Stewart Bloor

Field Tester

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With a window of opportunity to do an overnighter, I chose both my target species and venue carefully. As an all-rounder, I do have a lot of competition battling away in my mind when it comes to planning a fishing session in terms of what to fish for and where.

Not having been on the pool in question for a couple of years or so, I had been thinking about it recently, and with dry weather meaning I could get my car down the track easily enough, that’s where I decided to fish.

In addition, I fancied focusing on carp. Many anglers reading this on the SBS Baits website will naturally be carp anglers anyway, but for me, I enjoy fishing for all species on any venue with a variety of tactics. This time round though it was a pop-up boilie approach that I went with.

The bait in question was a strawberry jam 14mm Premium, fished over 20mm Eurostars strawberry jam loose boilies. I am a fan of PVA bags and the cast also contained Multimix Proactive pellets with strawberry jam Eurostars Boost Juice added.

To complete the SBS connection, the hooklength was 25lb Discovery braid, with the hook itself a size 6 Grip Tip.

The swim I fished was quite overgrown, and I placed one bait just off overhanging trees, with the other in open water. It was the latter that produced the fish, which came at 3.00 a.m.

If you’re fishing a tight swim then familiarise yourself with it prior to darkness. That way, you will have a plan of action in the event that you connect with a fish. In my case it meant identifying a safe route down to the water’s edge, so that I could play the fish without the overhanging branches causing any issues.

All went to plan and after photographing the carp, it was returned safely and I continued to fish. No more takes followed, but as we know with carp angling especially, it’s a fine line sometimes between ‘success’ and ‘failure’.

I use those words in inverted commas though because ultimately it’s all about enjoyment, and while we want to catch, of course, nevertheless it’s more than just fish on the bank. I love being out there in the great outdoors and that, sometimes, is enough in itself.