May is always a special time of the year in the Carp Society calendar as it marks the time of year that 30 eager juniors descend onto Horseshoe lake for the annual Junior Carp Camp.  Lots of planning goes into making sure the Carp Camp runs successfully and the Carp Society start planning the event as soon as the last one has finished.  Derek Buxton once again was the main organiser and it was with great sadness that he announced this would be the last one he would do, as he wanted to hand the job to someone new.

Once again the trade did not let us down and supported the event with lots of goodies for all the juniors.  CC Moore very generously provided all the juniors with bollies, trout pellets and particle for the four day event.  Korda & Wychwood supported the event with goodie bags for all, providing every junior with all they would need tackle-wise for the event, we thank the sponsors for their great support and generosity.

On Wednesday 27 May twenty-one optimistic instructors arrived at the lake. All the instructors have high expectations and want the juniors they are looking after to catch well and learn lots from their experience. The instructors were allocated their swims and off they went to get settled before the juniors arrived on the Thursday.  All the instructors were treated to an excellent meal on the Wednesday night, once again cooked by Malcolm Collier. He does spoil us.  This year we had the added bonus of being able to watch the European Cup final, but the less said about that the better.

Thursday soon arrived and all the instructors gathered at the lodge eagerly awaiting the arrival of their junior anglers. As the juniors arrived it was off to their chosen pitch to get set up with their instructor.  Once this was completed they came back to the lodge for lunch.

First lesson was Carp Care with Paul Boichat.  They do this lesson first, as we hope that when they return to their swims to start their fishing, they will catch some Horseshoe carp. Hopefully this introduction to carp care will soon be utilised!

Then there was a PVA Bags & Rigs lesson with Tim Wagner. You could see from their faces that they were fascinated with what Tim was teaching them and they were eager to get back to their swims to put into action what they had learnt.

There are two things that are totally out of the instructors’ hands; the weather and the carp playing the game.  The weather was very kind during the event, because although at times there was an easterly wind blowing, it was sunny for most of the time.  Unfortunately the carp let us down this year as they had spawning on their minds.  Although the fish did not spawn while the juniors were at Horseshoe the catches were notably down this year compared to the last couple of years, with only 29 carp gracing the bank.

Notable catches were a stunning 29lb 6oz mirror to Luke Mitchell fishing with instructor Jake Wildbore from peg 51. Down the same end of the lake Matt Rush managed a 23lb 2oz mirror fishing with Jonathan Manning in peg 53.

Alex Morgan's 9lb 12 oz tench