For the last thirty two years the open fenland's of Earith and surrounding villages have been a major part of my hunting ground for carp. It's no wonder either because when you look at a map of the area all you can see is blue! Gravel pits galore, deep, old secluded clay pits, rivers like the Great Ouse and straight as an arrow drains that run for miles and are in my opinion the 'last frontier' of English carping.

All of these lakes, pits, drains and rivers contain beautiful old scaly carp that have been swimming around them now for thirty years or more. Way back in 1985-88 I was fishing one such gravel pit, "Brackhill Lake". A young gravel pit of around 4 acres it contained about 50 carp up to low twenties and was situated at the very end of Meadow Drove in Earith. Here I met many fenland carpers, one of them being Mike Hawes the owner of Fenland Fisheries.

Around this time Mike was stocking and developing Fenland fisheries as a carp fishery, a series of gravel pits half way down Meadow Drove. Willow lake is the biggest lake on the site at around 6 acres with Vermuyden Lake around 3 acres and two smaller ponds of half an acre or so.

Seventeen years later in 2009 my acquaintance with Mike Hawes became renewed through a mutual friend and it was at this time that Mike invited me to fish and film on Willow Lake so I quickly arranged three 24 hour and three 48 hour sessions over six weeks starting at the end of March 2009. The results of which can be seen in my film series Stand by your Buzzers on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6FE979DCF507B1B6

This was a different kind of fishing for me as after 6 years fishing The Woolpack's lake's #1, 2 and 3 with its low numbers and sometimes difficult to catch inhabitants, I was now on a lake literally stuffed with carp, some of them very big too. Not only that but I was also to find out that 50lb catfish live in there and they like goldfish boilies! Over the eight nights I spent there I caught 27 carp to 36.2lb (which I named TheSpaceHopper because a mate said it looked like one!) this included 11 20lb plus fish and 7 or more Wells catfish to 50lb.

I learned a lot and it's this alone that remains with me. Carp fishing in the 21st century is different to what it was back in the day and for many reasons, not least of all because we can now go to fisheries like Fenland and catch a lot of big fish. It is a fact, you can sometimes learn very little sitting behind stationary rods and so fishing somewhere like Fenland is a wonderful way of improving your skills fast and getting to learn about things like weather, location, bait and tactics that influence the carp and your catches as well as the valuable lessons in handling and playing big fish.

Everything is not necessarily relative of course, if you fish a 6 acre lake that holds six fish and you catch one in a season you can consider this as an achievement. If you fish a 6 acre lake with a 100 fish and you catch 17 (an equal percentage) you perhaps would not consider it as the same kind of achievement however, would you not possibly have learned more? And using this would you not have advanced your skills in a positive way?

Don't get me wrong Fishing Willow Lake in 2012 is not simply about turning up, sure the rewards are there but you have to put in the work to be consistent and successful. As with Vermuyden Lake (an easier proposition to be honest) it's also still not just about turning up, I have seen plenty of lads blank on there too. We all love to catch the big ones and targeting the bigger fish in a lake is possible but to do that we first need to catch some little ones.

In 2012 I decided to go back and fish Willow Lake and Vermuyden again. Willow had now been a 24/7 day ticket venue for some three years and so correspondingly it had become much more difficult. Vermuyden Lake however had been restocked and re-dug to include the smaller back pond ‘Coppice'.

Since I was going to be fishing Vermuyden and Willow over the next six weeks I also decided to use it as an opportunity to test some bait I was working on and refine my approach. In other words to catch as many fish as I possibly could! The baits I would be using were new versions of two of my own old tried and trusted recipes ‘The Berry' and my Pre-digested fishmeal/Salmon oil. The Berry based one I named ‘Very Berry', this had a different base mix and liquid to The Berry which I felt really boosted the bait. I was leaning more towards replacing the fish meals in the berry but with something the carp find equally as attractive. The liquid food source was just so much better too and I have to say I have great confidence in it and that's the key isn't it.

Going fishing when your confidence is high and just letting it flow and getting the results is what we all try to achieve. For me, weather, location and bait are the most important aspects to fishing. I can't always choose the weather or the days I go but I can decide which swim and tactics some of the time and since the bait end is already sorted… Pre-digested fishmeal/Salmon oil had to be changed a little due to the unavailability of one ingredient and the high cost of another but first session out and I had an awesome response getting 22 runs!

