We had a quick stroll down the closest bank, and new due to the lack of other fisherman, that we were in for a chance of one of the 'better' swims. Immediately we both identified a close in island as a possible hotspot. After 5 minutes of looking over the water, we saw 2 fish crash out one side of the island, and fish bubbling on the other. I quickly returned to my dads van, unloaded the gear, and was soon setting up on the right side of the island, with Oli on the left side of the island, a few swims up.

On my left rod, I decided to fish tight to an overhanging tree, the spot were I had my hook straightened the trip before. I decided to fish a total boilie approach, hoping that it would deter some of the many bream that inhabit the lake. I used Nash Scopex Squid Robin Red boilies, as my confidence in this bait was now extremely high due to previous captures.

I used a chopped down 15mm boilie on the hair, with a 4 bait stringer attached. For the right rod, I decided to fish over a spod mix consisting of hemp, corn, tuna, cod roe, crushed up robin reds, and a large amount of halibut oil, with a 15mm robin red topped with a bit of pop-up corn as the hook bait. Although there are plenty of bream in the lake, I thought that as I was here for 2 nights, I might be able to wade through them, and eventually get a carp, as the lake is by no means a 'runs' water. After tidying my gear up, I went to see Oli.

We were staring at the water having a chat, when i noticed what I thought was a BIG tail in close, where Oli had chucked in roughly half a kilo of prepared bird seed and boilies. He immediately cast a method to the edge of the baited area, and one out next to the island.

We started to walk to my swim, when Oli's method rod went absoloutly ballistic. He struck into the fish which was now about 40 yards away from where he initially hooked the carp. After a 15 minute fight, we had a masssive common wallowing in the net. It went 23.6 lb on the scales, a new pb, and one chuffed carper.

The first day and night went pretty slow for me. The only fish out other than that was a 15.8 lb common, which fell to the boilie approach on the island. Oli then went to bag another mirror of 16.10, and a scrappy little common, about 5 lb. Throughout the day, i continued to cover my spodded area in my mix, but i didn't fish it until night time.

This seemed to be a very, VERY effective strategy.
 
From 11:30 til 2:00 am, I had three carp, weighing in at 13, 16.8 and a 20 lb simmo, known as the 'nike' fish, due to a large nike tick shaped scar at the top of its back, most probably from a heron attack previously. From then on I went on to bank 2 more scraper double commons, and numerous bream, all from the spod. It seemed like my persistance paid off, and me and Oli had a wicked session that will be hard to forget.