This summer I have been fishing my syndicate water quite hard whilst I have had the time, fishing 4-5 nights per week while on my school holidays. I kicked off my summer in style by catching one of my most wanted target fish, Fingers, at a spawned out weight of 29lb 6oz. I continued my good fortune by banking another of the well know mirrors in the shape of Pablo, again at a spawned out weight of 29lb 2oz. The next couple of weeks passed quickly with a steady trickle of the average upper doubles and low to mid 20lb’ers with a few bonus fish of 28lb 6oz, 28lb 2oz, 27lb 8oz and a very spawned out Random Linear at 24lb 14oz!
For my final session before I was back to reality, I chose a swim which had been doing a few fish of late. After getting the rods sorted and the house set up, my friend Kai Richards arrived to do a four night session in the swim next door to me. The session began slowly with four fish in the first three days, including two recaptures. I also bagged an absolute stunning fish, called the Little Peach at 18lb 14oz and a randomly scaled mirror of 18lb 8oz.
For the remaining two nights of the session I decided to move the spot further out into the slightly deeper water behind a bar. The spot was silty and gradually came through into clean gravel. I clipped both rods to the silt and spodded out around 9-10 kilos of my usual boilie and mixed particles. In the early hours of the morning I was awoken to a series of bleeps and the bobbin slowly creeping up to the blank. On picking it up, I latched into what I could only assume was a tench, as it nodded its head and swam straight at me. It thrashed around in the margin briefly when I realised it was a carp and quickly slipped the net under it. It wasn’t until it was on the mat that I realised it was the fish I had wanted the most, Kim! On the left hand flank of the fish, the scales spell its name, Kim (or HND however you wish to interpret it!). I sacked it up and waited an hour until first light to recast the rod. Calum Kletta was down at 7am to photograph the fish and we recorded a weight of 29lb 8oz. A truly epic carp!
At around 9am I was on the phone to a mate when I mentioned that a 30lb common would finish my summer nicely. Well, no sooner had I put the phone down my left rod tore off! After a lengthy battle I got a glimpse of the unmistakeable flanks of the Scar Common, twisting and turning in the clear margins. I bundled it in the net and unhooked it quickly so I could let it chill in the net and get the rod back out there. No sooner had I done that, my other rod ripped off! A short fight ensued when another common around the 25lb mark slipped into the already filled net! The only downside to fishing midweek is that there’s usually no one around. Soon enough though, I had my mate Tim on his way down to give me some assistance!
We weighed the Scar at a spawned out weight of 32lb 8oz! A new PB common! We got the pics done and slipped her back. Tim and I weighed and photographed the other common, at a weight of 25lb 14oz! I stayed on a little longer but to no avail, so I packed up from what I thought was my last session of my summer! I managed to squeeze in two more nights landing a 24lb 4oz mirror and in an unfortunate event, losing at the net what was most likely Fingers again.
All of my fish this summer have fallen to rigs consisting of an 8 inch length of 25lb Brown Sink Skin, a size 6 Covert Incizor, a large shrink tube kicker and a snowman hookbait consisting of a 14mm Marathon Mix bottom bait tipped with a 10mm Acid Pear and Plum pop up rolled by Tom Oliver.
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