Hi all, Edward here.

I want to start my first-ever blog by saying thanks to Total Carp for giving me this great opportunity and the first step towards reaching my goal of being in the mix with the top anglers in the magazine.

The location for this trip was Farlows Lake 1. Over the last few years I have managed to land some real pretty fish and also personal best from here, which sits at 29lb 8oz.

I arrived on Sunday, January 31st for 2pm, knowing the lake would start to clear of the weekend anglers, giving me more options when picking swim. After taking a walk around the lake trying to locate signs of feeding carp and speaking to anglers trying to locate a rough idea where the fish were coming out from, I decided to start on Peg 23 on the M25 bank. It offered numerous options, from islands allowing fish to pass through, to clear spots within the weed.

I started with two baiting methods – spodding 1kg of Natures Baits’ Alpha frozen range to a small channel within the island, fishing using a snowman rig, and fishing my second and third rods on chods trying to pick a fish over a scattering of half a kilo using a throwing stick.

After the first 24 hours and no signs of any fish, I decided to maximise my chances and make the first move. After speaking to other anglers again, they reported that numerous fish were being caught from two hotspots that were currently being fished – pegs 43 and 61, also known as Scott’s Island.

Unfortunately, Ian Russell was fishing Peg 61, starting a 24-hour tuition, resulting in me setting up in Peg 37 along the Smelly Bank. Five fish had been banked in Peg 43.

After spending hours leading the swim I had managed to locate a nice gravel bar at 60 to 70 yards, in line with the island to my left. I had also noticed that due to construction works for the new Erics Angling Shop, Pegs 1 to 6 opposite me were unable to be fished, leaving a huge amount of open water not being fished.

Using this information I decided to lead around the swim at 100 yards to have a feel what the lake bed was like. After a few casts a clear/silt patch was found and I decided to cast out two rods to this spot.

My first was to be fished to the bar at 60 to 70 yards, with 1kg being spodded tightly to the marker in the thought the fish, due to cold weather, would be in the 8ft to 9ft deeper water. The other two were being used as roaming rods to pick off single fish at 100 yards.

The first 48 hours had passed and still no signs of fish.

Tuesday, February 2nd had arrived and I made a decision to have another lead around the margins to see how deep they were. After the first cast to the right I located a short gravel bar in a 6ft margin, which I felt quite confident to fish on.

After changing to a 4in pop-up rig, I decided to strip back a centimetre an inch from the hook so I could apply a BB shot and a small amount of Korda Dark Matter putty to enable the baits to be critically balanced.

I decided to keep baiting to a minimum and fished a single 14mm Natures Baits Pink Crush pop-up over a small PVA bag with 15 whole and chopped Alpha boilies.

My first bite after 15 minutes produced a fish weighing 28lb on the nose. After taking pictures and releasing it, the rod back on the bar to the right-hand margin screamed off again. After numerous twists and turns and a 20-minute fight the second fish was in the landing net and a mirror weighing 24lb left my confidence high!

The next 24 hours resulted in no fish being landed though.

I had recently received a tip-off from the bailiff team that Peg 61 had now become free. After producing nine fish from 11 runs within 24 hours it seemed a no-brainer move.

Two hours later the gear was finally moved in the hope of finding and hooking one of the big girls at 40lb plus. An hour later rods were out and baited up.

Unfortunately, the first 24 hours didn’t go to plan, leaving me 30 hours to land another fish.

After changing the rigs and baits again to fake maize on one and the faithful Natures Baits pop-ups staying put, I sat back and hoped for one last fish.

After 16 hours I finally saw a fish show directly over my bait, which looked well over 30lb.

With 14 hours left, the next run came, resulting in the fish trying to snag me around an island. However, with experience in these situations I managed to bring it to the net! An 18lb mirror proved to be the best looking fish of the session to date.

With eight hours left and three fish banked, the rod using the fake maize over a bed of corn was off again, resulting in the final fish and the first common at 21lb.

I think it is safe to say that winter fishing will definitely be on the menu in the future, hopefully along with many more of these blogs!