Carp Fishing at Normanhurst Lake

6:05 am - Arrived at Fishery
Me, my brother Matt, and our mate Rob pulled up into the Normanhurst Lake car park early Saturday morning. We grabbed our gear out the boot, dipped our nets and began the long walk to the lake. After walking for 10-15 minutes through the woods we finally reached the edge of the wooded lake. There was a light mist swirling across the lake and the sky looked clear.

6:17am – Investigated the lake
I decided to walk around the lake to see if I could see any activity, and to find a good swim. I dropped my gear and started to walk around the lake, I soon saw we were the only ones on the lake.

6:25 am – Found a swim
We decided to fish the swims that we first arrived at. The three swims had access to the large open water, overhanging trees and bushes, lilly pads and reeds in the margins.

Normanhurst lake

6:30 am – Threw some dog biscuits out
I decided to throw some dog biscuits out as I always like to do when I go carp fishing. I threw some out in the open in front of me, some to the left of me, some to the right of me, and some in the margins just in front of me.

6:35 am – Set-up rods
I began setting up my rods. I set-up both rods up with a ledgered bolt rig and a hair rig with a long hair. I hooked one peach flavoured boilie to one hair and then tied a PVA string of peach flavoured boilies to the rig, with some of the boilies broken in half so as to open the flavour up to attract the carp. I set the second rod up on an identical set-up but with two chocolate peanut flavoured boilies and a PVA string of chocolate peanut flavoured boilies tied to the rig.

6:40 am – Carp slurping dog biscuits
Just as I had finished setting up my rods, a carp appeared on the surface about 15 metres out in front of me, slightly to the right, slurping up the dog biscuits. He wasn’t hanging back, he couldn’t get them quick enough.

6:45 am – Quick change of tactics
I wasn’t going to miss out on this, I quickly removed the peach boilie rig and began quickly setting up a very small float with a dog biscuit. I didn’t want to spook this fish, so I set the rod up well away from the waters edge, and this was the reason for using a very small float, I wanted it to make as little splash as possible when I cast it in the water.

6:49 am – Cast into the lilies
I decided to flick the dog biscuit into the lilies in the margin about 3 metres in front of me. Perfect, the dog biscuit was sat floating on the surface just on the edge of the lilies and the float had landed on a lily pad which had meant no splash. I hid myself behind a bush so the carp would not see me if it got near the bait.

6:54 am – Hooked into a big one!!!
The carp was still mooching around slurping up any dog biscuits he could find and he was heading my way. My heart started racing, this carp had a very big mouth and was about 5 dog biscuits away from my bait. 5…..4…..3….slurp, I struck the rod and the carp took off towards the trees on the far bank, tearing line off the reel like it wasn’t there, this felt like a big fish. After about 10 minutes of fighting the fish, it finally gave up the battle.

Man holding a 20lb 6oz mirror carp in front of Normanhurst lake

7:05 am - Landed the fish
I lifted the netted carp out of the water onto my unhooking mat, unhooked the fish, and began weighing the fish. It weighed in at 20lb 6oz, it was my first 20lb fish.

10:30 am - Lots of activity in the middle of the lake
There was a lot of activity in the middle of the lake, carp cruising the surface and feeding bubbles.

11:05 - Moved swim
I decided to move swim so that I could try and latch onto some of the carp I could see out in the middle of the lake. I set both rods up using the original set-ups, both ledgered bolt rigs with strings of PVA boilies.

3:29 pm - Screaming run
The monkey climber shot up, the alarm was screaming and line was being taken.

3:30 pm - Hooked into another big one!!!
I struck into the fish and it felt like a big fish once again. After battling with the fish for 5 minutes or so, the fish finally found its way into my net. I pulled the fish from the water, placed it on my unhooking mat, unhooked it, and began to weigh it. This was a fat carp. The scales read 18lb 09oz.

Man holding a 18lb 9oz mirror carp in front of Normanhurst lake

6:50 pm - Called it a day
We decided to call it a day, the boys had caught a tench between them and were bored and frustrated, I'd had a good day anyway.

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