At seven-thirty, when I picked Wil up, it was already warming up and overnight temperatures of 10 degrees Centigrade (50F) were forecast to reach twenty-six Centigrade (79F) by noon, hotter that Mediterranean countries the forecaster had said. I knew, or thought that I knew, that Carp would be high in the water today and that Wil would want to fish the bottom with his method feeders, but I also knew that I’d continually told him that he was fourteen, no longer a child, and had to make his own decisions.

Arriving at Hazel Court, parking up, and looking around, it became obvious that the six or seven anglers that had already arrived were on the closest pegs to the car park on each of the three ponds. It seemed that nobody wanted to lug gear to the far end of a pond in the heat, but then, maybe we are bonkers, because we chose the far end of the pleasure pond where success had come previously.

Wil set his method feeder rods up and alarmed all three on his rod-pod while I set up my pole and pole chair along with two top kits on my new nest (I have sent off for another top kit and tube to have a choice of three top kits soon). I was confident that I would catch with a hard pellet falling through the water as if it was on a pellet waggler and that Wil would have it tough. I was wrong as usual.

All around us, in all parts of the pond and even right under our feet, fish were splashing, moving reeds, and jumping out of the water. A quick internet search told us that this was carp spawning. Males were surrounding females and splashing around them, inducing them to lay their eggs and spring warmth had obviously arrived. This showed us that the fish were much more interested in sex than in food and fishing might be difficult.

During the morning, while all this spawning was continually happening, Wil caught a four-pound common then a four-pound bream, blowing all my theories of the fish feeding high in the water to pieces. His second common carp looked a better fish but still weighed four-pound and on inspection it (she?) was thinner than normal and we speculated that she may have recently laid eggs. He followed this up with another four-pound bream and at four - one he was putting me to shame, as usual.

While this was going on I tried everything I could think of but without success. Fishing straight out was followed by fishing next to the lily pads to my right, then fishing down the edge between the lily pads and the bank. All three of these swims were fished with eight-millimetre pellets, six- millimetre pellets, eight-millimetre wafters in pink, yellow and orange on the hook, and finally with a rig that I’d set up at home consisting of bare line to a hook and quick-stop, a double disk of punched bread on the hook with six more single disks cupped in. Although the hooked bread floated as well as the cupped in bread, no carp was interested in any of it.

Around midday or one o’clock-ish everything changed. The sun got stronger, the spawning completely stopped, Wil stopped catching, and I started to get bites at long last. I had two swims now but this changed to three due to the carp’s actions. My first swim was at the full ten metre length of the pole and near the lily pads, my second swim was top two with three and four sections and between the lily pads and the bank, so down the edge. Both had been heavily cupped with pellets, micros and groundbait all morning. Then, thanks to my polarised, prescription sunglasses, I started to see carp swimming about just in front of my feet and I immediately changed to my top two only.

This was when I felt at one with nature, part of nature, watching nature and imagining I was the fish. My tub of micros soaked in fish oil was on my side tray, my margin rig had the float dropped to a guessed depth because there was no time to replumb, and I started to fish around four feet from the edge of the bank in front of me. 

Continually throwing the micros in kept carp there and at one point I could clearly make out four or five big fish there while I experienced numerous ‘liners’ as my float bobbed about. Each time the dropping of the float in without spooking them was difficult but having achieved it I found that the intolerable fish preferred my freebie micros to my hook bait. Eventually though, a good-sized carp took the pellet and shot off into the pond, stretching my elastic as he went. I got giddy and wasn’t thinking straight, so instead of adding section to try and play the fish, I pulled on the elastic, trying to “reel” him in. This carp was cleverer than me and made it to the lily pads, snagged me up and broke my hook-length. One – nil to the carp.

The nature thing carried on when a dragonfly landed on the float of my re-tied rig, the first dragonfly that either of us had seen this year and maybe a record for April, for us anyway. 

