British Army Carp Championships 2008

The annual Army Carp Championships saw 12 anglers from Germany based British Regiments take on 12 anglers based in the UK at the Carp Society's Horseshoe Lake. The competition would see the competitors fighting it out for a pairs title as well as four teams of six fighting it out for team honours. For the last few years the Germany B team has taken the title and it was with this team that I found myself. Pair 3 of Team B was pretty far down the pecking order but at least I was out of the office!

A good walk round the lake and a BBQ the night before set the scene for the draw the next morning. There were still a large number of fish moving round Summer Bay, however with the weather due to take a turn for the worse over the course of the competition we decided upon Disabled Point, Winter Point and a swim on the Stock Ponds as our top three. Luckily enough we were first out of the bag and went immediately for Disabled Point. With the adrenaline pumping and the pressure well and truly on to produce a result we started setting up our gear.

The prominent clear spot in front of the peg was easy enough to find and we intended to fish the far side of it with our middle rods and the outer extremities with our outside rods. As the weather and the fishing had been temperamental over the previous few weeks we decided to start with a small amount of spod mix and build up if necessary. Our spod mix consisted of a fantastic little package from Hinders. We used equal amounts of hemp, chilli hemp, and mixed pellet. To this was added a few generous handfuls of maize and a large amount of the amazing ‘A mix'.

All these small baits would provide large amounts of attraction and the two kilos of chopped Mainline Activ 8 and GB baits Kentish Spice boilies I added would provide a little bit of food if the fish did start to feed. The ‘A mix' provided a nice cloudy slick throughout the water column and would hopefully pull down any cruising fish. Rigs were simple coated braid combi rigs coupled with a size 8 hook. Hook baits were chosen from a variety of trimmed Activ 8 bottom baits, Kentish Spice pop ups and two pieces of maize. Due to the wind pushing directly into our faces we used 3.5oz leads on a clip to get the rigs out onto the spots.

With all four rods sorted and onto the spots myself and my partner Mick Greaves, from my own Regiment, settled down for the night. When we retired at 11pm there had still not been a fish out from any swim.A blistering take awoke me from a deep sleep at around 4am. I was so heavily asleep and it had been a while since I had heard such a one toner that my heart was really pumping and I came flying out of my bivvi still in my sleeping bag. Absolutely convinced that the fish would come off if I didn't hit it in the next 2 milliseconds I hurtled towards my rods. Despite hitting the rod and feeling a nice resistance on the end my momentum carried me on into the pod and sent bits of tackle all over the place!

That didn't matter now as I was connected to a lively little Horseshoe carp. My fingers were crossed that it would be one of their classic fully scaled but at this stage of the match I didn't care as it was our first fish.

A pretty mirror of 17lb had us off the mark. Unfortunately another pair had already caught a fish earlier in the night which meant we had not won ‘first fish' but with ours being bigger we were now in the lead.

The rod was recast and the pair of us then spodded for half an hour before going back to sleep. We awoke in the morning with no further action on any of the rods, however around 6.30am we started to receive a lot of liners but by 9am these had all but stopped. We added a litre of GB baits Shellfish and plum glug and a bottle of Hinders Hemp Oil to our spod mix and stuck another two kilos out. Mick decided to add a pva bag of pva foam and pellet which was glugged in the GB baits dip and put his rod a little further left where several of the spods had landed.

The Winning Selection

Around midday the bobbin on Micks recast rod slowly pulled up to the rod and line was slowly taken from the spool. Upon hitting it the fish came straight to the surface in a big ball of weed. The fight was odd to say the least with the fish flopping around on the surface all the way to the net. A better fish of 26lb added to our total and things were looking promising as the rest of the lake bar one or two swims was fishing very hard.

Mick with a cracking 26lb Linear Carp

Less than half an hour later one of my rods chugged away with the fish kiting hard into the bay to our right. The powerful runs had me hoping that this was a better fish but 10 minutes later a delightfully plated fish of 19lb was safely netted, weighed and returned.

Stuart with a 19lb Horseshoe Carp

This burst of activity had us hoping that several more fish would follow so another two kilo of sloppy spod mix was put out but unfortunately no more fish were forthcoming before dark. Over a curry and a bottle of wine we discussed our chances. We were ahead but not by much and with the fantastic average size in Horseshoe one fish could hand the lead to several other pairs.

We retired around midnight with a few fish rolling over the spots and our hopes high. Another steam train of a take around 2am had me blitzing out of the bivvi again but managed to stop this time before crashing through my pod again. Two or three fast runs identified it as another small fish and also wore it out as it was quickly in the net and weighed in at 16lb. With the fish returned Mick and I spodded for an hour before climbing back into our sleeping bags with fingers crossed for some more action.

I didn't have to wait much longer and only an hour later the same rod was off again. A short and spirited fight saw another 17lb fish on the bank. We had a respectable total now but were desperate for another fish to keep us at the top end of the table.

We sat crouched behind our rods as the time ticked by but no more fish came to our rods and we reeled in to await the results. We had not fished as well as I think we could've but with the lake fishing slow we were hopeful of a top three place.

When the results were announced we were delighted to find that we had come first and thanks to fish from Russ Marsh and Mark Lewis we had also secured team honours as well.

Champions!!!

Both Mick and I would like to offer our thanks to GB Baits and Hinders Fishing Superstore for their support for the event. I would also like to say a big thank you to David and Luke of the Carp Society for their hospitality during the event and we'll see them again next year!

For more information regarding The British Army Carp Championships click here