Way back at Christmas I found myself with luxury of 48 hours on my Syndicate lake, something that I had never had the chance to do before, usually only having the time for overnighters (3 kids, full time job..blah blah). It was bright and sunny but very cold with predicted temperatures to -3 in the night time. The lake has been fishing harder than usual and usually it was rock hard so the expectation for a bite was very low as you can imagine. There was just 3 of us on the 7 acre lake so we spread out to try and improve our chances, Ian Russell in pole position, Ron Buss on the point and me in the high feeder swim, we had them surrounded!

I opted to use the new trial bait from Sonubaits called 24/7, a birdfood bait which smells and looks lovely and will be every bit as the Code Red I’m sure. I fished my usual 15mm wafters on my usual rig but with a size 4 avid curved hook instead of size 6, mainly because if I hooked one I wanted to ensure it stayed hooked. A dozen freebies round each rod and got in the sleeping bag as the temperature was plummeting.

I awoke at first light, bobbins remained motionless, What little confidence I had was starting to disappear rapidly. I put on new hookbaits and re-cast to the spots feeling each one drop in turn and firing half a dozen boilies round each, winter fishing here was really proving to be a ball breaker.

I was making  good use of the time taking photos when out of the blue my left hand margin rod slowly pulled away. It took a couple of seconds for it to register in my head as it had been nearly 6 months since my last bite on the lake. I lifted into it and a very slow heavy tussle began, so slow it felt like everything was happening in slow motion, my legs were wobbling and in my head I was asking the question “which one is it?” As it came nearer I could see it was a good fish, not one of the whackers but I didn’t care it was only my second bite from the syndicate and every bit as important to me. As it slipped it over the net cord I couldn’t help but give a shout as I was absolutely ecstatic with

my capture. I secure the fish safely in the net and gave Ian a ring to come and do the pictures. “How Big?” was the question “A low 20” was my reply.

As I lifted the carp out of the water I soon realised I was a little off with my estimation and the scales proved this, finally settling on 29lb 6oz. It was a beauty and was very short but fat, probably why my estimate was so off. The hookhold was about an inch back in the bottom lip, I believe the common term is “nailed” so my confidence was now flooding back. She had obiously been laying up for a while as she was covered in leeches which I removed as well as treating an old wound she had on her flank. Photos were done and congratulations were given  to the hobbit (a name that Ron Buss had given me mainly due to me being short and tubby) from my fishing companions. (Does “jammy f##ker ” count as congratulations?) We sat through the rest of the morning biteless and then all went down the pub where we met our other halves for Sunday lunch.

I could’ve stayed in that nice warm pub all evening but  we returned to our nice warm bivvys (?)did the next night and woke up to a frozen lake so we all buggered off home. The lake didn’t do another bite until 4 weeks later and hasn’t done another one since then to date. A tough water it may be but you won’t find a more beautiful place to be angling with great friends.

Til next time,

Poults (aka the Hobbit)