After a couple of blank trips, another barbel trip on the Wye and a few weekend party trips, it was now mid September and if I wanted to catch a new personal best from my Colne Valley Synidicate I had better make it sharpish. By the time I come back from a holiday to Florida with my girlfriend, it would no doubt be November for another chance, when all but the very last of the leaves were left to fall from the trees. By then, I would be looking forward to the Rivers, and the Perch, Chub and Roach trips!
The M25 was as usual not very kind to me on this particular trip. A lorry pile up one side of the tunnel, and massive tailbacks the other way round, the afternoon was spent biting my nails in the office wondering if it could get any worse. I was refreshing the traffic reports and the delays only got bigger. When I did finally arrive, it was nearly getting dark, and someone had jumped in the swim I fancied only moments before I got there. I therefore opted for a swim I had blanked in twice, enclosed in the narrow part of the lake on the basis I could be sorted in next to no time at all without having to use the marker rod. Despite not having any success in the swim before, whilst I was getting organised a couple of fish showed, and now the gruelling day was at last turning for the better.
I spoke too soon, come bite time the next morning, the water was being thrashed to a foam by an angler opposite me, I turned over in the bag and slept through the pain, and when I woke up a couple of hours later, he was still at it! By lunchtime and with his float still being cast inches from my carefully laid traps, enough was enough and I upped sticks and moved into the now vacant swim where I had success from the a few weeks back.
It was rather hot for the middle of September, I worked up a sweat pushing kit round to the other side of the lake, and when I got there, I sat back in the shade and tried to think about how I was going to tackle it this time round. I knew the hot spot where I was going to focus one rod, but the other was pretty much of a mystery to me. The left hand side of the swim is weedy, and I didn’t want to create too much disturbance or have lines going through the other area, so I settled on just flicking out a short way to the edge of a bank of weed close in. Whilst I was cooling myself in the shade, I took the time to tie a fresh rig, consisting of a blow back arrangement on a size 8 Long Shank, with steamed tubing over the eye to exaggerate the flipping over of the rig in the fishes mouth. A 10 inch combi link complimented the rest of the rig, where two inches down from the hook sat a large piece of putty to encourage the hook point to drop down into the bottom of the fishes mouth when sucked up. A 3oz Korda Pear lead fished loosely on a lead clip finished it off nicely.
By late afternoon, the House was up and the traps were set, all sorted nice and early so I could actually relax in the evening and chill out with a beer and radio on. It looked perfect, the gentle breeze was putting a nice chop on the water, and I thought would I have to wait till bite time the next morning as it looked prime for a bite right now!
No action was forth coming, it was very late by the time I drifted off to sleep, I laid there as Carp doing their best to impersonate Hippo’s leaped in the area of my spot. The atmosphere was electric and I could hardly sleep due to the excitement. It seemed like I had only just closed my eyes, when at 4am the rod fished to the plateux signalled a ripping take. Like always, I didn’t waste anytime in striking, and a heavy weight slapped its tail out in the quiet calm night.
It fought forcefully, but without the lead, it seemed to all go to plan, until I realised the fish was closer than I expected when a deep flank of bronze common carp flank spooked off the head torch literally feet from the bank. It caught me off guard, I slackened off the clutch a touch to cater for the lunges under the rod tip just as it decided to kite through my other line. Hastily moving the rod out of harms way, the mess didn’t prove too troublesome, and at full stretch I bundled the fish into the waiting net.
I took a depth breath of relief, and tried to sort out the tangled lines before looking at what I had caught. I reached in to the net to unhook the fish to get the rig out of the way, but firmly lodged in the bottom of the mouth some 2 inches back I struggled to get it out. A great hook hold, that fish was never coming off in a hurry.
With things organised on the bank, I lifted her onto the mat where through the illumination of my head torch admired her beauty as I transferred her into the sling. She looked big, don’t they all, and I couldn’t really guess how big she might go. Maybe a low to mid thirty perhaps, as I quickly lifted the scales to see. With everything zeroed, I watched in amazement as the needle looked like it went past the 40 mark!? Hold on a minute, I lifted again and sure enough it went past the magical number for a second time.
I was in a daze, and thought to myself I needed to sort it out, the Reuben Scales were a fresh purchase for the carping, so I lifted once more slowly, and literally counted it round incase I mis-calculated how many times it went round the dial! So I’d now established that it was either over 40lb or 15lb… and somehow I thought it must be the latter!
Adrenaline set it – I couldn’t believe what was happening! A fish over 40 on the mat? I popped it back in the net and secured it in the margin whilst I tried in vain to wake the angler next to me, so descended on the angler the next swim up. “Phil, can you give us a hand mate?” after some mumbling, I said, “I think I’ve got a 40 mate!” “Ey!?” He shot up and followed me down the bank to where we zeroed the sling again and used the landing net pole to steady the scales on our shoulders as we lifted her again. The dial was facing him, and for what seemed like an age of umming and arghing, I asked him to put me out of my misery. “Hold on – I want to make sure I get this right” he said. I was thinking at this point that it was never a 40, and how stupid I was given his facial expressions and time it took him to read it out. I thought I’d still settle for an upper 30, until he greeted me with “You wont believe this mate…”
“41lb 4oz”.
I cant repeat what I said back, but sure enough that’s what the dials read when he spun them round and when he asked if I was happy with that on the reading, of course I bloody was!!
I was shaking as I got the camera sorted we even managed to wake Leon next door, who could probably sleep through a hurricane, we wouldn’t of wanted him to miss such a spectacular specimen. I’m not used to lifting such big fish, a wet keepnet full of perch is one thing – but this was in a different league.
We got some awesome pictures, and we slid her back to her home, swimming strongly back to the deeps where she had just been extracted from. I was speechless, it was now colder then what I had thought, as I stood there in a soaking wet t shirt and trousers. We all stood there – silly o clock in the morning, just standing there looking out into the lake. All pretty much taken back from the events that just unfolded, but I can assure you, no more surprised than what I was. Never in a million years did I think I’d bag one of the big uns, I don’t have much time and I rarely carp fish, but sure enough I just landed the biggest of the season so far.
Ten minutes passed as I soaked up the atmosphere, then they commented that I might aswell get it back out there and bag another! That was the last thing on my mind, but I wasn’t to look a gift horse in the mouth. No further action came, and whilst I lay there texting most of my phone book, I realised that I didn’t care a jot that whether I had another bleep that morning, or even that there was a 3 hr delay on the route home… I was a very happy man indeed no matter what happened for the rest of that day… or the week for that matter!
