College Animals.

I've never come across so fierce a fight from a small fish as the tussles with the Carp at College Pool, the takes are lightning quick and before you have time to react their gone, smashing your end gear in the process.

The first time I fished the pool was only a month ago as I've always headed across the fields to the nearby Avon instead of stopping at this small puddle to angle for it's inhabitants. Barry had heard of a few accounts of tackle smashing takes and suggested we give the place a go. True to the tales we heard from anglers fishing the far end of the pool our first few casts were smashed to bits before a single Carp graced the bottom of the net, when they did we could see that these fish weren't big at all, what is that lake feeding them?

Basking in the sun, no relaxing here!

I was under gunned on the first trip fishing a standard float set-up and a quiver tip feeder rod as a sleeper, it was leaving this rod alone that lost me two fish. The third take was lightning quick, the gear was stepped up for this cast and I held on with as much side strain as I dared to apply to keep this beast away from the tree's and lily pads, once out in the open it still fought with the strength and speed never experienced from any other Carp of the same size, a clump of weed helped things out and it was soon in the bottom of the net.

An amazing scrap from a single.

Barry managed to get some fish to feed off the top and we cobbled some gear together to give it a go, he'd been told that you can't catch them off the top here but it's so quick when it happens that some people just miss it, you don't see the take their that quick.

The next trip found me better prepared, tackle wise, the weather could have been a little kinder with thunder bolts and lightning arriving within an hour of starting the session. Barry had tried a fly rod earlier in the week as the pool offers the chance to fish in this way with plenty of room for back casts behind some of the pegs and the willingness for the Carp to venture up into the surface layers to feed. He'd been smashed to pieces fishing this way and fancied a good laugh when I told him I was bringing the fly rod on this session. I still got smashed up fishing on the bottom and after feeding some floaters and seeing a few taken, out came the imitation biscuits. There was no order to the movement of the fish like they are at Jubilee, it's just random takes all over the feeding area until your fly is nailed and that happens so quick, at jubilee I seem to have the time to lift into a fish as it takes the fly, at College there's a splash and the fish tightens up to you.

A couple of takes were spat out before I managed to connect, I then had my knuckles rapped as line was stripped from the reel at lightning speed, the Jubilee fish are usually subdued by the drag on the reel but even with this wound down tight I still had to palm the rim to slow this animal. Luck was on my side and I eventually found this fish in the bottom of my net.



Testing the gear to the max.



One of my all time favourite fly caught Carp scraps ever.