Cobbleacre Lakes, Hevingham, Norfolk. Aug 3rd-7th 09

Three months since our last CarpCatching trip and we find ourselves back at Cobbleacre lakes in Norfolk fishing the very popular and pretty Mario's Lake.

Mario's lake is said to hold around 8 thirties and up to 60 twenties with a good head of mid to high teen fish all in fantastic condition.

We were last here in May 09 where Mark fished in the 'Caspers' swim and Matt was in the swim to the right 'Lazymans' and from the word go last time we consistantly caught good quality carp ranging from 18lb to 23lb including a fantastic 23lb ghostie, in total we caught 6 carp 5 over 19lb and 2 kittens around the 5-6lb.

2nd August 09 - Mark arrived at Mario's at around 4-30pm on the sunday to have a look around the lake and see how busy it was, our intentions were to fish the same swims as last time due to the succes we had, the location and they comfortably housed 2 anglers side by side so we were never too far away from our rods. Upon arriving at the lake Mark was beaten to the swims by 2 anglers that arrived about 10 mins prior. Mark walked the lake and decided that our best options were to fish 'Snags' & 'Beach' and after a few phone calls Mark decided to stay and set up in the 'snags' and Matt would join him later on that evening and make the 'Beach' his home for the next 4-5 days.

I, Mark had my rods and camp set up by around 7pm but due to the fear of being eaten alive by the thousands of wasps in my shed, I forgot my landing matt and some of the bait so not to tempt fait and catch a lump whilst unprepared i decided to wait for Matt to arrive. To pass the time i walked the lake and indulged in a few cans of trusty Carling, the signs were good there were a few large crashes and areas bubbling up in and around our swims however after talking to a few other anglers on and around the lake i foundd that the fish had not been in the feeding mood for a while now and very few fish had actually made an appearance on the bank.

Matt arrived about 8-30pm and i helped him set up as he brought me a nice big mac meal and his camp was set by around 9-30pm. All rods were in the water and in position by about 10-15pm with the aid of the new microcat 11.

The baits that we were using were Mainline Cell prepared for us by the bait comany. We also had around 25kilo of Hemp some sweetcorn, pellet in various shapes and forms and some salt & hot chilli powder.

We sat down shared a few carlings and talked with huge confidence and expectations of the week ahead b4 retiring to our beds at around midnight.

With the first night proving uneventful apart from the odd single beep, Monday morning got off to a good start for Matt with his left alarm screeming. I ran over all excited thinking here we go again only to find that he had got to the surface a tench weighing about 4lb, we successfully landed and returned the red eye. Matt rebaited and put the bait straight back out there, we were bot still blurry eyed and decided that our bedchairs were calling and retired to our pits (guess this it due to us both having young kiddies at home).

I woke up at about half 8 and as Matt was still snoring i decided to walk the far bank to see if i could spot any signs of feeding fish, 2 swims down from Matt i saw 3 areas of fizzing bubbles an opportunity i couldnt miss. I grabbed a rod loaded with a suingle cell boillie and asked Matt if he wanted to join me, he didnt seem to have the same enthusiasm so as i walked past his bivvy on the way to the bubbles i mentioned "if the mountains wont go to mohamed!" not really sure of the correct saying but he knew what i meant. I crept up tothe swim and thankfully there was still 2 areas frantically fizzing so i cast about 5 foot behind and dragged the bait gently back to within inches from the rear of the bubbles, leaving my line slack and resting on the top of a lilly pad i lit up a smoke and waited patiently, 5 mins passed and i was just about ready to give up as the bubbles had stopped when my line slowly tightened then within seconds my baitrunner was letting out some line - i struck into what i knew was definately not a tench. Matt had got out of his pit and walked over with the landing net and after about 5 mins i had on the bank a perfect 20lb Common, we took a few snaps and safely returned the fish nicknamed 'Mohammed' safely to the lake.

