Pike or Carp fishing? A last minute change of plan.

It was now the 2nd week of November and my mind had been set on targeting Pike in my local club lake for some time. The problem was I was not feeling the vibe for Pike fishing yet as the weather had been very warm for November! Temperatures in the low 20s degrees celsius had me more in a Carp mood! So the day before the planned Pike session I set up my Carp gear and got 2kg of MCF Hartford mix out of the freezer to dry off overnight. My mate Colin was still going to target the Pike so would I regret my decision to change my plan?

I got the lake around 7.30 am, loaded the wheel barrow and headed up the track to the lake. When I got to the lake I saw I was the only angler there so I had 15 acres of water to myself. Happy days! The wind was a strong southwesterly so I knew the fish would be on the end of it. Sure enough they were showing where I thought they would. I glugged the boilies in a little hemp oil as I needed to draw the fish down to the bait. The lake is deep with an average depth of 25ft but deeper sections to 35ft. The water was still warm so the hemp oil would dispers easily and attract the fish to my bait. I scattered half a kg with the throwing stick about 50 yards out where the fish were showing. I baited the margin with a few bait scoops of mixed bloodworm and carp pellets. Again with a little bit of hemp oil and a light scattering of boilies.

Within 20 minutes the margin rod with half a balanced boilie and plastic corn was away! As is the norm with the fish in this lake it was a hard fighter going on long runs ploughing head down into the deeper water! The fish made several of these runs before I managed to net it. It was a nice fish just into double figures. I took a quick shot of the fish on the mat as Colin was still at home (probably in bed). He did arrive about half an hour later just in time to help me land a fish that took the pop up hook bait out in open water. This was a better fish of around mid doubles.

I topped up the margin rod with a couple more scoops of pellet and 10 boilies and the open water rod with a handful of boilies. This is my standard procedure as I find little and often keeps the bites coming. And sure enough they did. A procession of hard fighting Carp fell to the margin and open water rods. Most to the open water rod though. The fish ranged from 10 to 18lb. Mostly mirrors but the odd common was a nice bonus as they are not so common in this lake. Time was getting on and the light was starting to fade. I was wondering if any of the better fish were going to make an appearance?

I was sitting with Colin and having a good chat when my margin rod slammed down and bent over double as a fish took off at high speed! I lifted into a better fish that was still pulling line off the spool. I managed to slow the fish and turn it back to me. I now had it swimming around under the rod tip but it was still 25ft below me! It hung around at depth for a while until I could start inching it up towards me. Bubbles were coming up to the surface so I knew the fish was tiring. Sure enough we got a sight of it and it was much wider than the others. In the net it went 1st time. We weighed it in at 22lb 2oz and I was well happy to end the session with the biggest fish of the day.

Colin had some action from the Pike but only landed the one Jack and missed a couple. I had 11 Carp by the end of the day and it seemed my change of plan had indeed paid off.

The Theatre of dreams. Grafham Zander fishing.

My Grafham Water fishing addiction was as strong as ever and I needed a hit! It felt like an age since my last trip (maybe a week or two) so me and Giles set about planning our next trip. We had cleared up on the Perch on our last visit so we set our minds on targeting the Zander. I had been brushing up on my vertical jigging technique by watching youtube videos of the Scandinavian guys. Pinpoint accuracy is the key and the way they use fish finders is amazing. They can pick a fish out and target it by dropping the lure right on its nose. 9 times out of 10 they get a hit. Now our fish finder is by no means cutting edge technology but it would definitely be helpful.

The day arrived and Giles was due any moment. However there was one slight problem. I had locked my wallet and garage keys in the garage the night before so I needed to do my Burglar impression and break into my garage! With the help of a crowbar I retrieved my wallet and set about loading the car with my gear. Giles arrived and now fully loaded we headed off to the "Theatre of dreams" as Giles call it. A pretty good description as Grafham is a monster fish Mecca! Not long after joining the main road my car decided to lose power! Could anything else go wrong! Anyway, long story short the car got better again and we made it to our destination with time to spare. Phew!

