Hi everyone, I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Rob Evans, I’m 38 years old and I’m delighted to have been asked to join the team here at JRC.

I caught my first fish at the age of 5, a huge gudgeon of about 2oz, under the watchful eye of my Granddad during our first trip to the local canal. Ever since that day I have been obsessed with fishing.

Throughout my childhood I spent every minute of my spare time fishing or talking about fishing and by the age of 13 had become a serious carp angler. Fast forward 25 years and very little has changed; I’m still obsessed and I still spend as much time as humanely possible on the bank. Unfortunately I now have the inconvenience of a very demanding job, a girlfriend (also very demanding!) and a mortgage, therefore my time is very limited however I do manage a 36 hour, 2 night session most weeks and am always sure to make the most of it.

I cut my teeth on some of the lakes and meres in the
Shropshire area before spending about 15 years moving around the country with work and fishing waters local to wherever I happened to be. These have included some great waters; Patshull Church pool near Wolverhampton, Abbots lake in Herts, The Woolpack in Cambs and many others which are lesser known. Over the last few years work has become a little more stable and I have settled in the

Suffolk / Cambridgeshire area. After successful campaigns on Kingfisher lake in

Norfolk and Monks Pit in Cambs (both of which I will write about another time) I am now focusing my attention on a local syndicate water, a park lake of around 16 acres in size. The lake is very established and in beautiful surroundings, it is quite silty in places and in contrast to the majority of lakes I had previously fished, contains very little weed. Three large islands break the lake up nicely and the average depth is around 12ft, although there are many features which provide a wide variety of depths from 1-2ft around the edge of the islands to 17ft in the deepest area of the lake. Best of all is the fact that it contains some really cracking fish to well over 40lb….

I have just begun my third season on the lake. During the first year I fished only in the spring before moving back to Monks for the summer / autumn to settle a score with an upper forty that had so far eluded me. That spring I managed 16 fish, topped off by mirrors of 39lb 6oz and 39lb 12oz and a handful of other thirties which were amongst the best looking fish I have ever seen. Later that year I also managed to settle my score on Monks so I made a decision to drop that ticket the following season (2009-10) and give the park lake my full attention. I ended the season with 40 fish, biggest of which was a gorgeous 37lb 12oz common. Again this was backed up by a number of other beautiful big thirties…the lake had really got under my skin and I was well and truly in love with it!

The lake contains a good head of twenties and thirties and I believe there are 6 fish that have gone over 40. So far I’ve been fortunate enough to bag 3 of them, albeit at slightly lower weights. This season I would dearly like to bag at least one of the other three – ideally above the magical mark. The 3 fish in question are; A fish called Two-Scale which has been out this year at 43+; The Ghostie which has been out at 42+; and the jewel in the crown, a big old character fish known as The Dragon which is usually around the 42-43lb mark. In addition there are some cracking scaley mirrors, including a fully scaled, in the mid-thirties which I would love to get amongst.

I have tried many different methods on the lake with variable degrees of success. One common theme however seems to be that there is no one way which singles out the bigger fish. For example my very fish from the lake was a 39lb 6oz mirror (some might say that was jammy but I put it down to skill!!). It came over 3kg of bait a rod length out. The very next fish was a 39lb 12oz mirror which fell to a single floro pop-up cast 100yrds to an island (I was starting to become a bit unpopular at that stage!).

First Blood: 39lb 6oz

Second fish, 39lb 12oz…..I was starting to become unpopular!

A beautiful linear of 32lb 8oz

Best Fish last year: 37lb 8oz

The lake has a 2 rod limit, which suits me as it’s less to carry and quicker to pack away if a move is required. My approach last year was generally to fish one rod over bait – usually a couple of kilos of Boilie – and the other rod I would cast a single bait at anything that moved, though if fish were showing when I arrived I tended to put singles out and introduce bait slowly. At the start of the year most of the fish seemed to come to the single bait approach though later on the baited areas tended to be more successful. This year I have started with a similar approach and so far it seems to be working ok, though this is the sort of lake that really keeps you on your toes so it would be very naïve to think that I’ve cracked it and just need to carry on doing the same as last year. I will be constantly tweaking my approach, trying to bag myself a bonus fish or two.

Over the coming weeks I’ll fill you in on what I have caught so far and will be keeping you up to speed with what I’ve been catching, as well as sharing some details of how I have caught them. Hopefully I will bag one of the big ‘uns!