Nathan Highley had a red letter session on his Norfolk syndicate recently, culminating in three cracking thirties. Good angling Nathan!
‘I decided to book a week off work and some of it was going to be spent on my Norfolk syndicate. Just only the week prior I was fortunate enough to catch my target fish from the water, so this was going to be spent as a social with friends and to celebrate my capture.
I arrived down the lake on Monday morning and after a quick lap I decided to settle into the area that I had cat from the week before. This area is prime when a westerly blows and knowing that the winds were going to be west south/west for the week it seemed silly not to go in there.
I soon had the rods out just behind a bar in one of the silt gulleys. All three were kept the same, 3ft of original ESP camo leadcore, silt lead-clips, 8 inches of 20lb Two-Tone silt and size 5 D-7’s, the rig itself was a simple multi rig, 2 with yellow pop-ups and one on a white pop-up.
Over the top I spread 4 kg of boilie over all 3 and settled in to see if anything materialized. It seemed that I was only in bed for a short space of time when the left hand rod one-toned, a good scrap then took place and in a short space of time a good sized mirror was in the bottom of my mesh, I had a quick check on the time which was 4:00am so decided to weigh the fish and put him in the sack until first light, on the scales it went 31-10 and was a pristine mirror.
The prestine mirror at 31lb 10oz
The next few days went really quick and I managed to catch every night but unfortunately none of them were bigger than 17lbs, I did happen to loose an absolute steam train of a fish on the Thursday night which left me shaking.
On the Friday me and a couple of mates had decided to go up to the on-site bar and grab a bite to eat, play some pool and darts and mainly just chill out. The days on this lake are very poor with very little getting caught, so the brake was welcome. After some 4 hours the time was around 5 in the evening so we decided to call it a day and go and flick the rods out for the final evening. Again everything was kept the same, it’s a set up I’ve used for a while now and never lets me down so have never seen the need to change.
The Bronze Slopey Common
The evening sunset was really beautiful and me and my mate sat chatting drinking tea well into the night. I hadn’t been in bed long when the middle rod was away, the fight was hard with the fish taking line on several occasions, after a good 10 minutes I had a good sized common in the bottom of my net. I quickly readied everything for the weighing and on the scales she went 30-04, a fish known as the bronze slopey common.
I got the rod back out and despatched another 3 spombs of boilie over the top, then got back into the bag and tried to get back to sleep. I was only in the bag for 15 minutes when the right rod was absolutely melting off. On picking up the rod the fish took a good 30 yards of line of me, but once I’d turned it, it came in pretty easy and didn’t really fight at all. Five minutes later it was down my right margin and my mate who had heard the take had come over to do the netting.
The trip finished with the Muddy Common
I told him it didn’t feel very big and that it was probably a small one. I didn’t get the first look at the fish but my friend did and just turned round and said it was a cheese (something us Norfolk boys say for a 30!) Once in the net I realized which one it was, a fish named the muddy common and one I really wanted to catch. Up on the scales she went 33-08, we put her in the sack until first light, and I sat back to soak up the atmosphere of the place and to take in that I’d got a brace of 30lb commons in the sack. The picture’s of the two came out really well and I was made up from how the week down there had come together’.