I arrived at my syndicate lake for a 48 hour session in the hope of catching a couple of nice fish. After we had had a long walk and a really good look around I really liked the look of a swim called ‘Side of the Gate. It’s in an area of the lake that has a lovely set of snags to the left of the swim, and with a warm wind pushing into this area I wasn’t at all surprised when I found a group of a dozen fish milling around on the surface.

I soon had my gear setup and I quickly set about finding a couple of spots. I found a lovely clear gravel spot down towards the tree line, not too far from where the fish were grouped up. I soon had a rig in position over 8 Spombs of bait. After a little bit of leading around I also found a nice clear spot straight out in front of the swim at 60 yards, where I positioned my other two rods and then put out around 15 spods out over the top.

I elected to tie up rigs constructed using the Camflex Unleaded leader material spliced to a size 8 Kwik-lok swivel with a C-Thru Brown Covert Lead clip (a very nice colour). The hook link itself consisted of a Trick-Link (25lb) and Trickster Heavy (silt 25lb) combi-link with a super reliable Covert size 6 Incizor hook. All good reliable stuff and a set up that I have absolute confidence in.

During the night and the next morning everything was quiet, with the odd few putting their heads out. At mid-day they started to become more active and started to show around 20 yards out. Suddenly, at 3pm my left hand rod screamed off and I hit into what felt like a good fish!

After about 10 minutes it was in my net and looked like my first 30lb’er of the year! On the scales it went 30lb 10oz so I got some pictures done quickly and we slipped her back as I was eager to get that rod back out.

Later that afternoon, at around 6pm, I topped up the swim, putting out the same amount as I did the day before and also reeled in my rods to re-bait them. As I was doing my last rod a couple of decent fish were jumping out about 20 yards out so I quickly got a rod in the zone and 30 minutes later I was into an angry little mirror which weighed 15lb 12oz. I got a couple of pics and put it back.

An hour or so later, just as it was getting dark, I had a weird indication coming from my left hand rod. I watched for a couple of minutes before striking into this sneaky common which had kited out of the left hand bay. After a great fight the beast was in the net and it looked huge! I was excited to see the weight so I got everything ready and my mate came round to take some photos. When it was on the mat we recognised that it was a common called ‘The Immaculate’!

I was so buzzing to have enjoyed such a great couple of hours and to have this beast on my mat. It went 39lb 8oz on the scales – which beat my old PB common by just over a pound. I got some great shots and put her back. The rest of the session was quiet and early next morning I left over the moon with catching ‘The Immaculate’. What a fish!