Pickled Carp Adventures The Pickled Carpers Web site

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Nice and Salty

2002 has, so far, been a real mixed bag as far as fishing is concerned. Work has involved much more international travelling than in 2001 but for a change I decided to make the most of it by getting the rods out whenever possible. Which has included a little saltwater and big game fishing. On the home front the year kicked off in January with an IAC day on the lower Itchen where we had some great Grayling fishing and will certainly return there this winter. If I remember correctly we didn’t have a camera on us, which is unforgivable really as we have no photos. The fishing on the Dove was slow but one or two good fish came out to the GHE, especially those with an Orange tag.

During March one of my business trips took me to Benin, Cameroon and Senegal, the later included a weekend and so I hired boat and guide and did a bit of saltwater flyfishing for game fish, which is actually very popular there. The guide knew his stuff and it did not take long before I was into Benito and King Mackerel, the best going about 8lb.

Work can be so hard

The syndicate lake needed some attention in the spring. There were too many small carp and when I say too many they were stunting the growth of the bigger fish and next to nothing was getting over 10lb. We had bought a dozen double figure mirrors from Mark Simmons, these are really quality carp and we want them to have a good chance of reaching their potential. It was agreed that the lake needed no more than 25-30 carp so we built a holding pool round the back of the island and started to transfer anything small into there so they could be sold to a fish dealer. This took up a good few weekends in March and April. Then the trout season got under way and I spent a bit of time on the Dove, Bentley Brook and the Churnet with some success.

May soon arrived and I managed a weekend in the Florida Keys after bonefish and Tarpon. There were no fish landed but I hooked a couple of ‘Bones’ and a couple of Tarpon which were explosive, I now have the saltwater fly fishing bug!

Before I knew it the coarse season was here and my attentions turned to the Dove Barbel. Its been pretty good to me so far this year, even though I have not put in as many hours as I would like I have had a good number of fish including a new personal best of 11.02 as well as a number of 9lb plus beauties. The potential for the winter looks really good and I am hoping that a flurry of doubles will grace my net.

A couple of 9.15’s before finally cracking the double with an 11.02 (although not the best photo)

September was holiday time and Jane and myself shot off to Mauritius for a couple of weeks. I managed to sneak into the luggage a #5, a box of shrimp patterns and a few odds and sods and spent a good deal of time chasing ‘Millet’ as the locals call then, to me they are a mullet. Its was good practice for bonefish.

I hired a big game boat and although there had been no Marlin landed for over week this proved to be a good move. After a couple of hours on livebaits we switched to big rubber squid and very soon I was in action with a personal best Darado of about 35lbs followed shortly by a 45 minute battle and my first Marlin! A lifetimes ambition was fulfilled. FANTASTIC!

That’s pain not a smile

The Darado was a personal best!

This page will be updated with more photos as soon as I have had them developed so come back soon

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If you have any comments or suggestions email me at pickled.carp@btinternet.com