German big carp specialist Mario Winnikes has sent us news of another productive session culminating in the capture of a lake record common of 45lb!
Last weekend I fished again at the Hirschfeldsee near Oedheim. During the week the weather was summer-like warm, but on Friday it changes back to spring 2013, it is cold, rainy and a “fresh” wind blows across the lake.
I didn’t have a chance to pre-bait. As the water hopefully has warmed up during the last week, I set up in a swim, that covers a part of the lake that leads from the main lake to the out of bounds area. There are no features here, just a 50 yards wide bottleneck. I expect the bigger carp to move from the sanctuary to the main lake and back. My target is to intercept a 30lbs plus fish right here.
I still use the same rigs as described in my last post “Against The Wind”. I call them “Hairycopter-Rig.” That rig allows the hair to rotate on the shank of the hook and therefore minimizes tangles.
Hook baits are again dead snowmen, but I use 20mm boilies this time, to have a better chance to select a biggie. A dead snowman is a combination of a sinking Donkey Banana boilie and a wafting Tiger nut Cracker Weightless Hooker (supplied by X-TREME BAIT), both soaked in BTC Tigernut Cracker Extract.
Two rods are cast at different distances into the bottleneck. I spread two kilos of Donkey Banana 20mm boilies over the whole bottleneck area, topped with a few spoons of Cream-Hemp Ball Pellets for added attraction and a quick response.
My jokerrod is cast “around the corner” to my right. There is a small bay with lots of sunken branches, a flashy Pineapple-Ice cream pop up on a choddy should be good for a quick bite.
20 minutes later the joker is away. Unfortunately the fish at once belts into a sunken snag. A few minutes later I manage to unlock my rig from the snag, but the fish is gone. Ok, at least my tactic seems to work… and it does!
Up to next noon I catch four mirrors from 19lbs to 29lbs., just 1lbs short of my target. One very special fish is a deep orange coloured koi-mix. Some beautiful fish live in here!
The highlight of the session happens on early Sunday morning. I’m just talking to my wife on the mobile, when my left rods roars off. After 20 minutes a very, very hard fighting common glides into the folds of my Sniper Net. This is definitely the biggest fish I caught from this water so far. The scales confirm my guess and settles at 45lbs. My friend Matze, who fishes here since seven years, and Markus, the fishery manager, are very proud to announce a new lake record.
All bites came either in the morning or the evening hours, no bite occurred during the daytime. This confirmed my assumption; I was fishing on a travel route.
…weil’s fängt, Mario Winnikes.