Spencer bags Lakes Big Common
28/05/2010
The carp gods have been shining on me this month!
One week after my return from France, I was back out and fishing my local club water. I intended to fish either the Friday or Saturday night but after phoning to book onto the venue, I discovered that the lake would be rammed both nights. I decided to fish the Sunday night and go straight to work Monday morning instead. Fish just seem to know that the pressure on them eases up on Sunday when most anglers have drifted off.
I arrived late on Sunday morning when most people had already gone. It was due to rain heavily by lunchtime so most anglers had packed up early. I chose two swims adjacent to each other as my mate would be joining me later in the day. As it was peaceful around the lake, I opted to fish my rods to the margins which can be very productive when it’s quiet. I decided I would bait quite heavy with SSRR 15mm boilies along the margin throwing in around 1.5kg over two of my rods. I continued the afternoon fishing zigs as the fish were all high in the water. I left it until around 6.30pm to swap my rigs to bottom baits for the night. I saw several fish bubbling and rolling over my baited area and this just filled me with confidence for the session ahead. My rigs and tactics were simple running chod rigs with six foot of lead core and size 5 hooks, 2.5 oz leads fished with pop up SSRR 15mm boilies. These were cast to the margin and the lines slackened right down. My third rod was used as a roving rod with a simple KD style knotless knot and an SSRR 15mm bottom bait topped off with a cut down caulk ball to negate the hook. I also used a small PVA bag with four or 5 baits in. At around 7.30pm I had a good steady take on one of my margin rods. I knew it was a good fish as it rose up to the surface and promptly plodded off on a tour of the bay I was fishing. After a few minutes, she began to tire out and when she rolled in front of me, I could see for the first time it was one of the big commons. I did not want to tempt fate so all I said to my mate was “It feels like a good fish”, and said no more until he had her safely in the net. I peered into the net and recognised her straight away having seen her grace other anglers’ nets before.
As you can see from the photos, she is a beautiful fish at 32.4 lb. She is the lake’s biggest resident and one of three commons of around 30lb. We took some good pictures, checked her over and slipped her back into the lake.
I cast my rods back out and scattered another three handfuls of boilies over my margin area to keep them interested. I sat and looked over the great photos I had taken of my target fish before drifting off to sleep at around 10.30pm...a very happy fisherman! At around 1.30am, I awoke to another blistering run on the same rod and after a bit of help untangling the fish from my other two lines (even with back leads) I banked another common of 22lb.
Not surprisingly, I struggled to get back to sleep after that, so off to work I went the next morning, worn out but so over the moon. I did not care at all - a couple of Red Bulls later and I was into my usual manic day job.
Keep Dangling
Spencer Lunn