We piled our gear into the boat and decided it would be rude not to see if the Perch were still in a feeding mood at the Main Tower. We dropped our chosen lures down set up drop shot style but it was obvious early on the Perch were not playing ball. They had been targeted there pretty heavily since our last visit and had moved on to less pressured areas. So we moved to an area I knew had produced some large Zander and Perch recently. We started picking up fish on the finder almost instantly and set about trying to tempt something into biting our jigs. We started a drift over the fish and we started getting a few bumps on our lures but no full on takes. We tried to find the shoal of fish again but they had moved on. Giles thought the sound of the petrol engine may be spooking the shoals so we switched to the electric engine. We started a drift into the main body of the water and again picked up fish on the finder. I felt my lure choice was not quite right and remembered I had found a Berkley ripple minnow lure the previous trip. So on it went and this time when my lure was dropped down I was met with a solid hit. I could feel it was not a big fish but when it turned out to be a small Zander we knew we had found them! He was hooked on the stinger I always put on my rubber lures.

Now we knew we were in the right area to target. In 1,200 acres of water up to 65ft deep you really do need to stay on them when you find them. This is where a fish finder is worth its weight in gold. Even a no frills one like ours. I was putting my homework to good use and fished as accurate as possible. My braided main line has alternating 2ft Black and Orange sections which enables me to count down to the exact depth the fish show on the finder. I dropped my lucky lure down again to where the fish were and it did not take long for another hit to come. This time a small Perch popped to the surface and again was hooked on the stinger. Right at the end of a drift Giles was next into a fish. Again a small Zander was netted and Giles was well pleased to get in on the Zander action. We started seeing less fish on the finder so moved over a little way and found some big shoals! Time was getting on and we had maybe half an hour or so until we had to get the boat back to the Lodge. With the lure dropping down I just hoped it would be met by something more substantial. Well it was and I hit into a knock that bent the 7ft jigging rod double! For a moment I thought it was the lake bottom. I felt a bump and knew it was a much bigger fish. It was heavy and hooked 55ft down so bringing it to the surface was nerve racking stuff! Giles kept saying it was a big Zander and when I saw it surface from under the boat I just wanted it in the net! Well in the net it went and we let out a big cheer of relief as the fishing had been so hard. Yet again the fish was hooked on the stinger and shows how important it is if you want to hook more fish. The angry looking Zed weighed 9lb and was my biggest lure caught Zander.

The fish went back down into the depths nice and strong. We had time for a few more drops but nothing else was fourth coming. After the potentially show stopping incidents in the morning I felt the day had ended on a well earned high. We did very well considering how difficult the fishing had been for everyone else. Although none of the monster Zander put in an appearance this time we still have a few trips left before the end of the season at the "Theatre of dreams".

Jurassic Perch! Grafham Perch fishing.

Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire is a venue I have fished several times before but this trip was going to be something special! Grafham is a predator anglers paradise. It has produced Pike over 30lb, Zander to unofficial record size (over 21lb) and Perch to nearly 5lb. No other venue in the UK can boast all these predators to these sizes.

I was to be fishing with my mate Giles and to say we were excited would be a massive understatement! We arrived at the Lodge early and had a chat to a couple of Pike anglers. This was a good move as we picked up a couple of tips regarding Perch and Zander locations. We paid for our days fishing and loaded the boat with all our gear ready for action. A fish finder is a massive edge on Grafham as it is vast. You could be fishing for hours without so much as a bite if you fish blind so to speak, without a fish finder to help locate fish.

We steamed straight out to the man inlet tower as this is where fish seem to be in permanent residence. We would target the Perch here 1st thing then move on to drift for Pike and Zander later in the day. Our method of attack would be drop shotting as we felt it would offer a great way to present rubber worms in a way that offered precise presentation. Giles was 1st out of the trap and dropped his rig down into the depths. It was around 30ft deep so a heavy weight was required to get down fast. Within a minute he was into a fish. It fought hard and we thought it may be a Trout? A big stripey Perch then popped to the surface to tell us otherwise! It weighed in at 2lb 8oz and was a great way to start the day. As soon as my rubber worm touched down it too was taken and I also had a hard fighting fish on! I dare not think it could be a big Perch but sure enough a big stripey popped up and was scooped up in the net. It too was a 2lber and weight 2lb 10oz and was now my biggest Perch to date.

If that was all I caught that day I would have gone home very happy. But my next drop down was met by something in a different league. I struck into a fish that started taking line from the off! It fought like the previous fish with violent head shaking. The power of the fish surprised me but I had never caught Perch fight as hard as these before. It surfaced and I knew it was far bigger than the previous fish. It weighed in at 3lb 12oz and I was shell shocked. My next drop down was taken very quickly again and produced another 3lber at 3lb 6oz. Was this really happening I said to Giles?! Lol

Giles was next to get something special. He boated another Perch of 2lb 10oz but was soon followed by a massive Perch! As soon as it surfaced we saw it was bigger than the high 3lb fish I had. The look on Giles face said it all. It was a monster! All 4lb 2oz of it. It was a long deep bodied fish that could be around 5lb later in the season. All of the fish we had were long and will easily fill out as the season goes on. Giles followed this fish up with a 3lb 12oz fish. I think maybe half an hour had passed by this point.

