Carp for Mark, biggest hitting 27lb; Wink had the 3 fish and I had 9; three of them being 28lb'ers. I say the final tally before the last night because Winky wasn't finished apparently! About an hour into to darkness his alarm sounded and he hit into what he first thought was a small fish; when the fish surfaced and appeared to be a three foot long Chub we knew he had finally hooked once again a fish we all wanted! Mark did the honours and slipped the net under the first Grassie of the trip weighing in at 25lb. The reason I said the first, is because he had another at 23lb an hour later; jammy git!! The trip had been a complete success. True we hadn't caught lots of fish or any of the monster Carp, but due to the Poisson Chat problem we were happy with what we had caught. It turned out that a week after we left the venue was netted and 2.5 Tonnes of Poisson Chat were removed; Typical! Congratulations go out to Wink, he had well and truly done us all this trip. Next time the rest of us won't be so forgiving....