After some success on one of my local waters during the end of winter/early spring, I really wanted to get back to Vinny for my first session of the year. I booked a few days off of work and with it being mid-week, I hoped that I might stand a better chance of securing a good swim.

Early Tuesday morning I made the drive down to Vinny and as I pulled into the car park, there were only two cars in attendance. I quickly grabbed a bucket and went for a walk to see what swims were free. Both the left and right point swims were vacant, so I put my bucket in left point and went for a quick walk around the lake. I saw very little on my journey, so I went back and set up in left point.

I cast the marker float out to an area that I had caught from the previous year and quickly found a lovely little clear area at around 60 yards range. After a couple more casts I found another suitable spot 30 yards to the left at a similar distance.

Both lead set-ups consisted of several feet of Plummet leadcore, simple lead clip set-ups using Covert lead clip and tail rubbers and a 2oz GT Torpedo Distance lead. The hook link was tied using 15lb brown Disruption, a materiel that is perfectly suited the bottom gravel lakebed I was fishing over. My chosen hook pattern was a size 6 Covert Wide Gape Talon Tip, with a small Covert rig ring to which a 15mm Source bottom bait was attached to. Both rods went out perfect and I used a Spomb to deposit a some mixed particle, corn, chopped and whole boilies out to each area.

The first two nights produced just a couple of tench and the resident bird life were diving on my spots regularly, so I tried my best to keep them away. On the last night I had a tench on my right rod at about 11pm and after landing it, I got the rod back out.

At 4:30am I heard my buzzer, so I jump out of my bag and felt the line, which was was bow string tight. I grabbed the rod and pulled into a heavy weight. It swam in without too much trouble and I soon had it in the net. After switching my head torch on, I saw a huge carp in the net I couldn’t believe it! It was the one we join Vinny for, a carp known as the Half Lin. I secured it in a retaining sling, made myself a cup of tea and stayed awake till it got light enough to take some pictures. She weighed 54lb 6oz and set a new PB, what a start to the season!