The fishing gods were certainly favouring us as we went on to catch another eight 3lb+ Perch (4 each) with several back up 2lbers by lunchtime! We were the only anglers targeting the Perch that day but we decided to move on from the tower to give the fish a rest. To be honest we needed a rest too! We had some much needed lunch before we upped anchor and headed down to the Dam end. The waves were pretty big on the trip down there and we got a bit of a soaking with the spray! No pain no gain though. We picked up a good number of fish on the fish finder and did a drift over them hoping to get into the massive Zander that live there. The depth was around 40ft and the fish were in the bottom 5ft. A 20g jig head was needed to present my ripple shad and fish it effectively in the botton 5ft. I had a few taps before I got a take and my Korum snapper jig rod bent double. It was a strong fish and I was hoping for a Zander but I was not disappointed when a Pike around 7-8lb surfaced. He spat the hooks just as we were about to had it out but I was happy enough as it saved the fish from being handled in the boat.

We had a fish around the Dam tower and had a couple of small Perch but moved on as it was slow. We found lots of fish on the way to a large bay so we dropped anchor. Some good fish were showing on the fish finder but only small Perch were taking the lures. We stayed for a while as the bigger predators were surely in the area. Unfortunately the bigger fish were not playing ball! It was late afternoon by now so we decided to have one last go at the tower. We dropped our lures down but it was hard work to get a response from the Perch this time round. We did manage to finish the day of by boating another 2lber each. We were more than happy to call it a day and win some brownie points with our partners by getting home early. We ended the day with 13 2lbers, 11 3lbers, 1 4lber and a few smaller ones.

Grafham is a venue that can leave you wondering why you bother putting in the time, effort and expense? But occasionally it lets you know why : )

Gold at the end of the rainbow. Fenland River Rudd fishing.

As for most anglers time is something I don't have enough of for my fishing. Especially since my little boy came along (but would not change that for the world). So when a chance of a days Rudd fishing with a couple of friends came up I jumped at the chance! The plan was to target the Rudd in a section of river we knew held massive specimens. I had fished the river a few times for them but as yet the bigger specimens had evaded capture. I pulled up to the river around 7am to find Giles and Chris getting the boat ready for the day ahead. With the boat ready and loaded with bait and tackle it was time to try and track the nomadic river Rudd down.

We decided to have a few casts near to out starting point as this area had produced good sized Rudd on previous trips. A few handfuls of crumbed bread were sent into the depths to try and attract fish to our bread flake hook baits. Bites were fourth coming from the off but small Rudd were the culprits! We upped anchor and headed up the river with me acting as lookout at the front of the boat. It was not long before I spotted some large Rudd scatter as the boat edged closer to them. We maneuvered the boat into position and dropped the mud weights. Chris was lightening quick and had his float sailing out into the river before the mud weights had hit bottom! In a flash  Chris was rewarded with a bite from a better fish and turned out to be a lovely Rudd over 1lb in weight. The fish don't seem to hang around for long after one or two have been caught and as quick as they had arrived they disappeared! We spotted a few more good fish but nothing as big as we know there are in this river so decided to head straight to the section of river they were most likely to be.

As we were pushing upstream I spotted some huge Rudd and got a tad excited! I had not seen Rudd of this size before and was champing at the bit to get a bait out for them. With 3 of us on the boat it was difficult for all of us to present a bait at the same time in the same area. I had a cast upstream as it was an area that gave me plenty of water to fish. It's not easy float fishing upstream as you have to keep reeling line in to keep up with the flow of the river. As the float was making it's way back towards me it dipped from sight. I struck and was into a much better fish then anything I had hooked in the river before. It fought doggedly and buried it's head in the weed every chance it got! Eventually I managed to get it into netting range and it went in the net 1st time of asking. It was easily the biggest Rudd I had caught and we all thought it looked well over 2lb in weight. We settled on a weight of 1lb 13oz after weighing it on 2 sets of scales as we all thought it looked much bigger. It looked huge to me and whatever the weight I was over the moon with it!

