Savaged

Right, time to blog. It's raining and this is the first time I've been inside at seven in the evening for months.

The poaching pit. When I first watched those fish and walked around and had a recce of the lake I thought it would be a nice bit of easy fishing. The fish looked decent sized, not big, but big enough to make me want to catch them.

It hasn't been quite as straight forward as I expected.  I'll tell you about the last two sessions.

On Thursday me and Pualas went down for a few hours in the evening. Conditions were not perfect, but these are uncaught easy fish aren't they ? I'd pre baited the previous day so we just chucked a few handfuls of maize and tigers.

An hour later and despite fish rolling and liners we'd had nothing. Then, out of the blue, my rod whacked round and all hell was let loose. There's a massive bow wave and eruption on the surface, the clutch screams and a few seconds later I'm standing there with a slack line as the 15lb trace is broken. How the feck can you be broken on 15lb line ?  It all happened so quickly. Bastard.

Lord Pualus

Five minutes later the same thing happens and this time the hook pulls. We inspect the hook and a size 6 ESP Raptor is pretty much straightened. These fish are brutes. Their speed and ferocity is amazing and not something I've come across in carp before, except very occasionally on the river, where again, you're dealing with uncaught fish. Yes, the Bill Keal quote comes mind ( I paraphrase ), " Wild ? They were fucking furious ! "

After seeing some fish rolling about twenty yards out I chucked a pva bag and four grains of maize on top of where the activity had been. Just when we were about to pack up, this rod roared off and fifty or sixty yards disappeared off the reel in seconds. Pualus was telling me to clamp down on it as it was beginning to kite towards an snag infested island. Luckily I turned it and soon it was under the rod top where Pualus expertly scooped it up,

What an amazing looking fish. Very broad, scale and fin perfect with a definite ghostie look to it. Absolutely immaculate.

We though it might go 20lb, but it went just under 18lb. Well chuffed.

 Pualus secured his third blank on here in a row and he's no mug. Not as easy as we first thought..

Yesterday evening we were back again. Flat calm where we were, not what we wanted but not many swim choices on this pit. Five minutes and I'm into a spawn bound common around 10lb. It's shape means it waddles rather than swims.

For a couple of hours we sit there with no action, then I'm away again and as per usual the line zips off as the fish bow waves across the surface, ripping through the sparse weedbeds. I'm thinking that this is another fish approaching 20lb, but no, a mirror of 10-12lb is scooped up in the net. Again, in superb condition.

Me and Pualus are talking a few minutes later when he has a take so savage that, as he picks the rod up he's unable to raise it so the full bend of the rod is cushioning the line, The fish is hacking off at high speed straight out and then turns and heads towards the dreaded island whereupon Pualus is snagged up. He slackens off and miraculously the carp swims out of the snag and into open water and minutes later I net a common in low double figures.

As he puts the fish back Pulaus says " If these feckers were 25-30lb you'd have no chance of getting them in " . He's right.

It goes quiet for half an hour and then I have a take, it comes to the surface, speeds off and again I'm snapped off on 15lb trace ! Gravel bar, snag, I don't know, but I'm upping the trace to 20lb braid next time.

These are not by modern standards big fish, but they are savage, angry buggers when hooked and beautiful unmarked creatures when you get them on the bank. And they've made monkeys of us so far.

We're going back for another go later in the week.