Three Choices, One Bay, and an Eighteen-Pounder

It’s not often you walk onto a carp lake and find yourself with options — real options. Not the “one free swim nobody wants” kind of choice, but the sort where you actually stop and think for a moment, weighing up which peg might put you in front of the fish.

This week, luck was on my side. Meadow Lake, usually busy at the best of times, had space. Three swims stood empty, all of them with potential.

The wind was the deciding factor. A stiff south-westerly was pushing across the lake and piling straight into one of the bays. This wasn’t just a lazy breeze — it had that warm, pushing quality that can transform a swim. In my head, the picture formed instantly: coloured water pushing into the margins, food drifting in on the current, and carp using the cover of wind-chopped water to feed without fear.