Last month I arrived at my syndicate lake for a 48 hour session. Luckily I didn’t have college or work on Friday that week, so I managed to get to the syndicate Thursday evening after college. As there were only a couple of people on I managed to get into swim where a lot of action had been coming from that week. After having a quick lead around I soon found a nice big clear spot at sixteen rod lengths out, where I could put all three rods on for the night. I put around six or seven Spombs of particle and boilies out over the top ready for a bite or two if I was lucky enough for a group of fish to come for a quick feed if the passed by. Simple Combi-Rigs were the order of the day tied with Invisi-Link boom sections, Trickster Heavy end sections, the extremely sharp size 6 Covert Dark Incizor hooks and my main line was the trusty GT-HD in 15lb.
I got my head down and woke up the next morning to motionless rods. There was a couple of fish mooching around on the top already and also a few boshing in front of the swim opposite me. I got up and took a look in the swim next to me to see if I could see anything in the corner. My mate was in there trying to nab one off of the surface and he said to me that bite time has been quite early recently. This had made me think that I had misssed my chance for the day, but it also still looked promising as it very overcast and not too hot. I walked back to my swim to find the tuffties were diving on my baited spot. As they were diving the bobbin on my middle rod lifted and pulled steadily up to my bite alarm. I quickly ran over and thought I must have hooked a tuffty, so I picked up the rod to reel it in. As soon as I lifted into it I had found that there was a very angry fish on the end and it immediately started to strip line.
I played this fish in for a long time and it was clear to see the fish had no thoughts on giving up. It bolted around the margins for a good 10 minutes before it was in the back of my net. I recognised the fish as it was stunning and knew it was the one called The Mug and was around the mid-thirty pound mark. I was buzzing to say the least! I quickly got a few things ready, so I could unhook it and get the rod back out but I was inturupted by my left hand rod absolutely screaming off! As soon as I picked the rod up it went on a mad one stripping 40 yards off of my spool in about 60 seconds! After an epic battle I carefully slipped the net under it, trying my best to not let the first one escape!
I unhooked them both in the net and quickly tied on fresh hook baits before recasting them back out on the spot in hope of another. I got the camera equipment and scales ready and then called my mate in the swim next to me over to take a couple of quick pics. The Mug went 35lb on the scales and the smaller one went 28lb 4oz!
Understandably I was hopeful for another bite the following morning but unfortunately the weather had changed and the wind dropped off and the temperatures soared, so the fish had little interest in feeding. I packed up and went home knowing that I had succeeded and it had been a while since I’d had a buzz like this!
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