Dan Kilgour sent us this evocative photo of a beautiful mirror caught last week after returning to the big pit he has been fishing this year. A good bit of early morning observation helped track them down and culminated in a lovely autumnal mirror. Here’s Dan’s story:
‘Having had a really tough August on the big pit, where I managed one bite only to get cut off I was determined to bag one from there before the winter..
I had a small one in September and then went to Australia for the prime Autumn time (end of September until mid October). I was so keen to get back that I actually did a 48hr session the day I landed back from Australia…the conditions just looked so good!.
I managed to lose what felt like a really good fish that session…like a moving snag! I was absolutely gutted to lose that one so decided to make amends the next week when i had a 24 hr session booked in!
I turned up at 5am as always, and made my way round to a point area with a view to fish singles on the wind or showing fish. In the pitch black darkness I heard a fish boom out somewhere so I set up in one swim that allowed me to cast into the area I thought it had been, but only an hour or two later i saw 7 or 8 shows in the swim on the other side of the point.
This was the biggest show i’d seen for months on there so knew I was possibly on for one! I threw the kit onto the barrow and moved in there as quickly as I could.
I whacked two rods out as far as I humanly could with my set up, they were short of the main show area but they were well “in the zone” . The followed a good spread of bait with the throwing stick to hopefully pull the fish into the area.
One of the pit regulars turned up later that evening and set up on the point with me and we had a good fire and a social that night. At 2.30am that night the left hand rod was calling me out of my coma and sleeping bag, and I remember struggling to put the waders on and keep the rod up , it was all a bit chaotic. After a decent fight a nice mirror rolled into the net, and a feeling of relief swept over me more than anything. I’d had to work hard for that one – they don’t seem to come easily for me nowadays.
Big pit, big sky, big dreams… Dan with his well earned 28lb 2oz mirror.
The numbers on the scales although irrelevant read 28.2, and I took great pleasure in the morning of waking my mate up to come round and work his magic with the lense. Bait was the trusty Obsession baits “nutmix” and hookbait was a nutmix corkball presented in my usual ” chod style”- using ESP components,20lb stiff bristle filament, and the all important size 4 drennan continental hook. The fish in this pit fight like demons and its weedy as hell this year so ive gone back to this pattern, I know when it goes in the hookhold is not going to fail me’