Brace of thirties off the top

Catching carp off the surface is one of the most exciting forms of the sport, and one angler who can certainly pay testament to this is Jack Stamp who landed a brace of thirties, including this 37lb 4oz mirror from CEMEX Angling’s Rockford Lake.

Arriving at the low-stock 55-acre Hampshire venue at 5am the Dorest-based roofer soon found a group of carp held up in a weedy bay and started feeding PVA mesh bags filled 11mm CC Moore floating trout pellets which had been soaked in Feedstim XP liquid to give them an added boost at around 40yds range.

The fish were soon feeding confidently on his free offerings but it wasn’t until four hours later that one of the fish took his hookbait.

“The bay was virtually solid with Canadian pondweed from top to bottom and it was a case of accurately casting to the small holes in the weed,” explained the 24-year-old. “If it didn’t land in the right place it would get masked in weed and be almost impossible for the fish to take.”

Shortly after landing a mirror of 32lb he connected with the bigger of the duo. “This fish was definitely one of the biggest in the bay and I had been hoping it would slip up. It gave a good account of itself but despite weeding me up on a couple of occasions after 15 minutes I had it in the net.”

“This is my first season on the lake but I haven’t managed many sessions on there yet and these are the first fish I’ve landed.”

Due to the thick weed, Jack had to use slightly stepped-up tackle and put his faith in a 12lb Daiwa Sensor hooklink and a size 10 hook.

“I used an 11mm floating pellet on the hair and also attached a small piece of cork on to the hook to stop it from dropping down in the water and potentially spooking any fish,” he added.