48lb 4oz!!
West Midlands carper Tom Stokes has had a great year so far, targetting a huge, intricate southern pit in his continued pursuit for ‘that’ common…
‘It’s been a good start to my third season on the Big pit. Towards the end of April I managed my first bite after baiting a likely looking swim for a week or so. That resulted in a lovely mid 30 common. I continued to do a bit of time in that swim over the following couple of weeks, but unfortunately that was to be the only bite from that area.
The first fish of the year..
The next bite came during the middle part of May, after walking the near 100 acre pit all morning I eventually stumbled upon a group of fish visiting some snags near the entrance to one of the many bays, a couple of these were big fish, with one exceptionally large mirror amongst them.
Two short D rigs were lowered onto the clean gravel shelf under my feet, just yards from the snags, and that afternoon I managed to get several of the fish to feed over the gravel, including the big mirror, but to my frustration neither of the rigs got picked up. By 10pm all the fish had left the snags as far as I was aware, and it looked almost certain my chance was gone. I considered a move but by now it was virtually dark, so instead I left the rigs in situe for the night and decided to have a good look in the morning. This proved to be a good decision as at 1am I recieved a bite on my right hand rod, and after a tense 5 minutes slipped the net under what felt like a very heavy fish.
After grabbing the headlamp I was amazed to see the big mirror from the snags the previous afternoon sat sulking in the net. And when I weighed her at a massive 48lb 4oz, it also turned out to be the biggest fish I have ever caught!
Returning the 48
Happy days indeed, but unfortunately that would be my last bite from the lake for a while, as over the next few days the fish began spawning, signaling the end of the spring for me.
Post spawning the fish tend too spread out and it becomes a completely different lake altogether, but after a few weekends of searching I soon managed to get back on a few fish during the middle of June. This time it was at the opposite end of the lake to where I had been concentrating my efforts in the spring.
Over the course of a month up until now I’ve managed a further 6 fish from this bay, including a black original common of 29.10, a couple of big spawned out mirrors weighing 36.8 and 37.4, two smaller mirrors of 26.8 and 31.4, and a very saught after common known as the Saddle back, again well spawned out at 34lb 10oz. I also managed to lose a very, very big fish the following morning after catching the Saddle back, when unfortunately I got cut off in the weed, it still really hurts now but that’s a story for another time…
A great beginning to the season for me, I just hope it continues. All fish were caught on either size 4 Cryogen Stiff Rigger or size 4 Cryogen Classic hooks attached to 6 ft lengths of the new dark green ESP leadcore and Syncro XT in 18lb.
Now where’s that big old common….’
For more info on the mega successful Cryogen hook that Tom uses: