My first blog for Sonu and I've something to write about. With Friday off work I managed to get down to Mid Kent Fisheries Stour lake for an overnighter.

The lake has 16 swims and with just 3 taken on my arrival I had plenty of choice, the 3 occupied swims were those nearest the car park.  With this in mind I headed off to the other side of the lake away from the commotion to see what I could see.  This lake can be busy and its often a case of fitting in where you can so to have a bit of space made a pleasant change.  With definite signs of Carp I opted for the furthest swim from the car park. 

First things first I wanted to see what the weed and silt situation was, these Carp in Stour lake are silt feeders so I had a cast around the swim with a light lead looking for some nice soft silt.  You know when you have found it as it’s like sliding the lead across a sheet of glass, lovely and smooth.

A had a lovely area around 50 yards out, nice and large so plenty of room to put two rods on.  I like to get the carp feeding on these areas by putting out a bit of hemp and corn, so out with a tin of Sonu Hemp n Corn.  One tin is enough to hold any fish that might be about, on an overnighter im only fishing for a bite at a time so no need to pile in loads of bait.  I have had a bit of success just lately using the Sonu White chocolate Action boilies so added a few halved baits to the mix.

I had found my distance by just casting the light lead around, I swapped this for a 3oz in-line lead and attached a short soft braid hook link and size 8 hook with a 15mm chocolate bait.  I have been experimenting lately by not using leadcore or tubing and instead have been using a 5m length of 20lb fluorocarbon, not particularly for a shockleader but more to make sure that those final meters up to the lead are hard on the bottom which the fluorocarbon gives me.

Behind the swim I had plenty of room to be able to walk the baits and the spod out to the same distance.  Once clipped up and with the line marked I've cast out attaching a small stocking ball of 2mm pellet and a couple of crushed boilies.  Iv then put around a dozen spods of the hemp, corn and broken boilee mix over the top. 

As the sun set I felt confident as I had seen some clouds of silt coming up as the fish fed.  Sure enough at 1130pm I’m into a tussle with a mid double mirror.  With the line marked it was an easy cast to get the rod back on the money, and with the spod clipped up to the same spot I put a couple of extra spods out, don’t be afraid to spod at night, just remember your far bank or horizon marks and its no different to doing it in the daytime.  At 4am im woken by my buzzer and to a beautiful dawn only this time its a Tench.  630am and the spool is spinning like crazy, a better Carp this time but no monster  at 18lb.  The carp in this lake reach 35lb, and with just one of the A team left on my list to catch its going to have to wait for another time as I have to pack away mid morning.