Well that was an epic weekend! Following on from my capture of the 30lb common on Thursday night, I wanted to get back in ‘The Day Swim’ for the weekend as I’d seen fish showing the night before and hoped they might still be loitering around. I got to the lake after work on Friday and as soon as I walked into the swim, I saw a couple of shows. That was it, I dropped the bucket in the swim and dashed back to the car park to collect the rest of my stuff.
The weather was getting better and better. It must have been sent by the “Carp Gods” as it was a mixture of light drizzle, overcast skies and warm nights to come, and made even more perfect by the gentle wind pushing into my end of the lake. It couldn’t have been better!
The fish were very active on the Friday night and it was obvious they were enjoying the naturals; namely daphnia and bloodworm. In fact, the fish were repeatedly crashing on the same spots, as huge patches of fizzing would appear as they smashed up the bottom. It was going off…
Knowing the swim and the spots, I felt I had a chance of getting the rods out without too much disturbance and it was easy to bait up with the catapult as I was only fishing about 50 yards out. The area was quite weedy still, so the Chod Bead on the helicopter was set about 10 inches above the lead to allow the balanced pop-up to just settle gently on top of any low lying weed.
My first fish came around 10PM and was another chunky common that went 30lb. This came off the firmer of my two open water spots; and as with most takes from this spot, the fish tore off through the big stringy weed bed behind the spot and I had a bit of a mission to get the fish out the weed. After a period of steady pressure, the fish started moving and from then on it was plain sailing and she was soon in the net.
I followed this fish with a run of three Tench before my next carp bite. This came from a spot along the tree line, a tricky cast to the shallow area in front of the trees and after a few surges under the trees a pretty mirror popped up under the last tree and I scooped it up straight away.
Two more Tench through the night and another that dropped off in the morning meant I was shattered and desperately needed some sleep! I’d just dropped off when the left-hand rod absolutely melted off, racing through a couple of large weedbeds then kiting left towards a snaggy bay. This fish was really powerful and repeatedly stripped line and kept heading deeper under the snaggy tree line. Keeping the rod tip deep in the water I gradually coaxed it back and finally a huge common appeared under the trees and continued to scrap in the margins under my rod tips. I was blown away by the length and colour of the fish, known as “The Classic Common”. It looked stunning in the early morning light and looked so impressive filling the mat.
After such a hectic night I managed to get a few hours sleep through the day on Saturday, as no more fish came out to my rods during the day, but I did get to photograph a couple of other fish for other syndicate members, including an old original fully scaled that looked stunning.
It gave me a chance to make sure all the rigs were perfect for the night ahead. The successful terminal tackle I used consisted of a CVR size 6 on a Ronnie Rig, fished helicopter style on the Mirage main line, the hooklink was 6 inches of 30lb Mirage and I incorporated an anti-tangle sleeve pushed into a Covert Buffer bead just above the lead, so that the Flexi Ring swivel ring would not damage the main line.
Anyway, after such a great Friday night I was really looking forward to some more action on Saturday night, but it was like a different lake. The bright full moon made it a great night to sit up and watch for any signs, but it was very quiet, with only the odd show.
After a slow uneventful Sunday morning I started a slow pack away and had it all done with just the rods to go, when I had another belting run on the middle rod. This was another hard-fighting fish that ended up with me having to go out in the boat to remove the fish from the weed and out of the tree line. After stripping a huge ball of weed I was pleased to see another stunning mirror, Maverick at 30lb, a great end to an epic weekend. 5 fish in 48 hrs, with 4 over 30lb, including the impressive “Classic Common” at 36lb.
The Hook holds for all these captures were insane, with every fish nailed, as has been the way with all the fish I’ve had on the CVR Rigga hooks. They really are extremely effective…
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