Mid session change yields giant mirror.
Top northern carper, Scott Lloyd has banked a corking Oxfordshire mirror from his syndicate water, after reading the water and making a mid session tactical change.

The Korda backed ace explained: “On arrival at the swim, I got the rods out as quickly as possible, placing them on top of a lovely gravel bar, at around 50 yards range. To begin with I thought the bar was nice and clean but as the session wore on, I was to learn that my initial judgement of the area was slightly wrong.

I used my standard bottom bait presentation, incorporating balanced baits. With the rigs in position on top of the bar, I then spombed the hell out of it with a mixture of Krill frozen ready-mades, Krill Powder, Krill Pellet and Pure Krill Liquid; A fine feast for any carp.

The fish were all over me throughout the first night in the swim and the liners I was getting were savage to say the least. After a good night’s sleep and no bites, I just knew there was something wrong. I wound in at first light, which I must say I never normally do, and decided on a change of approach. After reeling in, I soon found the problem; the rigs were covered in silkweed, which had obviously grown on the bar. I’ve never known this particular bar to have any form of weed-growth on it. I hadn’t fished the swim all year so there was no reason that I should have known the weed was present, especially as I was still getting the old ‘tap tap tap’ on the rod tip with the marker rod. It was just a case of trial and error with this one and I soon sorted the problem out.

I opted to fish with short, naked chods, which I constructed using Choddy hooks in size 6, with 25lb Mouthtrap and No-Trace Naked Chod System. I baited the rigs with white, krill cork ball pop-ups, offering a visual aspect to the hook baits, which completed the set up nicely. I fished these over the top of the silkweed, because the fish were blatantly smashing it up out there and feeding on the bait I had put out.

Within just a couple of hours I received a take and soon had a beautiful, scaly linear kissing the spreader block. I was buzzing, chuffed to bits that the plan I had hatched had come together, resulting in a fine Oxfordshire mirror; what more could I want?”