One of the best catches of carp for a long time has come from Linear Fisheries' St John's Lake by third-year Sparsholt College student Kevin Grout, writes ANDY WEBBER.

Kevin, who has been on work experience at the Stanton Harcourt big-fish complex, proved his time has been well spent by banking 19 carp, including nine 20's, one 30 and two 40's.

He caught the mirror known as 'The Big Plated' at 40.6.0, The Big Common' at 41.0.0 and a ghostie at 30.10.0.

This session lasted for three days and all the fish came from light weed just 15 yards from the bank.

He fed Mainline pellets and used a pop-up boilie attached to a size 9 Armour Point hook. Hooklink was flurocarbon.

Kevin is doing his finals at the moment, so the fishing is on hold, but his latest feat represents the catch of a lifetime.

  • LAST Monday, Colin Howse and I drove over to Godalming AC's Marsh Farm in Surrey hoping to catch some big crucian carp.

The day did not start well as I was supposed to pick Colin up at 5.30am, but the alarm failed to go of, so we didn't leave Oxford until 6am.

It takes about an hour and half to get there, but it was worth it. All the facilities are first-class and the site's tackle shop, Apollo 2, is very well stocked and the staff helpful.

Besides being a tackle shop, you can get coffee, tea and soft drinks etc and you also buy your day ticket there which costs £5 for one rod or £7 for two.

After a very short walk, we found a couple of pegs on Harris Lake and after soaking some RS Baits low oil green and light feeder pellets, we started to fish.

Bait was Dynamite Expander pellets 4mm and I set up a waggler while Colin used a small feeder.

My first fish was a 2.9.0 crucian, but after that, with the sun shining, things slowed up. I caught plenty of tench and another crucian over 1lb.

After a slow start, Colin got among the crucians and landed several, the best going 3lb, plus several tench.

Certainly on the day, the feeder ruled and we are both going back next Monday for another crack.

  • IF you have any news, views or photos, or you just want to have a chat, you can contact me on 01865 725606 or email andrew@webber01865.fs net.co.uk