The flight of the carp that beat me had spooked the rest of the carp in my swim but I banked on them returning so I just kept feeding micros to establish the new swim that was only four feet away from me. Without seeing any fish in my swim, my float dipped, I struck, and laughed at the foul-hooked roach that came out, weighing probably an ounce or two. Wil, sarcastically grabbing the landing net to help me land it, did not boost my confidence.

A bream came next and he too moved off into the pond. I wanted to add sections but soon realised that the skimmer didn’t merit it, so brought him in under the elastic.

My swim changed then. All along my right-hand margin I could see clouds of silt where, I assumed, carp were grubbing around in the bottom, searching for food. The clouds reminded me of aircraft con-trails as I watched the lines come closer and closer to my pellet, so I kept feeding micros over my float.

The pattern that was then established was that the carp, or the carp cloud, would approach, tiny minnow-sized fry that had maybe been feeding on the falling micros, darted away in all directions, afraid of being eaten, I would start chanting in my head, “Go on have it, you know you want it, just have it,” and the carp would enjoy the freebies and swim on through.

During one of these forays, where I imagined myself to be the fish grubbing about, Wil came up behind me and, with no idea that my head was on the pond bottom, spoke to me and I nearly left my chair and fell into the water. Such is the power of nature and the imagination.

I told Wil how I was watching these trails and feeding micros so he stayed to watch. A ‘con-trail’ came in from the left-hand margin, unusually, started to mooch about in the, presumably now spread-out micros, and eventually I saw my float dart under with a very positive bite. As Wil grabbed the larger landing net, I told him that landing the fish was still a fair way off. This time I managed to reach behind me for my number three and four sections and found that holding on for dear life to a top two while trying to add a number three and four, is no easy matter.

Seconds after adding the two sections and shipping out to get my now longer pole to work for me at its full length, I watched the fish go into the lily pads and thought ‘here we go again.’

This time I just kept an even pressure on him and eventually he came out and kited to the open water. After playing this fish for what felt like minutes but was probably only one minute, I could ship in, take off the three and four, and find the elastic puller to get him closer to Wil’s net. Before he hit the net though, we both said in unison, “what the hell’s that?” My guess was a ghosty common but when he was landed and taken to the carp bath and unhooked, he was clearly a koi.

This koi was practically white on one side and scaleless. He had gold in his tail and some fins but his distinguishing feature, and why we called him ‘gold-spot,’ was the random spot of gold on his flank that almost looked fin-like. He weighed in at only three pounds fourteen ounces, around half of Wil’s personal best for a koi, but because it was my first koi it was a PB for me.

After photos, he was placed gently back into the water and I sat back in my chair with no pole, exhausted. This fish of under four-pounds had fought harder than my PB common, also caught on my pole, of over ten-pound. Clearly the fight and the weight are not compatible with each other.

Shortly after, we started to pack up, with our sunburnt arms and we were both happy with a pleasant day’s fishing. As usual, carrying the gear back to the car seems to take longer than getting it from the car to the peg.

On the last trip, laden down with gear, we were walking the causeway between the pleasure pond and the specimen pond when Wil made an announcement. “I think we are stuck on fish around four or five pound with yours of over ten being the exception. Maybe we should fish this specimen pond next week, that far peg over there, and again the following week. Because the fishery is closed for the week after that, we should go back to Jonko’s fishery then maybe back here.”

I had planned on carrying on at the pleasure pond and on the closure week at Hazel Court, for the wedding, using our Merthyr Tydfil Angling Alliance membership to fish Top Pond in Merthyr, but whatever Wil suggests usually works out well so the specimen pond it is.

Back at home, the tray I’d sent off for to hold my increasing number of pole rigs had arrived and I knew that over the next few days my rigs would be transferred onto the many winders on the tray. Then the tray would sit around for a while because there was no way that I would be using a pole for specimen carp and catfish. Maybe it would come out again at Jonko’s.