How to start this blog piece has me proper stumped tonight, but let’s just say since I last wrote the fishing has been good, with only one blank short session to dampen what has otherwise been a successful few weeks. I left off last time having banked that mint looking 23lb linear, just 2 days later I was back. This time it was for the whole day as my lovely other half had given me the green light to get out for the day, and I was chomping at the bit to be on the bank for more than a few hours (even though I love the short session fishing). Sleep was certainly hard to come by the Saturday night, and all too soon the 5am alarm was sounding and getting out of bed was hard having had less than 3 hours sleep. Now, the weather forecast for that Sunday was perfect, windy, rain showers and overcast with low pressure I certainly wasn’t expecting an empty car park when rolling through the gates at 05:35!
At 06:00 I was making my way down to the pit (no access to the pit before that time as per club rules), with every single peg on the lake to choose from I opted for a swim half way along the right hand side of the lake. Not long after getting the rods out and after the first brew of the day my gut was telling me I was in the wrong swim and with that the rods were reeled back in and kit loaded back on to the barrow for the trip round to the other side, back into the same swim as before and right in the teeth of the ever increasing wind. This certainly felt better and with the rods swiftly dispatched out into the lake I just about managed to get some bait out and the brolly up before the first rain shower came down. Thankfully the first bite came after the rain had stopped, a mid double common was soon in the net after a spirited fight. As can be the way on this lake another take came before I could even get the first rod back in the water with this fish going 20lb 4oz .
Over the next few hours the weather got worse with the wind increasing in strength with the gusts causing the storm poles on the brolly to come out the ground on more than a few occasions. Having another couple of mid double commons kept the entertainment factor alive. Come early afternoon the fishing had slowed up and the weather improved, with the wind easing a little and the rain showers giving way to sunny periods. Whilst in the middle of cooking a cheese, ham and tomato toastie the right hand rod was away. With the take being twitchy I was expecting one of the lakes bream to be the culprit, but no, this felt heavy and was slowly coming in with just the odd nod of the head and the last half of the fight was on the surface. As the fish got closer I could see it was a good mirror certainly well over the 25lb mark and possibly over the 30lb mark. No sooner had I begged for this one not to fall off, it rolled on the surface for the final time and the hooked popped out. I reeled in knowing I had just lost a chunk and the rod got launched into the reeds and the angler in the swim next to me slinked back into his swim leaving me to calm down and finish off the toastie. With the grub eaten, and the rod retrieved from the reeds it was back to normal as the left hand rod ripped off with the end result being a 20.08 common ,
no sooner was that back, the right hand rod was away again with a mid double mirror on the end, with that dealt with I decided to call it a day, with 8 takes and 7 landed I was more than happy with that for 12 hours on the bank.
Later that week I was back again, this time for a short evening session with a good friend of mine Mark, the usual format applied, back on the point swim again. Mark suggested we swap swims tonight as ‘The Flyer’ swim had been producing more fish than any of the other swims when we had
been fishing it on some our other little evening social session’s we’d been doing. No skin off my nose be nice to see mark catch a few as he gets as little time as I do on the bank. I mean hell he’d even resorted to nicking my little PVA sticks and some hookbaits (and a couple of kg of bait id given him the end of our last short evening session). With new rigs attached the rods were swiftly dispatched out into the pond, all within easy catapult range and not chucked to the horizon so many people seem to think they need to be in order to catch a few fish. Kettle on, other rigs readied in anticipation of having a few, the waiting game began. An hour came and went with the only thing to show for it was a pile of teabags and a rapidly emptying water bottle, this was a little strange as usually one of us had had a take by now. I was starting to think my luck had worn off, 25 minutes later I stopped worrying as my right hand rod registered what was more like a roach had picked up the bait and could barely move the lead (I’ve had bream takes more lively than this). Chucking the last of the brew into the bushes I slowly made my way to the offending rod, my hand was hovering over it debating whether or not to hit it, when a few choice words from Mark, I switched off the alarm, tightened the clutch and lifted the rod expecting to be met with very little weight or resistance. Well how wrong I was, I thought I had hit into a sack of spuds and without much in the way of a scrap over the next few minutes a reasonable common was just 5 yards from the bank and despite it lunging/rolling on the surface almost all the way in I had no idea if it was a good fish or not.
From what I’d seen of it I thought it was at best a mid 20, at worst a double punching above its weight. The second it came across the net I realised I had indeed landed a decent fish but was it going to hit the magic 30lb mark?. Now, let me back track a little here, I had not had a 30lb plus fish for a little over 10 years at this point (work and women, I got a little side tracked from fishing properly for a while) and had never landed a 30 from this particular lake ever, so if this fish was to go over the magic barrier I was sure I’d burst with excitement.
With the net secured, the weighing gear readied (Mark had already been through my bag to get the camera out
and had been busy snapping away whilst I had been playing the fish in, so the camera was warmed up and ready), upon lifting the fish from the water and carefully laid down on the mat and removing the hook from it’s bottom lip where it was securely embedded, it was time for the moment of truth! As the Reuben’s slowly took the weight of the fish in the weigh sling the needle slowly spun round and just as it started the second revolution it stuttered and stopped on 30lb 4oz .
At that point I think I may have let out a shout which was along the lines of “GET IN”, although there could have been a few profanities in there as well, but just over 10 years of waiting for another 30 had just been let out so I’m sure no one would mind.
Well the rest of the session was a bit of a blur, I do remember chain drinking tea, putting the world to rights, oh and having a take which resulted in a 23lb 8oz common and a proper stunner of a mirror .
Well that’s it for now, think iv gone on long enough, hope you enjoyed it and with my wonderful other half due to give birth in a couple of weeks time iv got one final session planned which will be a live from the bank affair I hope.
Till then be lucky and happy hunting.