Another short evening session after work, this time fishing for carp at Newton Park Lake. The lake itself is lovely; set in Capability Brown’s magnificent landscaped grounds with an old Georgian manor house overlooking it. Rather unfortunately the estate has now become a University who clearly have no regard for keeping to the original architecture of the place and some of the accommodation blocs are a little bit of an eyesore in what was once clearly a majestic setting. Still, the lake is at the bottom of a small valley which provides some seclusion and provided I fish with the accommodation blocs behind me the view across the lake is stunning.

On this particular occasion I was lucky enough to have the lake all to myself, just how I like it! Although ‘standard carp tactics’ dominate here, I find it terribly boring and like to travel as light as possible and stalk the carp off the top with bread usually, a tactic that seems quite productive on this particular lake! After walking most of the way round the lake and not seeing any signs of fish I was beginning to question my judgment in attempting to fish off the top so early in the season. However, I soon stumbled across a large group of fish milling around near the surface much to my excitement! After getting them confident feeding off the top I flicked out a large chunk of freelined bread and waited in anticipation. Sure enough it didn’t take long before a big (estimated mid-double) greedy Mirror Carp was resting in the net. I think 4 more followed, all a good size, capping off a fine evening. On my next trip here I will bring the fly rod and attempt to catch my first carp on the fly!