My approach had in my opinion become a little staid and narrow and was in need of change. I had been fishing rivers with easy'ish carp to catch (hard to find though) and the usual lakes, pits etc. for the last few years and so getting onto waters that were fished 24/7 and were ‘moody' provided a new challenge. Sure I could find the fish but they wouldn't always have it.

On waters that are well stocked like Willow and Vermuyden I very rarely ever sit there and think are they eating the bait? No, I think is there any bait left? In future episodes on Willow and Vermuyden we will cover this very topic and get through some bait too

So, they eat all the bait and suck in and spit out our hook baits too! They blow it around and move it about with their fins and bodies whilst grubbing for food and we never know? Well almost. However it's moments like bringing back a totally fine rig after a few twitches and find that the hook is now blunt that makes you sit there and scratch your head. A few hour s previous it was totally sharp, yet now it skims off your finger nail with one light pull?

Rigs, always a hot topic but one I have found to have a few simple answers (but with caveats). This is something else in my approach I felt needed refreshing. Future episodes on Willow and Vermuyden again bring up these questions and choices.

So let's get on to my first session, 24 hours on Vermuyden Lake. Since I last fished it five ‘night only' swims had been installed in some of the better areas and a no-go area had been put in place on some of the bank surrounding the back of the new extension and the newly created ‘spit' where he lakes had been joined. Now Vermuyden is not a difficult water to catch carp from as it is well stocked and most competent anglers can catch 3-6 on an overnight session. However it has to be said that some do not and catching them has become increasingly more difficult since the changes, especially the introduction of the five night fishing swims.

The key then is consistency, getting bites. Also catching above average numbers is an aim because this indicates that you're getting it right and that is a big buzz. Remember, the carp are always eating your bait and getting away with it so don't stop putting in the bait just because you're not catching. Often getting them to consume bait over a period is preferable to just a quick scoff so little and often is the key to a good baiting strategy. I soon realised early on when fishing willow that the carp knew the sound of the ‘dinner bell'. A quick succession of Plop, plop, plops and in they go nicking a few. Never staying long because they know they will get caught if they do. The better ones at it stay a bit longer and clean up the last remaining boilies and the greedy ones…well they often get caught. So we want to catch a lot of fish because we want to get through to the ones that don't often get caught and they are not all big either but you'll know when you catch one because it'll most likely be in great nick.

I had brought with me 2kg hemp with a half a kg of 10mm red berry thrown in to hydrate plus I also had 4kg of 10mm red berry shelf life and a bag of The Ghost. I did'nt think I would need it all and as it turned out I didn't but I did steadily get through the hemp. I love using hemp and although there is a risk of ‘preoccupation' on the carp's behalf when you introduce large quantities I find a little and often approach on overnight sessions very beneficial especially if you're using chops and crumb too.

During a few previous sessions on Vermuyden I found that it pays to use popups or popped up bottom baits. I started off with a size 8 Fox Arma SSC tied to 7 inches of 25lb Palatrax Steamlink. I use a figure of eight knot for the end and a sleeve to cover it and keep it stiff. I also had size 9 and 10 SSC rigs tied up ready for bottom baits and popped up baits too. The first fish came in the late afternoon as the temperature began to drop, an old mirror of about ten pounds or so. The carp had pretty much stopped spawning by then and so I was hopeful I might get a few more runs as the temperature continued to drop.

I kept on piling in the hemp a few handfuls at a time on the right hand margin rod and switched over to feeding the second rod with 10mm boilies. The right hand rod was 4-5 meters away under a tree. The depth here drops off quite rapidly just past the branches so a miss cast and you can be in 8 feet instead of 3 and that makes a difference. The left hand rod was cast across to some lillies next to the spit of land across the lake to my left. That's where the next fish came from, minutes after putting out a good two or three handfuls and recasting a smaller hook size rig. This turned out to be a lovely almost fully scaled mirror of 15lb+ and I was well chuffed.

The next fish a mirror came just before dark from the right hand rod to the popped up 10mm on a size 9 SSC and was an old friend I had caught back in 2007 when I came for a visit with my mate Martin Lawrence. Back then it was 21lb but this time it weighed in at 26.8lb and looked awesome in the red sunset of the evening.

The last fish came the next morning at 8 am and was a hard fighting common of around 10lb's which gave me some great runs and fooled me into thinking it was a twenty for a while! This rounded off the session nicely and I left feeling I had learned and reaffirmed plenty and could go onto willow the following week with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

You can watch all these sessions on Vermuyden lake here on my YouTube channel https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsBriDE2W1opo4Bhh9kZ6tffYJ1ix0823