Again we moved onto the next area. We got as far as we could in this section of river and decided to fish around the lock as we have had good fish there in the past. There were some very big Rudd in this area. I actually thought they could be Bream or Chub but I was in no doubt when I saw the scales sparkle in the sunlight. All of us were catching nice sized fish to over a pound but again the bigger fish were not playing ball. We decided to head back to our starting point for some refreshment as sitting out in the warm sun all day builds up a thirst! Our plan for the late afternoon into the evening was to head all the way to the lock and work our way back down river.

The weather surprised us in the evening and warm sun and light winds were replaced with cloud and a brisk breeze. This was not much good for fish spotting but maybe the fish would feed more confidently? One of the tactics to find the fish was to feed bread crust and see if anything rises to feed on the floating bread. Unfortunately the bird life new this and followed us everywhere! It did work and before long we were anchored up and fishing again. Rain had now started to come down and I thought it may be the end of the fishing. I saw a rainbow and said maybe a big Rudd would be the gold at the end of the rainbow? Again it was a bit cramped with 3 of us fishing downstream so I had a cast upstream. I was a little deflated by now as the conditions were not great and the birds had seemingly ruined the fishing. But my float slowly pulled under and I struck into a better fish. This fish was playing dirty and buried itself in the weed just in front of the boat! I didn't think it was as big as the one earlier in the day but Giles was much more confident that it was bigger! Maybe I just didn't want to think it was big as it looked like I might lose it? With steady pressure the fish popped up and was scooped into the net. It looked bigger then the one earlier but I didn't want to get my hopes up. The fish weighed in at 2lb 1oz and was a stunner! Chris took some great pictures and it looked amazing in the light of the setting sun. Truly gold at the end of the rainbow!

An evening quickie! Club lake Carp fishing.

I had an evening free and really wanted to get out on the boat again. But the weather was making it difficult! My little boat is ok when everything is dry but when it's wet it's too dangerous to fish from. Now was the perfect chance to have a quick evening session on my local club lake. The lake is about 15 acres in size but has an average depth of at least 25ft! The shallowest part I have found is a plateau about 17ft deep.

I got to the lake and the rain was dying out. I loaded up my barrow and walked up to the lake to find I had the whole place to myself. Lucky me hey! : D When I got to the 1st swim I stopped to have a look and see if any carp were showing. Sure enough the carp gave their whereabouts away. They were showing all over to be honest but they were showing mostly around the plateau I mentioned earlier. Most of the Carp were jumping only a few rod lengths out from the bank so I decided to fish both rigs in the margin. In this lake the margins slope down almost vertical and down to around 25ft deep!

I baited one and a half rod lengths out in front of me with 5 handfuls of mixed carp pellets and 30 of my homemade boilies. I glugged the pellets in corn steep liquor and a little cod liver oil to create an area full of attraction. This lake has a good stock of Carp plus the usual Tench and Bream. I have found it is still easy to overfeed so this is why I go easy on the bait. I top the swim up after every fish I catch. Rigs were tied blow back style and baited with a bottom bait and half a pop up the create a slightly balanced rig. I use the Nash Chain reactions to make sure the hook is free of debris.

After dropping the rigs down to the bottom it did not take long for the action to begin. I was into a fish 15 minutes later. It was an uneventful fight to be honest. It felt like a heavy weight though. The Carp in this lake are normally the hardest fighting Carp I have ever caught! The fish plodded around for several minutes until it popped up on the surface to be netted. It was bigger than I expected and weighed 21lb 8oz.

I topped the swim up with a couple of handfuls of pellets and 20 boilies. Just enough to get a bite. The fish tend to work along the bottom of the marginal shelf in shoals and I want them to compete for the food. Too much food and they can take their time and be fussy. Anyway, 10 minutes passed when the micron one toned and the ultegras spool spun at 50 mph! This fight was the opposite of the previous and took me all over the place before I could get any control of the fish! This is more like it I thought to myself : D After several attempts at netting it the Carp Cooperated and went into the net. The fish weighed 22lb 8oz. Two 20lb fish in 25 minutes. I was well chuffed with that!

I had 5 more hard fighting Carp weighing 10 to 16lb including a lovely scaley linear which is a rare fish for this lake. I packed up and left for home very happy after 4 hours of fishing.

I'm gonna need a bigger boat! River Carp fishing.

