november-2026-free-line-part-2 - Flipbook - Page 114
FREE LINE / FIELD JOURNAL
KEVIN BEAUMONT
FIELD NOTES
In 1999, these carp were now good mid doubles with the odd fish touching
the 20lb barrier. This style of angling was totally alien to me, seeing lads sat
with three rods on pods with alarms (Optonics, I think they were back then)
and putting in more bait than I d probably used all season on match lakes.
What really caught my interest was the clarity of the water and watching the
big, dark shapes move around the margin amongst the reeds and lily pads,
hearing them slurping in dog biscuits that had floated into the margins.
Not being geared up for this new style of angling, I armed myself with my
strongest feeder rod, 8lb Ultima line on an old Mitchell reel, landing net and
a baby changing mat wrapped in a bin liner as an unhooking mat (white
with yellow ducklings wasn t very carpy!), a few bags of scalded mixers and
half a loaf of bread, which I d pinch out of the cupboard. Along with the odd
tin of corn, that was pretty much how the next three or four years of my life
went outside of school.
I would have a routine, putting in a few handfuls of mashed bread and corn
in a few spots around the margins of both reservoir 2 and 3, and while I
was waiting for fish to show up, try and get them going on the top with the
mixers. These fish were no mugs and had seen a lot of angling pressure over
the years, most of it I m sure a lot slicker than my approach.
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