1 - 1 in the fish count and both excited that we had both landed a fish within the first 12 hours of fishing we decided to have breakfast and a coffee. The day was very hot and humid and not really ideal carp feeding conditions we decided to go in search of some fish that we had spotted in the pad at the far corner of the lake, unfortunately they were more interested in sunbathing than feeding and although we had a few take some koi pellets from the surface they had absolutely no interest in feeding what so ever. Feeling somewhat defeated we decided to park ourselves in Matt's swim and if you cant beat them join them catch a few rays ourselves.

Faye arrived with baby Sienna for her fist taste of Carp fishing unfortunately in her 2 hours visiting her daddy she didnt get to witness her first sighting of a carp on the bank.

With Faye and Sienna on their way home we decided to cook some grub, nice big burgers were on the menu and Matt managed to fit 2 1/4lb burgers into one roll with 2 slices of cheese and a good helping of mayo. After roughly 4 bites i decided to look at what i was muching on only to find that the bottom of the 2 monster burgers was still alive, Matt had decided to try his best in giving us dodgy bellies for the remainder of the trip!!!

We recast & rebaited about 7-45pm and sat in my swim for the evening i have to say with a big fear of the explosions in my belly being greater that the explosions on the lake. The eveneing passed with very little action what so everso we drank our way through a number of cans of the trusty Carling, talked tactics, inventions (cant say too much about them at this stage) and een witnessed some bizarre happenings in the sky (mad cow disease from the uncooked burgers me thinks) @ 11-30pm we decided that the lack of action, noise & movement on the lake was a good enough reason to hit the sack or sleeping bags as it were, just as we retired there was some crashes in and around the islands opposite Matt so obviously he was hoping that one of them would pick up his nearby baits, we decided to have each others receivers with the view that if we were to get lucky the other would hear it to and be able to help land the fish!. 1-30am and i was rudely awoken by Matt's receiver buzzing away in my ear, as i scrambled out of my pit i shouted over to Matt 'are you in?' 'yes mate' he replied, i walked the 20m over to his swim and by this time he had the fish at his feet ready to net, a 4lb tench again! you could see in his face that he was slightly gutted that it wasnt one of the lumps that we had previously heard crashing in his swim - hey ho 2-1 to Matt in the fish count and back to bed it was.

we had heard that the lake wasn't being to productive recently and it isnt an easy lake to catch on in the best of conditions, however after our success last time we were already feeling a little disappointed in our achievemnts so far. After another day of limited sightings and movement on the lake but with a little rain and a stronger wind now with us we went into Tuesday night feeling slightly more optimistic with the conditions, could this be the turning point?!! I decided to change my bait on the right rod and opted for a spicy prawn & shrimp boillie and matt decided to put halibut pellet and fake corn on all 3 of his rods for 24hrs to see if that would make a difference. Tuesday night brought one run on my right hand rod @ 10-49pm, i was sat in Matt's swim and by the time i got to my rods the optonic had stopped and the line was very slack, i wound in and struck but there was nothing there ;-[ i get the feeling this is not going to be my trip, i rebaited and again with the spicy prawn bait recast under the overhanging tree to my right and went back to Matt's swim to eat and drink a few more beers and more importantly to discuss how we could maybe improve our chances. We came to the conclusion that there was very little more that we could do as we already knew the baits & rigs had caught fish here on previous visits and our baits were positioned in hotspots where fish are regularly caught.

just as we were getting ready to retire @ 1-14am my right rod screamed of again so i threw my half empty beer and sprinted over only to find that the same had happened again, however as Matt reached my swim his right rod screamed of and unfortunately he to missed the run. I was thinking that maybe there was a fish trailing a lead that had caused my right rod to do the same thing twice in the space of a few hours or was it that i really need to be sitting right on top of my rods to stand any chance of hitting these runs????. confused and slightly fed up we again retired after another dissapointing 24hrs.

