Last week’s winners
Last week’s winner of the Mainline Dumbell Hookers was Craig Davis of Hull, Yorkshire, and the Hinders winner who gets the Blitz package is Gary Powell of Walsoken, in Cambridgeshire. No need to contact us, we have both your addresses and will send the products out to you shortly.

Ripples and Reflections
Len Arbery is well known for his carp fishing exploits and his new book is a potted-history of Len’s angling experiences. Whilst not exclusively about carp, it does contain plenty of carping material - Redmire, Longfield, Savay, etc., plus foreign excursions. Very enjoyable reading, full of anecdotes about Len’s friendships with some of angling’s great characters (a lot interesting stuff about Bill Quinlan). Nicely produced, with two colour

sections, by The Little Egret Press but with too many typos that really shouldn’t get through to the press in a book of this price and quality. Still, a cracking read that makes it well worth its cover price. Additionally, it’s a limited edition of just 895 copies so it shouldn’t take long for the book to become a collector’s item.
Expensive, but perhaps because of its limited print run could be an investment - priced at £28-95 plus £3 postage from Carp-Talk shop.

Welcome
It's that time of the week again when you receive your free copy of Carp-Talk Xtra from the publishers of Carp-Talk magazine. There is loads for you to have a gander at again this week. We have lined up reviews on new products by George Loughlin, Ben Oconnor and Mark Willis on some of the new products that are out there in the market today. They have had a look at the new Trakker SL Rod Sleeve, the Carp Company's new hooks and some fashionable camo clothing from Camou Streme which by the way has a stunning patten. We have some more great top tips from Keith Jones, Ken Townley and angling legend number 70 (according to Angler's Mail last week!) - our very own Chris Ball.
There are the usual catch reports (most of which you won't find in Carp-Talk magazine) you have sent us. Keep them coming please - if you want to see your catch featured in Carp-Talk Xtra send the details into us at xtra@carptalk-online.co.uk including your photo as an attachment.
The day ticket water featured this week covers the famous and historic Brooklands Lake. We're also giving you a chance to fish it with our 48-hour ticket Giveaway - so to be in with a chance to fish it for free see below for further details.
We also have goodies to give away from Mistral and Mainline - again for details of how to win them check out the competition section.
Ben’s been out fishing again but struggled - he puts the time in and will get a result sooner or later. He was just a spectator at the weekend though, but read his Blog to find out more.
So yet again we have another packed-out Carp-Talk Xtra for you all to enjoy. If you want loads more

interesting features, news and competitions why not call in to your local newsagents and grab the latest Carp-Talk magazine. It comes out every Wednesday.
And please don't forget to send us your news and catch reports. You can do it online at xtra@carptalk-online.co.uk or if you want to send it to Carp-Talk magazine use the link on the right that states: ‘Report your catches’.
And, by the way I don't just sit behind a desk - I do get out fishing every now and again. I had a trip up to H&DAA Brandesburton Pond 2 for a 12-hour overnighter and ended up with my first fish out of the venue. A bit of a fluke really as it turned out to be the fishery's biggest resident at 27lb 8oz. The pictures are featured in this week's Carp-Talk magazine.
Enjoy!
Adam Fisher

Reports continue to filter in to the Carp-Talk offices about carp deaths. After a number of reports from Yorkshire we now hear of several incidents in the Midlands. We had an email from Nev Fickling, who runs his own carp fishery, after last week’s report asking if we’d heard of any problems in the Midlands - and there have been several claims of major carp deaths at Attenborough gravel pits, Swarkstone, Fletchers Pond, Cossington and Church Pit, amongst several others. Some very big fish have been lost, to at least 45lb, and one or two fisheries have suffered almost complete wipe-outs. These Midlands reports follow a few weeks after similar reports circulated in Yorkshire where fish were alleged to have also died in a number of fisheries - including Knotsford, The Fabled Pool, Emmotland, Brickyard, Westlands and the Brough stock pond. Again some huge local fish have died including a 40-pounder from one fishery and a 35-pounder from another.
All this comes on top of the flooding problems that have affected the Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire area, that we reported in last week’s issue, where carp have been lost and misplaced. But isolated flooding incidents have also taken place in other parts of the country - for example Yorkshire’s Horbury Lagoon, Wakefield Lagoon and Willow Lake also apparently lost some fish when they were flooded.
Many anglers have been devastated by these incidents - a huge investment in hard work has been lost and many of these fish have been known to anglers for 30, or more, years and are irreplaceable. Reasons for these deaths (other than the obvious flooding losses) are open to speculation - disease, abnormal weather, heavy rain carrying toxins/poisons into the stillwaters from surrounding land. Perhaps we will never know for certain, and perhaps there is more than one simple reason - but what is certain is that it will take many, many years for these losses to be replaced.

Change of venue for Young Carpers Championships
Some important news now for the young carpers out there who are awaiting the forthcoming British Young Carpers Championships which takes place between the week August 13th-19th. The event was scheduled to take place at the productive Richworth Linear Fisheries Brasenose One in Oxfordshire, but as reported in last week’s issue the lake has been hit by severe flooding. Unfortunately the lake is still under water this week and it won’t be open until after the Championships takes place - so a change of venue has been necessary.
The good news is that courtesy of CEMEX Angling, the popular Championships has been re-located to the equally productive Thorpe Lea Fishery in the Colne Valley. Organiser Jemima Musson of Angling Publications commented: “Our thanks to Mick Barnes of CEMEX Angling for helping out with the re-locating of the event. Thorpe Lea is a productive water which is ideal for a competition of this nature. The rules for the competition are exactly the same as those for the Brasenose event, but due to fishery regulations the use of barbless hooks will not be allowed. One other change which we have applied to the Thorpe Lea event is that because the lake is further south than Brasenose, we will be allowing participants to bivvy up at the site overnight. To avoid over-crowding, however, we will only be allowing anglers and their parent/guardian who are registered in the event to

Mainline High Impact Groundbait Giveaway
It still surprises me that many people overlook the use of groundbait as a tactic to aid attracting and catching carp, it’s probably some sort of stigma associating the method with small fish. This most certainly is not the case. Mainline have released these two new mixes Activated Nut Mix and Activated Fish Mix both of which come in 2kg resalable buckets. To be in with a chance of grabbing this new mix from Mainline all you have to do to is send an email to competitions@carptalk-online.co.uk.The winner will be chosen at random from entries received. Closing date for entries will be Monday 6th August and the winner will be announced in next week’s issue of Carp-Talk Xtra. Don’t forget to add your name and address, and mark the subject line as ‘Mainline High Impact Givaway’.

Mistral Baits Paste Baits Giveaway
As we all know the addition of some paste wrapped around our hookbaits will increase attraction dramatically, due to the increased rate of leakage. To be in with a chance to win a selection of paste baits from Mistral Baits just send us a simple email to competitions@carptalk-online.co.uk. The winner will be chosen at random from entries received and the closing date for entries will be Monday 6th August. The winners will be announced in next week’s issue of Carp-Talk Xtra. Don’t forget to add your name and address, and mark the subject box ‘Mistral Paste Competition’.

stay over, and these people must only stay over for the night prior to their eliminator. These anglers can also only arrive at the fishery between 8pm-10pm the night prior to their eliminator. All entrants will receive confirmation of this change through the post this coming week.”
 Should anyone have any further questions to ask about the event, please contact Jemima at Angling Publications between 9am-5pm on 01142580812. For further information about Thorpe Lea visit: www.cemexangling.co.uk. Details about the fishery can be found in the day ticket section.

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