It was a beautiful Sunday morning when we arrived at the lake. The sun was already shining and warming the lake and it had only just turned 8 o’clock. I decided to fish the small lake at the top as I fancied catching some of the big koi that live there. I decided to fish the usual swim at the end next to 2 boats and a line of reeds curving all the way round to the other side of the lake. I decided to fish a carp style boilie rod next to the island whilst I fished the waggler next to the reeds and the boats.
For the carp rod I used a simple FOX lead clip system with a 2 oz silt lead attached. Hooklink was 15lb ESP STRIP-TEAZE with a size 6 barbless hook. Hookbait was an Ocean-Fresh Scopex Squid and Robin Red 18mm boilie. This was flicked close to the island with 4 pouchfuls of bloodworm pellets scattered around the area.
The waggler setup was a small 3BB crystal waggler direct to a size 16 Preston Innovations hook. This was fished close to the margins with hemp, maggots and groundbait thrown in little and often.
I kept getting bites on the drop so I decided to shallow right up and fish about a foot under the surface. First cast I was into a lovely roach which weighed about half a pound. Cracking fish with stunning colours! I continued to catch fish of this stamp regularly until about 12 o’clock when I decided to try and catch some of the bigger fish.
I swapped tactics and threaded an inline method feeder onto the line. The feeder was a small 15g feeder with a 4 inch hair-rig with a size 10 hook. Groundbait was Karma groundbait whilst hook bait was a piece of scopex corn.
The sun was really warm now so I was confident of a bite and sure enough, right next to the reeds, the rod tip rattled round and I was into my first fish. It wasn’t a big fish but put up a good scrap and was a lovely common carp of around 2lb in weight.
After releasing that fish I quickly cast back out confident of another fish, and sure enough I was in again about 15 minutes later. This fish felt different, completely unlike a fight I would expect from a carp. After getting it to the night I saw that it was a cracking chub, weighing about 2lb. I was extremely pleased with that fish and also how the day was going so far.
Unfortunately, the sun drew the fish up onto the surface and the bites stopped coming on the method feeder. I again switched back onto the waggler setup with the Karma groundbait being balled in over the top and started catching the lovely roach again straight away. The last fish of the day was an awesome chub of a similar weight to the one I had previously.
Drama at the last minute! Just as I was packing up the carp rod zipped off and I was in to a huge fish. It took more and more line and, unfortunately, it dove straight into the line of reeds and I was unable to free it.
Overall I had a great days fishing but I’m still so gutted over that mysterious, lost monster.
