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During the first session of the autumn campaign, I actually lost a fish due to a snag that I wasn’t aware of. I was gutted of course, but I took the positives from it and carried on. I had begun to build a picture of where the fish were spending quite a bit of time. Shows were few and far between, but I was watching as much as I could and soon I worked out that they had a preference for one side of the lake.

I made the decision to have a long lead about, no matter how long it took me, I wanted to find something out there that I knew they were regularly visiting. I spent half a day casting around and feeling the bottom. Rule number one is finding the fish, which I had done. Then you are looking for something on the bottom that stands out from the rest of it.

Bayeswater is fairly flat, very uniform and has a soft bottom across most of the lakebed. Knowing what carp do to areas that they investigate and feed on, I knew what I was looking for. By the very nature of the way they feed, they dig holes and craters. With the lake being clay lined and soft, it wouldn’t take much for them to dig out an area.

I thought that somewhere out there would be something special. I wanted that hard drop, smooth pull on the lead and clay dripping from it. These sort of spots are not easy to find, but by covering as much water as I could, I was sure I would find something.

I cast around for a good 6-hours and every cast was the same, muddy, soft and non descript bottom. As I worked my way across the lake by tiny little increments, when the lead glided over an area. I clipped it up, cast the lead back out there and crack! I pulled it across this spot that felt that had cut my lead off, with the odd tremble of stone coming through.

It was small, but when I landed on it and retrieved the lead it was covered in clay.

I wrapped it out and noted it down in my book; tiny details can be easily lost or burred of they are not immediately recorded. Knowing how hard the fishing can be in the autumn, I wanted to bait with something that would be totally irresistible but vitally, totally different too. I crushed up a couple of kilos of Krill boilies to form the base of the mix. To this I added some fresh Bloodworm, fresh Atlantic Krill and some casters. I gave this a mix with some Pure Krill liquid and I suppose it added up to around 5kg of mix.

I put the whole bucket out with pinpoint accuracy on this small spot, hoping that by the time I came back the fish had fed on it confidently. Unusually the lake was very quiet with hardly anyone fishing it, so now was the time to do it.

The following week things didn’t go to plan. The fish were all stacked up in a corner in front of Darrel and I just couldn’t get on them. Despite this, I was sure that they had visited the area as there wasn’t a single bird diving for bait on the zone. with this in mind, I gave them another bucket of bait when I left aiming to build the area before I fished it.

My third trip came round quickly and there were signs of fish in the area. I saw a couple of fish 15 yards to the right of the spot, so they were close and things were looking good. I decided to fish for a bite, Spombing out half a dozen of the mix, just to top it up. You might wonder why I was baiting it so much if I knew the fish visited it anyway?

Quite often you see fish covered in clay because it is a natural rubbing area, so I was sure that they were visiting it as part of their daily routine. The trick was to get them used to feeding there too and after the spot had seen so much bait, with days of no pressure and lines, I was convinced that they had fed with growing confidence.

With bites being so hard to come by, I decided to fish with Krill bags of maggots and small, maggot hook baits. Instead of using maggots straight from the fridge, I like to give them a little boost. I’ve always added liquid to them, as I feel that they take that on, taste of it and ooze it out in to the water. I start off by adding some Krill Active Mix to them, followed by some of the Pure Krill liquid. You don’t want to add too much liquid in one go, as they will go all frothy and crawl up the sides of the bucket.

They will feel heavier and sticky to touch, which makes them much easier to Spomb too. I then simply fish a ball of maggots on the hair and attach these bags of Krilled maggots to the rig.

I saw a couple of fish close by on the first morning, but nothing happened. The second day I saw four fish show within 20 yards of the spot, all around it in fact. Things were looking better and I wasn’t seeing fish anywhere else, I felt they had to be ram raiding that spot. I brought the rods in to redo them that afternoon. The leads came back smeared with clay and the putty behind it covered in silkweed. The positive sign was that nothing was coming back with any bait in it, so I knew the fish had been out there clearing the myriad small food items.

On the final night I managed to get both the rods out with perfect drops, first time of asking. Although the birds were pestering me on the other rods, they weren’t visiting the main clay spot. I thought that if they had been hammering it while I was away, they would know food is there and be back for some more. But amazingly they weren’t, which could be a sign that carp are visiting it regularly and there simply wasn’t any spare food lying around. All in all, it was a very good vibe.

At around 4am I had a strong liner and I could hear the odd one sloshing out over the calm surface of the lake. I woke up just before dawn, full of the buzz and exhausted from being up and down all night hearing the odd fish.

As the light began to increase, I drank a coffee and kept an eye out for carp and birds too, in case they decided to come and ruin my chances at a key bite time. As I watched, the right hand rod on the spot let out a couple of beeps. I looked across to see the bobbin up by the blank, the line snatched out the clip and it began to take line. It isn’t an easy water and when you do hook one, you are almost pinching yourself and asking if it has really happened! I leant in to the fish and an epic battle commenced. It kited from left to right and led me on a really arduous fight. As it got closer to the net, I could see a big, sloped head and grey flanks. I bundled it in to the net with massive relief, the deadlock had been broken!

