Dave Robinson followed up his lovely unknown brace from a large pit in the Fens with a bit of stalking on an intimate Fenland drain – with an impressive result, well done Dave!
A neglected Fenland drain – the scene of the battle
‘I arrived at the drain at 6am just as the sun came up over the flood bank. I was late but I needed the sun to be able to find these fish. I had walked down the stretch two weeks previously whilst rudd fishing and had seen half a dozen carp that looked really catchable.
That picture was in the back of my mind for the best part of two weeks and I just had to go back. I walked along the bank with my 9ft stalker in hand in search of one of them I had seen before. Luckily for me the wind had backed right off and the drain was like a sheet of glass, the conditions seemed spot on.
As I crept along the bank as slow and as quiet as possible, I came across two carp in the weed. I watched them for a minute but decided to move on because they were both double finger commons and I had my heart set on one of the old mirrors I had seen before. I felt if I hooked one the whole river would erupt and every carp in the area would disappear. As it was still what felt like the start of the season I was sure there would be another opportunity. It was a case of cover as much ground as possible. After a couple of hours of walking I found a group of three fish circling a set of pads right under my feet.
They were going out into the clear channel that the boats had formed then coming back to the edge and to feed on snails underneath the pads. There was a common and two mirrors, one was a light coloured full scaled and the other mirror was a long lean dark fish. I crept back away from the water and broke into the loaf of bread hoping I wouldn’t miss the boat.
Down to my right was a large floating weed raft, I could just make out on the edge some of it was lifting up and going back down repeatedly, I knew it had to be the one I wanted. Before I knew it she had pushed her head right through the weed.
I lowered my hookbait down on top on the weed about 10″ away from her, opened the bail arm and slipped back up the bank. After about five minutes I thought my chance had gone then suddenly she was back but this time she wasn’t messing around. She was going potty, I could only assume that she knew there was food about somewhere.
As she approached my bit of bread I suddenly jumped up on my feet ready to strike. As planned the bread disapeared and as I set the hook the river exploded, even the birds were not impressed.
Safely in the net
This powerful long carp flat rodded me and stripped line from a tight clutch with ease. I followed the fish about 150 yards upstream before it decided to calm down. I suddenly realised I was a hell of a long way from my net and had no choice but to let her weed me up, wedge the rod in the reeds and run as fast as I could to retrieve it. After grabbing the net and sprinting back to the rod I dragged a huge weed bed slowly towards the bank and into the bottom of the net. Out of breath, I ripped the weed out the net hoping to find my prize at the bottom.
Long, lean fighting machine!
I was overwhelmed with what I found. By this time the sun had run its cause and the rain had moved in but I couldn’t care less. It’s was all over! I stood in the rain for half an hour whilst waiting for my mate to arrive to do some photos. It was an exciting and successful morning and I’m sure i’ll be going back next time the conditions are right’.
Withered old Pecs