It's no secret that my local river holds carp but they are far from easy to catch. One reason being access to the best areas is limited. A long walk carrying all your carp gear is not something most people want to do. And to be honest neither do I! So when I was lucky enough to be given an old Avon inflatable boat I knew this was going to be my way of targeting the nomadic river carp. I did a dry run and inflated the boat in the garden to see if I could fit everything I needed in it. There was not much room but I could fit the minimum in it I needed to fish effectively and safely.

I had dabbled with a bit of bank fishing on the river in the past and caught my 1st river Carp. A small but mint common. This time I had the boat so set about baiting a couple of spots that are hard to target from the bank. The reason being that if I was going to spend time and money bating I didn't want to make it easy for someone else to gain from my effort. But if they did I would accept it as nobody has exclusive rights to fish a specific spot. Unless they own the venue of course.

When June 16th came around I had to work so I got everything ready for an evening session. I was thinking of maybe doing the whole night in the boat. But it would not be the most comfortable nights fishing in that cramped space! I got to the river about 4.30 pm and set about getting the boat into the river. The excitement was building! With everything loaded the electric motor set me off down river. I was cautious about gunning it to the spot as I wanted to make sure I had enough power to get me back! I did see one Carp on the way to my chosen spot. It was a small common of about 10lbs in weight not far from the area I was going to fish. I wondered if this could have been the same fish I caught a couple of seasons earlier?

A few minutes later and I was anchored up in my chosen spot. The weed was not bad but the cabbage lilies in front of me would make my lines stick out like a sore thumb! I had my weed rake with me so I made a clearing to allow a better line lay. I baited the spot with a quarter kilo of my trusty homemade squid and shellfish sense appeal boilies. A mixture of whole and broken baits. I didn't want to bait too heavily as if a Carp came along I wanted it to find my hookbait easily. My rigs were 2 hinged stiff links but with a soft coated braid main boom just so they presented better on the soft river bed. And 2oz leads on clips. The hookbaits were homemade pop ups of the same flavour as the free offerings. 1 red and 1 white. I was not expecting anything to happen anytime soon as the weed raking may have scared away any Carp in the area?

Maybe I was worrying over nothing as a couple of hours later my rod was bending and the reel screaming as the white pop up was taken by a strong fish! I picked up the rod and was met by a surge of power from the fish. I had to slacken the clutch as it made off down river. Whenever I turned it the fish just ran stronger the other way! It tried to take me into the snaggy margin. Luckily I steered it clear otherwise it would have been game over! The fight was nearly over and I could see it was mirror. I got it over the net and as happens so often it decided it didn't like it and swam out again! I pulled it in again and this time I scooped up the net around it. Got one!

With the fish safely in the net I set about getting ready for unhooking and weighing the fish in the boat. I lifted the fish up and placed it on the mat. He was nose to tail to the width of the boat. I thought to myself I'm gonna need a bigger boat if I catch any bigger fish! The hook was never coming out as it was firmly in the bottom lip. I treated it's lip with anti-septic as always. The fish weighed 18lbs and was in mint condition. I slipped it back extremely content I managed to get a fish in my little boat and returned safely.

I carried on fishing into dark but only managed a reasonable Bream. I decided I didn't want a night unhooking those so I called it a day and steamed back to my car. It was dark but my head torch and hand held mag lite were more than enough to see my way up the river.

Surfice to say I can't wait to get back afloat again! Watch this space :-)

Slimy + tired = a great days Crucian fishing!

How many times has someone said to you "the fishings not as good as it use to be" or something to that affect? Well that's what people said to me about a Norfolk venue I wanted to fish for Crucian carp. Diss mere.

I got to the lake as early as I could at about 7am. Not bad considering I have a 3 month old son and was up a few times during the night feeding amongst other things! I chose a swim that had a nice over hanging tree and open water to target. I planned on using 2 rods. My trusty float setup was one and the other was my also trusty method feeder setup. I mixed my usual groundbait mix of fishmeal, krill and crushed hemp with a handful of sweetcorn. I baited under the tree with a few small handfuls of the mix and cast the feeder out 5 times to the desired spot in open water to bait the area. The 6th cast had a baited hair rigged 8mm pop up boilie. Next I cast out my float and sat back for a relaxing days fishing.

Next thing I knew the feeder rod was away! I struck and started playing a fish I thought may be a small Tench? Quickly the fish popped up to the surface and flashed its golden scales as it headed back down again. Much to my surprise it was a crucian 1st cast on the feeder! Before I could even net it I heard the clicking of my centrepin reel. I looked over to see my float rod bent round as a fish was making off under the tree! I netted the Crucian and grabbed the float rod to be met with a strong fish. This was definitely a Tench and it scrapped hard until it joined the Crucian in the waiting net. My 1st Crucian from the lake 1st cast! It weighed 1lb 8oz and I guess the Tench was double that.

