Charlie’s Mate at 54lb – no wonder Mark looks chuffed!
Brown’s of Haddenham manager Mark Betteridge has been catching a few nice fish from Frimley Pit 3 recently but his dreams came true yesterday on a fairly impromtu trip to the Surrey venue…
‘I arrived at 3pm nearly not going at all as I have got a cold. The lake was quite busy and after a walk round I noticed that a swim that I saw fish fizzing up in a week earlier was free so with the light fading I ran back to the van to get my gear.
When I arrived back in the swim I put all 3 rods short from the known spots around 60 yards and scattered 30 washed out krill boilies over the top of them. I was using a krill bait straight out the bag with a small bag of crushed krill on a heli set up with a German rig comprising a size 4 Cryogen Curve to Tungsten Loaded.
Back she goes
As the night started to draw in I got in my bag to keep warm and before I knew it at 7.30pm I received a very slow take. As I lifted in to the fish I knew straight away it was a good one as it plodded all the way back to the margin where it used it’s weight to stay deep. When I finally slipped it into the net I knew it was a big fish so I went and got one of the lads fishing close to me and we got all the equipment ready for the weighing process and as I lifted her out the water it was clear it was one of the A team! As she sat on the mat we noticed a notch in the back – unmistakably Charlie’s Mate and the scales spun round to a massive 54lb! I was absolutely buzzing!’