Time seemed to drift by as nothing happened on the rods, and it stayed the same way for the next 36 hours. I was starting to doubt what I was doing, and that I may have had fish feeding on my spot, but they weren’t being drawn to my hookbaits. So for my 3rd and final night I decided to spice up my boilies to see if I could draw some fish onto the areas of my hookbaits to encourage some fish to get their heads down over my hookbaits! I also put a tiny PVA stick of 1 crushed boilie and recast all the rods back to their spots. I then put 10 spods of the special boilies over the top of each rod.
To make my special boilies, I took roughly a kilo of air dried boilies (in this case Shellfish B5 rolled by Kent Particles), then added enough boiling water to coat, a splash of chilli oil and a dip (in this case Mainline New Grange from Kent Particles). I then left this for roughly an hour to allow the boilies to soak up all the goodness – and they take on a very oily feel and smell brilliant!
The wind had switched to a south-easterly which was blowing the slick right towards where the fish had been the most active during the session. I went to bed, anxious but brimming with renewed confidence over my new tactics.
It was 1am when my right hand rod pulled up tight and line was savagely ripped from the clutch before slowing to a steady take. I was quickly out the bag and lifted into the fish, thinking it was likely to be a big tench or a stocky due to the ease with which it was coming in! It soon got to about 30 yards out, before a big slap on the surface and the fish powered off taking about 30 yards of line, it was now I realised it was a good fish! It then seemed determined to stay at the bottom of the marginal shelf, and just chugged up and down, staying as an almost dead weight on the bottom. After about 15 minutes the pressure finally told and the fish rose up from the bottom and its scaly shoulders slid into my net – my initial thoughts were of “The Fully”, a mid-30 which is very scaly and renowned for its scaly shoulders! However, I was soon told this was wrong when I went to lift the net to secure my prize, and half of the fish was still hanging out of the back of my normally ample net! I gave the net a gentle shake and luckily the rest of the fish slid into the net – it only took one look to confirm it – I had “The Pink One” in my net! Dad was on hand, and took the net while I set about running around like a headless chicken and rang my mum to come over and see the fish!
I soon had the mat, sling, scales and camera ready, before performing a bit of weightlifting to get her onto the mat. I was so incredibly tired, and it was only adrenaline that was helping me hold her proudly for the camera! Dad did a brilliant job, and mum arrived just as I was about to put her back, and didn’t hesitate in throwing a bucket of water over my head!
“The Pink One” at a massive new PB of 47lb 6oz- I was completely blown away!
She was soon back in her watery home and I got back into the bag to try and warm up a bit and get some sleep, but I was so excited that I didn’t sleep a wink. I decided at 5am it was late enough to start sending the text out to everyone in my phone, and over the next couple of hours the texts and calls flowed in – and it was amazing to just relive the story to some of my best mates! I was in my own little world, sat on my bedchair with a brew – I had beaten my PB 13lb, but more importantly it was the culmination of a 3 year campaign and my first real target fish!
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