After slipping the fish back I set about recasting the rods only to have an exact action replay of the previous mayhem! Suffice to say I gave up on 2 rods and went to using just the feeder rod. The action continued with another Crucian a little bigger than the previous one. This one weighed 1lb 10oz and was as mint as the 1st. 

I switched between using the float and the feeder as I do like to mix it up a bit to keep things interesting. I caught from the off on the float too as I had been trickling in bait under the tree to keep the fish there. I had a few more Tench and a couple of small carp which made it interesting on a light outfit! I only had 2 Crucians on the float.

Maybe they wanted to be in the deeper water as it was a bright day? I thought this as by lunchtime I had caught 12 Crucians to 1lb 14oz . Plus a few more Tench and many small Bream. All the Crucians were over 1lb. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent catching small Bream. I decided to call it a day as I was so tired! 12 Crucians, several Tench, a few Carp and countless Bream saw to that! If the days fishing I just had was not as good as it use to be I would have loved to have seen it at its peak!

My Crucian fishing rigs

Here are my two go to rigs when I am targeting Crucians.

The 1st is my float setup. I like to use a pole float as it is perfect for fishing under the rod tip. The small thin tip of the float does not get blown around in the wind as much as thicker floats and is a very sensitive presentation. I do something different to most when it comes to weighing the float Dow. Gone are the traditional split shot and in comes tungsten putty. I simply pinch on bits of Putty until I get the desired weight. This prevents the line from damage caused by pinching shot onto the line.

The 2nd is my feeder setup. I like to use the small Preston Innovations inline method feeders. For a hooklink I use a short length of uncoated braid. Hook is a size 10-12 wide gape. Bait is an 8mm pop up boilie weighed down with putty or a no 8 split shot. This is a highly effective rig and can out fish the float up to 10 to 1.

Enter the Dragon! Syndicate Carp fishing.

I didn't know it at the time but the 12th season on the West Stow Carp syndicate would be my last. But as it happened it was probably as good a time to leave as any. This is how I met up with a Carp older than me (37 at the time) and the most sought after Carp in the 17 acre Suffolk lake.

It was midsummer and I was starting a midweek session after the stunning Carp that inhabit the lake. The lake was quiet angler wise so I had a good chance of finding an area that would give me a chance of catching. After a walk around the lake i decided to fish a swim that gave me open water and an island to target. I saw a few fish show in the open water and there were nearly always fish around the island. I fired out a choddy towards the corner of the island and another to the bottom of a plateau in front of me. I scattered my homemade squid n shellfish boilies over the rigs and sat back to take in the atmosphere. Nothing happened that night and I was getting restless. I sat next to my rods scanning the lake and noticed a fish jump clear of the water up the top end of the lake. This was the sign I needed to move. And on a lake that can be very busy is not something you can do too often.

I got to the new swim that commanded a bay where the wind was pumping right into. I cast a choddy left to the bay entrance and cast a combi rig into the open water right on top a fish I just saw come up. No alarms. Just the rods on the ground and the net ready just in case. Suddenly the open water rod made a ping as the line pilled from the clip. I pulled into a strong fish that made me work hard from the off. It made several strong runs but each one less so than the previous run. It glided into the net and when I lifted it I knew it was a goodun! Surprisingly I was the only angler on the lake and it was Friday afternoon! I had to weigh it on my own (which was a struggle) and the needle spun round to 38lb 10oz. A new pb! I didn't recognize the fish at the time but it was a fish called "the Dragon" and normally weighed well over 40lb. He was probably around 40 years old and the most sought after fish in the lake. I managed to get a few good self take pictures to capture the memory of this special Carp.

That was not the end of the action though. Just minutes after returning the Dragon the other rod was away! Again a hard fight was sapping my energy and I had not recovered from the previous fight. Without too much drama I netted a very long common that was immaculate. Again I weighed and photographed the fish on my own. She weighed 29lb 10oz. Worth the move right?! Lol. 

I called it a day for that session but went back for a few more and had a few fish too. I was so happy to catch the Dragon and it seemed a fitting season to call it a day on West Stow for pastures new. I may go back one day as there are still some cracking Carp in there. But for now I have other waters that need my attention : )