Nathan Highley from Angling Direct in Norwich has been in touch with news of a lovely chestnut mirror caught on a quick overnight session recently, here’s Nathan’s story – good angling mate!
‘I got down the lake on sunday afternoon after finishing work, quickly loaded up the barrow and made my way around the lake in search of some signs. After a lap and not even the slightest sign of anything fishy I decided to go into a swim that I’d done really well in all summer, it seemed the obvious choice with nothing else to go on.
Getting the rods out was easy as I had written down in my book how many wraps it was to get on the clear areas in the swim. All 3 were baited with the awesome 12mm white choc pop-ups on standard pop-up rigs made from ESP raptor D-7 size 5, 15lb Strip-Teaze attached to a leadclip on 5ft leadcore leaders. over the top I spombed out a good 3kg of vortex mixed with a bit of hemp and 2 handfulls of tigers. With all 3 done it was time to sit back and relex with a cup of coffee and hope for some action during the night.
The time was about 21:00 when the first carp made its appearence by crashing out of the water probsbly no more than 20 yards from the baited area. From then on there were carp crashing around and over the spot untill the first one of the session picked up my little choc pop-up at around 22:30, a good fight was had and I slipped my net under a stunning mirror of 27-12.
I was made up with the capture and happy to be back amongst them so soon. I must of drifted off to sleep at about midnight and next thing I knew I was being woken to a screaming alarm at 03:00. This fight was in a different league to anything I’d hooked in the lake before, run after run was deep and powerful with the fish ripping a good 30-40 yards of line on every run it made.
After about 15 mins I had it wallowing up and down the margin untill finally I got its head up and she took a big gulp of air, another 30 seconds passed and finally I scooped her up in the net. On looking in the net I thought it was a low 30, but when I liffted her out it was evident just how big she was. On the scales she went 37-10, a new pb mirror by 8oz, on checking the size 5 D-7 was firmly in the bottom lip. I did a little dance by myself and the then safely got her in the sack, sent a text to my mate Ryan to come and do some pics at first light.
37lb 10oz of chunky Mirror!
I didn’t really get anymore sleep that night, and at first light ryan turned up to do the pics. In the morning sun she looked mint and my camera boy did me proud.
I had one more that morning, a 21-08 mirror, but I was more than made up with the big girl. Packing up wasn’t a chore and I went home one happy carper.
All the best Nathan Highley