It was a fish known as Grey-C. With a broad grey back and large C-scale it was easy to see why it had such a name. I put her at low thirties, but my estimations were way off which will become a bit of a theme! The fish ended up weighing over 36lb and I was stoked. In fact, from what I had been told, this was the carp’s fifth ever-documented capture! By the time I got everything sorted out, I was gasping for a cup of tea. There was no need to redo the rod as the other one was still perfectly in place and I knew it was very likely there were other fish in the area. The second I turned round to stick the kettle on, the other rod on the spot was away!

It didn’t really do much and it did come in my mind that the big common was known for that. I dismissed it though, as it only ever really gets caught on zigs and it just wasn’t on my radar. I hadn’t known of too many captures of it on the bottom, so it crossed my mind for a split second before being thrown to the back of it.

As it came closer I could now feel the weight and it moved slowly along the shelf with big turning circles. When it finally breached, I could see it was a very big common. In my mind I thought it was either the Pinscale common, which I had caught before, or the Stockpond common. For whatever reason it just wasn’t a consideration that another fish, the biggest common in the lake, was on the end.

When I went to net it the penny should have dropped. I almost had to put the rod down to help shuffle this long, huge common in the net. There was a pimple on its tail and I was sure that when I caught Pinscale at 42lb last year, it had the same mark.

The guy fishing next door to me was desperate for one of the big commons, so not to rub it in his face I decided to do a couple of self takes. I thought that with it being a repeat, or what I thought was a repeat, I would do a couple of self takes and let her go back.

I got her out the water and it still didn’t quite register how big it was. The rule at Bayeswater is that you have to picture the fish before you weigh it, so that is what I did. While trying to do the pictures, I struggled to get my hand round the body and pec for the remote to work. I have done lots of self-takes before but had never struggled quite like this!

Once I had got a couple of usable snaps, I thought that something wasn’t right. My arms and back were killing me and it really was a handful so I thought I needed to give her a quick weigh to see what I was dealing with. When I did, the needle shot straight past 50lb and then on further. That came like the biggest thunder bolt from the heavens! I had no comprehension until that moment, which is when it hit me.

I snapped out of my trance and I looked down at the Coconut common, the biggest fish in the lake and one that appeared to have blasted my previous best UK carp of 47.6. Now that I knew what it was the fish started to grow on the mat in every direction and I became a nervous wreck. I decided that I needed some help with such a large fish, so secured her in the water and called my good friend Joe Morgan to nip down and give me a hand with the pictures. It would also give me a few minutes to myself to sort my head out and calm down.

I went down to Ginge, who was fishing next door to ask him for a smoke. I don’t even smoke myself but I felt like I needed something to calm me down. Joe arrived shortly after and we all prepared to get the fish out, do some shots and ensure she was as safe as possible.

The last capture of this fish was back in the summer at 45lb, this time she weighed 52lb 1oz. It was a new PB and my first 50, what a special moment it was. Now I knew how big it was, my struggle to hold it was justified and we all admired such a special creature. Her mouth was totally unmarked, the shape, colour, absolutely everything about it was just perfect.

It was an unforgettable morning and I didn’t decide to hang it out for too long after. I packed the gear away and gave the spot another hit of bait, mainly fresh naturals that I didn’t want to take home with me and some more Krill crumb.

I was back the following week and when I arrived, Darrel was the only one on the lake and he was next door to where I had been fishing. It gave me confidence that he had very probably seen fish nearby and they may still be in the area.

The moon phase was perfect and the wind was due to switch to an easterly, which favoured my swim and not been present for a few months. They love a wind on Bayeswater, especially a new one.

Nothing happened the first night and I clocked a few fish showing slightly beyond and left of the spot. I didn’t want to lead around too much as the fish in here can be very cute and aware of angling presence. I waited until the very last light and cast the lead as close to the island as I could and tried to make it go in as softly as possible.

I drew it back to the edge of the shelf, where it felt nice and clean. I clipped it up and waited for darkness to get the bag of maggots out there. I feel that fish don’t seem to mind disturbance as much in the darkness and with it going out bang on first time, I felt confident going into the second night.

Although they were showing near the spot, it would be madness not to put a rig exactly where they had been, so with everything settled and the conditions looking so good, I was sure that I would wake up to a bite at some point. At first light it was very quiet and it wasn’t until we’d had half an hour of light that I saw the first show. It came clattering out 10 yards to the left of the newly positioned rod and Darrel popped round for a coffee while we watched the water.

Less than 5-minutes later the newly positioned rod was away. After a spirited fight, I netted a cracking, scaly mirror. She was virtually a fully scaled mirror and weighed over 33lb. It showed that it doesn’t matter how much you feel you have a spot rocking, sometimes you have to change some things and go to where the fish want to be.

Interestingly the fish was absolutely covered in clay, which tells me that the fish had visited the spot to flank or feed. There may have been a large group down there feeding the week before when I hooked those two carp possibly putting them on edge. Keeping my eyes peeled and reacting to certain circumstances and fishing for a bite certainly helped me catch that magnificent mirror.