another go at the carp

I could feel the pressure of time weighing upon me and as the nights began to draw in I knew that I needed to make a more determined effort to capture a carp... Marie was off to Longleat for the weekend, and after a major clearout of the garage I was free to go fishing  I returned to the same swim i had fished weeks earlier, at the downstream end of the pads. my plain this time was to fish over a bed of groundbait, and half a bucket of vitalin along with half a kilo of tutti boilies and the same of halibut pellets went it the river at about 4pm on saturday afternoon to commence the session. I had the whole stretch to myself, the carp have pretty much failed to show so far this season and with no fish there are no anglers, of course this is a vicious circle and a circle that i was planning to break...
unfortunately the story was to be a familiar one, the evening passed into night and then morning without a peep from the alarms. In order to pass the time I periodically I switched the halibut baited rod for a lighter outfit with a single redworm on a size 18 hook. this was used to search out all areas of the river - my hope was that by some freak chance it would end up under the nose of a bullhead, more realistically a roach or perch would at least pass the time and minnows, ruffe or silver bream would be useful location info for later in the season. If I wasn't suprised at the lack of action from the carp, i was amazed at how few bites the worm raised, by 11am just two bites had produced two small perch,. This peg is like noahs ark, with the fishes coming two by two... two bream, two chub, now two perch but not even 1 carp.
I decided to pack up and move to the weir for the rest of the day, unfortunately the padlock was back on the middle gate and i didnt have a key. Instead I headed to the embankment below Wilford bridge. There was still the outside chance of a carp here, and there are usually decent shoals of roach to tempt onto maggot. It wasn't to be - it was one of those afternoons when aparrently nothing was feeding - the cheers from the forest supporters would have made an entertaing backdrop if anything did take the bait. By 2pm I was home to drop off the overnight kit and grab some lunch. This evening I'll be off to Beeston to see if i can find gudgeon (or maybe an elusive bullhead) lurking in the rocky crevaces and shallow gravels of the weirpool, in between the vast shoals of carp that will be crawling up the rod that is!