I read a fantastic story in this months "Improve Your Coarse Fishing" about a guy who decided to go on a quest after some wild specimen carp that he has seen in his local river and he eventually caught two of them, both were specimen. I really enjoyed the story and decided to go on my own little quest so, i went down to the local canal (Erewash) and decided to have a look around with my polaroids on and see if i could spot anything...it was a really sunny day and i spotted two pike around 3ft long and 8 carp all 10lb+ so i went back down and put some bait out and kept an eye on it over the next few days. I then decided to start my little quest so the next day i went down with my feeder rod and put out a simple sliding leger rig with a piece of corn on a size 14 hook...i had no luck for around an hour and then my clutch went crazy and i pulled in a lovely bream of just under 6lb (first picture). This was nice but wasnt what i had gone down for so, i decided to try boilies in attempt to lure the prowling carp into my swim. Nothing happened for the rest of the day so i decided to pack up at around 10.15pm. For the next 3 days i continued to go down at around 5pm and fish through to around 10-10.30pm and had some lovely big bream and a couple of roach that were 1lb+ and then tonight it happened...not long before i was going to pack away, my clutch on my carp reel screamed off and my swinger went crazy so i hit into it and knew straight away that it was a carp, finally i had gotten what i had gone down for! It put up a lovely fight and then came nicely into my landing net and put a smile on my face. I put it in the sling an weighed it and it came in at just under 13lb. Now i know that it is not a record carp and is no where near my PB but, i was thrilled that i had caught a wild carp on the canal where i have seen no one else fish for the last 13 years that ive been going down there. It was in immaculate condition and, i dont think it has ever been caught before from the looks of things. This beats the crap out of fishing on a commercial carp fishery that has been stocked with 10,000+ carp! I have seen bigger carp down the canal so, from saturday onwards, i shall be going for one of the 20lb+ in there!!