All round specialist angler Stu Court has been in touch with news of a capture of one of Savay’s jewels – the Little Tailed Leather. An awesome looking old carp and a capture that was well deserved, well done Stu!
With Savay not really producing too many bites anywhere around the lake during late summer I decided to concentrate my efforts in one particular swim. The fish weren’t showing themselves at all so each time I arrived at the lake there was literally nothing to go on, this made swim choice purely guesswork which isn’t exactly ideal, I needed a plan!!!
What I decided to do was to try and establish a few regularly baited spots in one particular swim, applying bait at every opportunity in an attempt to keep the fish visiting and hopefully getting them comfortable feeding in my chosen area. I managed to sneak an old original 27lb’er out on my first morning in the swim so I knew the general area had the potential to produce a bite or two for me in the coming weeks, it was a good start.
After a few sessions and a good few kilos of bait I could feel by the way my leads thumped down that my spots were getting clearer which despite the fact that I hadn’t actually seen any fish around meant that something was definitely feeding there. One spot in particular went from being covered in a layer of weed and debris to completely clean polished gravel in the space of a week between my visits.
The next trip saw me lose a fish, this was rather annoying to say the least as Savay is not the kind of venue that you ever want to lose a fish from as the bites are generally very hard earned. The lost fish played on my mind all the time I was away from the lake, could I have done something different or was it just one of those things? My only comfort was the fact that there were clearly fish feeding on my baited spots.
A week or so went by and I was extra keen to get back on the bank to continue with my plan. The weather had taken a distinct turn for the worse and Autumn was most definitely with us by now. The huge floating weed beds that had been such a pain wiping my lines out every time the wind changed in previous weeks had all but disappeared and there were fallen leaves covering the waters surface instead, it was the right time for the fish to be having a good feed…
On my first night back since the loss Savay decided to repay me with one of its very special carp in the shape of this 43lb 8oz leather. The fish was caught on a low pop up using the multi rig tied from 25lb Two Tone with a size 7 Stiff Rigger hook.
