Paul with his first ever carp @ 34lb
When Paul Blakeley visited the Notaires Lakes with his family, he had only intended to float fish for the roach and the perch. However, lake owner Chris persuaded him to have a dabble with the carp.
On the Friday Chris set up two rods for Paul, fishing to the trees in the middle lake. A couple of  open areas in front of the trees were prebaited with carp pellets and a few Quest chilli chocolate boilies.
The rods were cast out to these areas with simple carp safe rigs. All was quiet at first so after instructing Paul about the alarms, Chris slipped away to attend to some chores. Ten minutes later Paul was racing back to the house. The bite alarm had gone off and before Paul could lift the rod, it took off like an excocet missile for the lake. The sturdy Notaire’s carp towed the rod to the middle of the lake before discarding it.
Off to retrieve the rod!
It was determined that Chris had not released the line clip, so Chris waded in to retrieve the rod. Chris can now confirm the depth of the lake to be about waist high and the bottom to be 6 – 12 inches of silt.
After allowing a little time for the carp to get over their amusement, the rods were cast back out and this time when the alarm went off. Chris set the hook and played the carp to the net, landing a fine 25lb’er. The fishing went a little quiet then and one rod was changed to a drilled carp pellet topped  by a new Quest fluoro chilli chocolate popup, this did the trick. For the next run, Paul was primed and ready and with a little coaching played the carp steadily to the net. Everyone was amazed when it topped the scales at 34lbs, Paul declaring that he had never even seen a fish that big before, never mind caught one.
Paul with his second carp @ 36lbs
More was yet to come and after switching the other rod over to the pellet  and fluoro combination, it too took off in a screaming run. Paul played this carp with great aplomb and after a fine fight another Notaire’s carp was gracing the bank. This time the scales recorded 36lbs and both Paul and Chris were delighted with not one but two thirty pounders to a carp virgin!
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