Due to being back at college and working weekends, I can only fish one night a week, this night being on a Wednesday.

After three weeks of not being able to fish, due to my rods being sent off for repair, I decided that I couldn’t take much more and ended up borrowing my friend’s rods for the night.

I got down the lake at around 12 o’clock and had a little think where I wanted to go. After a little chat with some friends, I made a decision to go into this swim that I thought could potentially produce a bite. A good friend of mine had been lucky enough to catch two the night before, which was good as the lake had recently switched off and the number of runs had slowed right down.

With my time being limited, I had come prepared and had tied a couple of rigs the night before. My choice of rig for this session was the ever faithful hinged stiff rig, tied using 25lb Trip Wire, size 5 Covert Chod hooks and boom sections tied using 25lb Trick-Link.

After clipping the up and putting some bait out, I began to sort the rods out. Both rods went out with a nice firm ‘donk’, leaving me with nothing but confidence.
The following night was pretty rough, with major downpours and strong gales of up to nearly 50mph!

The run came around 6am and at the most inconvenient time anybody could possibly ask for… Whilst it was lashing down!

After what seemed like the longest fight in the world, the battle was over and I was lucky enough to be greeted with a lovely 22lb+ mirror. This has started the year off perfectly and has certainly given me the buzz I needed!

Roll on Spring!