As you all probably know, Julian has come up with the idea of the Surface Challenge, whereby we aim to catch a carp from the surface in each month of the year.

The day started in quite a comical way, getting to the venue with the rods tied to mountain bikes!

My campaign was kicked off with a lovely 10lb Common taken from the surface on a local pit with the daytime temperature of just 5 Degrees!

After feeding a bay where there was little wind for a couple of hours, the fish steadily came on the feed, eventually showing confidently and in numbers, this suprised me due to the temperature, and I was determind to catch!

After gaining a good vantage point behind some long grass and dieing reed stems I was able to clearly see across the bay that I was fishing. I was a few fish between 3 and 5lb confindently took the dog biscuits on the surface, but ideally I wanted a bigger fish. I then saw a common with a big mouth quietly take a mixer from the left margin, as apposed to the normal "SCHLURP". I watched the fish pick off some mixers in a small 5 feet area before lowering my mixer onto it's nose. She sat there and looked at my mixer for a minute, as I wondered if my new presentation would be better than the old one. I previously used Artificial Dog Biscuits by Enterprise Tackle and hooked them straight onto the shank of the hook. I now use an Ashima C-310 size 6 hook, with a John Roberts bait band around my flavoured biscuits. Back to the fishing.... She sat there looking for a matter of seconds, before gently wafting her pectoral fins and easing up to the surface, where she hardly broke the surface and gently sucked the bait into her mouth, and closed her lips. I immediatly bent into the fish as it tore off across the bay. And after a frantic 5-minute fight, and a spot of good netting by my mate Adam, she was in the net, and the only fish I have caught on the surface after around September - To my memory anyway!

She weighed fractionally over 10lb, but weight was irrelevant, I couldn't believe the temperature, and the fact that they were feeding, and I was just chuffed to have caught one!

...Bring on December!

Cycling to the water - all part of the adventure!

On the mat: First attempt, First Fish and job done!

My First fish of the Surface Challenge

The bay where I tempted my first Carp of the challenge