nobody else on the lake was catching and we just put the lack of action down to the very humid weather and not our lack of ability! i had been bitten on the ankle by some kind of insect and by now my right ankle was very swollen so i decided to drive to a local shop and get something for it and also i felt we both needed cheering up so i stopped at McDonalds on the way back, yum yum!! With only 2 days left we werent feeling like we were going to have much success, you could see the carp cruising around in their little groups but as soon as bait was put within 5 feet of them they would casually turn and swim in the opposite direction, this however was where we felt that we had the most chance of catching, Matt had come up with a new way of keeping the koi pellets on the hair as during the day he had 3 takes of the surface but none of which hooked and the bait was just sucked off. We sat down for the evening and at 10-49pm (same time as tuesday night) Matts middle rod screamed off and half expecting this to be another tench Matt was extremely happy to see a large bend in his rod as he struck into a 20lb common again on the 'cell' boillie, after a few pics and and a sigh of releif Matt had safely returned his first carp of the session.

We had our routine celebratory ciggie and a beer then hit the sack a little happier with Matt's capture.

We both thought this would be typical just as our session was coming to an end the fish would decide to feed like there was no tomorrow unfortunately this was not the case, the weather on thursday was again very humid and again we could see plenty of fish cruising the lake but not interested in feeding at all, Matt had crept round to a small area of pads just to the left hand side of my swim where we had seen a few carp living the whole of our session, with his new self made rig he sat there for hours encouraging the carp to take confidently the koi pellets, could Matt's patience pay off? At 12-45pm he was very pleased to look down near his feet and see a huge golden ghostie swim into the pad's where he was and circle a number of free offerings, now was he time for Matt to gently lower his hookbait over a pad and into a prime location. Matt's heart raced faster as he saw the huge lips of the ghostie gently suck up to his hookbait - surely this couldnt be the famous 'Casper', Matt struck into the massive ghostie and with a huge crash it went straight into the pads, as i ran over i saw Matt shaking with excitement 'i have got Casper on' he whispered still shaking ' its got to be her she is huge' he explained. after 10 mins of letting the line free to see if she would come free herself Matt decided to give a tug on the line, 'I can't beleive it, it's gone' he whimpered with a gutted look on his face. the carp that had so confidently taken his bait had dislodged the hook into the underside of a lilly, gutted!!! Time for a ciggie, a beer and some grub.

We decided to let the swim settle down a little and we both took our surface floats down to the pads at the far end of the lake where again there was consitently a good head of carp what can only be described as sunbathing, on a few occasions tho a pair of lips would come out of knowhere and take a freebie, with nothing to lose we decided to give it ago and within minutes of Matt casting to the backof the pads a dark shadow approached his hookbait, the bait dissappeared from view and Matt struck, with this about 6 other lumps swirled and we were sure he was in again, he was!, but you would not beleive what was on his hook! a 3/4lb Rudd???? with the swim well an truly spooked and the Cox brothers baffled we decided to go eat and have a few beers.

I had not a sausage from my swim since the run i missed early weds morning and with no signs of any movemnt there at all i was convinced that my first morning capture was going to be my only one, Matt however wanted one last go at the pads where he lost the ghostie and he trumbled off to spend the last hour of light trying to get another on the bank and to be fair to him he did, again not what you would of expected, this time a 2lb catfish.????

That was it i decided to get some more beers from the garage and sit for the evening and admitt defeat, we sat and reflected on what was a bizarre session, totally not what we had expected at all, a Rudd and catfish off the surface, only 2 carp landed but one to each of us and both perfectly formed 20lb fish, crazy weather, a nasty bite on my ankle which had swollen to the size of a, well alot bigger than the other one anyway and possibly the loss of 'Casper'. Will Matt ever get the chance to hook into her again and will either one of us land the 30lb er that we are so desperate to catch??? keep an eye on our site to find out!!! Mark & Matt.