New Fox consultant Jim Wilson takes a step outside his comfort zone but proves his class with a brilliant winter day-ticket session…

Two nights on Linear’s Brasenose One couldn’t be further removed from my normal fishing, in fact there are probably more carp in this lake than in my home county!

Normally I’d be ensconced on a huge gravel pit chasing a small number of carp, in fact my current water is around 120 acres and we reckon on there being around 40 carp in it, so each one is a target fish so to speak. Even some of the smaller, what I would call better-stocked circuit venues that I have fished, like Bundy’s Pit, are filled with challenges, not least in that case the enormous depths. I’d very much be fishing for target carp, and not necessarily just the biggest, although many of the older carp do tend to be a bit bigger, obviously.

My current water potentially holds a huge carp, which I’ve not seen in a season or two, but the known fish run to upper 40’s. These carp, on the huge inland seas, tend to get caught rarely and, so, they become a bit of an obsession. My next port of call is going to be Grendon, which is significantly smaller at around 15 acres but only holds around 50 or so carp. I love a challenge, a proper campaign water if you like, and it’s what really floats my boat in a fishing sense. Also, especially being in quite a demanding and often stressful job, those waters offer me a little solitude at times and I regularly find myself ‘lost’ in my fishing. Like I said, it’s not always about being the biggest fish, but it can sometimes also be the case. I mentioned Grendon, which has a common in it called Tyson, which at the right time of the year will be 50lb, but whether it’s 50, 47 or 43lb I’d just love to catch it such is the impression it made on me from the very first time I saw James Armstrong with a photo of it. There’s another stunning common carp in there too, called Swing Swang (bizarrely) which is mid-forties but isn’t a regular visitor to the bank. Despite being smaller than Tyson I’d dearly love to catch that one. I’ve watched it feed in the margins and it’s become a bit of an obsession, or it certainly will be soon.

It’s very much an effort thing when targeting carp like that, or those on my current water. All of the top carp anglers on those kinds of venues put in maximum effort and make the most of every minute on the bank, and that’s what brings the rewards.