March/April 2022 for the Ex-Military Carp Group

March saw the Ex-Military Carp Group team competition against the Army Carp Team at Norton Disney's Turners Lake. It certainly was a close competition with the Army Team doing well, but the weight of the Ex-Military Carp Team's captures couldn't be matched by the Army. In the end I believe the team won by over 40lb of Carp. Well done to all involved.

At the end of March the group held the first social of the year at the Wetlands Fishery. A cracking social the Thursday night was held under the frost of a clear sky before we could move to the pegs on Friday morning. Every peg could be driven to which was a bonus for setting up and the pegs there are on the whole, huge. With everyone setup it wasn't long before Carp started to be caught on all sides.

However, it wasn't until Saturday that I had decided that my idea of going on the vacant peg 4 was a bad idea, so I moved to peg 1 where I'd seen a few dark shapes skulking around. The next peg round from peg 1 was also peg 10 which was producing some damn good catches, so I was happy with making my move. Into Saturday darkness and I landed my first Carp of the session, followed by The Big S at 33lb at 07:30 in the morning.

April was the host of our next 2 socials, in the South at Clattercote Reservoir and in the North at Malton Lakes (formerly known as Carpvale Doubles)

At the Northern social we had the luxury of Lee providing some outstanding chilli burgers and Cajun chicken burgers which really were quite special. A big thanks to Lee for that. Not many beers later and everyone retired to get some sleep for an early start.

However, it would be amiss of me to not mention the peg draw that took place. I am adamant that Andy was put on this planet to reek havoc with my draws that I had spent ages setting up and confirming to myself I had got it right. What could go wrong? A bag of numbers for each person or pair and envelopes with letters in (Malton Lakes pegs are lettered not numbered) for the pegs that we would be fishing. For the record, this is a letter A for Alpha, not a D for Delta. Lets leave the rest there!

Once everyone was on their pegs and settled in it wasn't long before the Carp starting to grace the bank and right the way round the lake Carp were being caught. There really were some stunners being caught, good old fashioned very dark Mirror and Common Carp.

At Clattercote, the group were doing even better. That was to be expected with it being far more prolific with Carp, but even then, the cold weather wasn't doing them any favours at night, but where at Malton they were catching 2 or 3, at Clattercote they were catching 10 or 15. I'm sure the spombing work paid off! The last update we saw on WhatsApp was:

Dee = 18 caught

Jack = 10 caught

Craig = 5 caught

Shell = 1 caught

Matt = 1 caught

But more may have been caught.