Wesley Mast from Schelle in Belgium sent us this touching story about a majestic old Leather and a day that will stay in his memory for ever…
‘November 3rd, 2014 … a day I will never forget.
That day, my dad passed away due to cancer after a long 10 years fighting. As you could imagine, I was heart broken and cried for many hours.
Later that night a good friend of mine called me and invited me to join him for a short session the following day, just to get away from everything. At first i refused to go but my girlfriend said it would be a good thing to get out… so I did.
When we arrived at the lake early in the morning, it looked amazing! Just so peaceful.
I quietly walked around, looking for signs of carp, and i found them, somewhere in the middle I saw some bubbles coming up and that was enough for me to get a rod out, but I had to wait for them to get out of that area first, didn’t want to spook them.
A few casts with a light lead and a solid ‘donk’ was all i needed to be sure…a clean gravel spot in about 5m of depth, a perfect winter trap!
I tied a short rig with the ever faithful “Camo sink Link” (20lb) for a subtle and natural presentation and a T6 in size 5, some rig putty and an adjustable lead clip system.
I made a little stick for extra attraction and the Syncro XT mono did the rest in delivering it to ground zero.
After 2 hours, that same rod ripped off and a few seconds later i was in to a battle with an angry carp. Twenty minutes later, the fish showed itself for the first time and I knew for sure that it was a big’un, and not a scale in sight!
The Leather! … a very rare visitor to the bank.
She went in the net the first time and when she did, I looked up into the sky that same second… This one is for you dad! 39lbs 4oz!
After a few photos and a short video we slipped her back into the pond and off she went,…we did the same.