Korda aces banks four good fish on short session.
Rich Seeds enjoyed a memorable overnighter last week, banking four good fish, the best being a 33lb 8oz common!

He explained: “Over the summer I have only been able to get on the bank once a week. I would love to be able to get out more but due to work commitments this is a very busy time of year for me. As my fishing time is limited I have to try to make the most of it. I arrived at my local syndicate lake to find it very quiet. Due to the hot weather and the fish being very moody, sport had been very hit and miss, had put a lot of people off.

"I was delighted with the amount of choice I had in terms of pegs. After a couple of laps of the lake I decided to stay mobile and try a bit of floater fishing. I found a quiet bay with loads of fish cruising all over between the weed beds. First thing was to get two gull lines out a nice long way and put the rods as high as possible in the trees to keep the line out the water, quite like a beachcaster. I then started to use the mini spomb to get a mixture of pellets soaked in Sticky Cap Oil out beside the weed beds. After about an hour the carp were troughing away.

"I made my first cast with my Interceptor, coupled with a size 12 Mixa hook and 12mm Vortex pop-up. These work brilliantly for surface hook baits. I was pretty sure I would get a take, but then I noticed an armada of birds heading over. Before I knew it I was under bombardment from what seemed like every duck, coot, swan and seagull in the southwest. As usual, the carp steadily slipped away. As you can imagine there was a bit of fist-shaking, finger-pointing and arguing going on as it seemed that my chance had been blown. I put everything down and had a cool off for a bit. After about half an hour the birds waddled off and I noticed one carp picking off leftovers and he was feeding well. I gave him a cast and he took it almost straight away. After a decent scrap he was in the net. It turned out to be a lovely 28lb common. I was chuffed to bits after the intense floater session.

"As the evening rolled on I had made my choice on swims for the night. I got set up and had one rod to my left between two big weed beds at about 30 yards, and the other about 40 yards straight out in light weed. I baited with about 4kg over each rod.
I have been doing well lately using lots of bait as there are loads of tench that are constantly visiting your baited areas, they don't clear you out as quickly over the large beds. Both rods were fishing over 20mm Sticky Baits Vortex. The rigs were snowman rigs using a 20mm bottom bait topped off with a 16mm White Choc pop-up.

"I fished these on a size 6 Kurv Shank and 20lb N-Trap. At around 3am the left-hander was away and had weeded me up badly; all I could feel was that horrible grating and, after about 10 minutes, the inevitable happened – the line parted. I re-rigged and recast. About 6.30am the right-hand rod was away and after a slow, steady fight I bagged another cracking common of 33lb 4oz. I recast, put some more bait out and fired a couple of pouches over the left rod. After about half an hour the left rod burst into life with a nice 25lb common on the end.

"After this I started getting plagued by tench, and with it getting hot again I felt it was time to reel in and get the floater rod going again. By midday I had a few fish feeding at the top end of the lake. The fish were being quite tricky but after a couple of casts I was into a 29lb 12oz common. I was very happy to have landed four fish so far, considering it had been fishing so hard. I was just about to call it a day when the fish returned and started feeding well. I made the cast and nearly hit one on the head, but they were competing for the pellets so didn't seem to mind. A few moments later I was latched into a steam train of a fish. It was immensely strong. After an arm-aching battle it was in the net and turned the scales to 33lb 8oz. I got the pics sorted and it was time to head off. It was a great result for a short session. I hope next week is just as good!”