With small specimen species still firmly on my mind I started to pay a few short evening visits to Marsh Farm to see if the Crucian carp had started to wake up from their winter slumber.  The weather around this time was still unpredictable and the cold weather was still holding on.  During my first session I was joined by Duncan Charman who like me was keen to see if the venues residents would decide to play ball.  Armed with Sonubaits excellent Supercrush Green groundbait, which is by far the best groundbait I have used for this type of fishing.

Several tench found a liking for my S-Pellet hook baits and after dark a few Crucians started rolling in my swim.  Knowing that they would find it hard to resist the Supercrush Green I kept the swim topped up and caught a few Crucians with four weighing over 2lbs the best at 2lb 9oz and 3lb 7oz. 

The weather was still not improving however; I had a feeling that one of the venues big Crucian carp could appear very soon.  My next two evening sessions brought lots of tench.  They loved the Supercrush Green and I alternated between sweetcorn and S-pellets hook baits on each session to see what the fish preferred on the day.  During these two short evening sessions after work I landed 27 tench, the best weighing just over 7lbs whilst anglers struggled using more traditional techniques.

My next evening session produced the specimen I had been hoping for and after several tench I received a typical Crucian bite on a 8mm S-Pellet.  After a short fight a big fish was led over the waiting net.  It looked a good fish and weighing 3lb 12oz I had landed what I had been hoping for and was awarded a weekly award by a weekly paper. 

My next targeting was a big bream and I knew was going to be a tricky target.  A local club water of nine acres in size holds a fascination with me and holding a small shoal of very big bream in its 9 acres I knew action could be hard to come by.  My game plan involved fishing the open water areas where I knew the bream had been caught from before.  My bait consisted of Sonubaits F1 groundbait and with its lovely sweet smelling aroma I knew would be perfect for bream.  I added a tin of Sonubaits Hemp N Corn and mixed sized halibut pellets into the mix before adding a good dose of F1 flavour.  Hook baits consisted of maggot and corn stacks from the tins of Hemp N Corn.

My fishing around this time totaled 18 nights.  With the weather conditions normally far from ideal I struggled on.  I didn’t catch any of the target species but some nice tench, the best weighing 8lb 5oz, 8lb 6oz, 8lb 13oz and a male weighing 7lb 14oz.  Two nice grass carp weighing 20lb 8oz and 24lb 12oz also brought some welcome action.  If things go well at the start of the summer I may well return, those bream will never be far from my mind…