After his previous capture from a few week’s ago, Bristol legend Mark ‘Brizzle’ Drake continued his efforts and was rewarded with another Roach Pit winter whacker on 23rd December. Here is the exclusive story, in Mark’s own words:
‘With work now finished until January and my Christmas partying and dance floor terrorising done for another year I had the luxury of a few days free before turkey overload with silly hats was upon me once again. Although only a short trip was planned the weather couldn’t have been much better with decent winds and reasonably mild for late December I knew I might just have a chance of one more bite.
I arrived at the gate with it just getting light and conditions looking near perfect for the area I had been baiting and concentrating on over the last few weeks and my last capture had resulted from only a couple of weeks prior.
With barrow loaded I headed off in the strengthening wind the short distance up the path to my favoured area and on arrival I saw a tench flick over one of my spots quickly followed by another which I knew was a good indication the carp were probably not far away either.
As the wind was gathering pace I decided that I needed to get out in the boat and bait up sooner rather than later, so I quickly positioned both markers grabbed my bait buckets and life jacket and headed off to find the boat and luckily enough for me it was up wind of my area which made things a whole lot easier.
House now up and freshly tied traps deployed back on the dance floor I sat back to watch the next lot of storm clouds race in from the coast. With a much needed brew in hand I scanned the water like a hawk for the next bit of activity and hoped I would catch a glimpse of one of those chestnut flanks appear in the waves before dark and give the old confidence levels a boost.
But all that followed was a flurry of tench activity around late afternoon and just into dark but these were good sign’s and I hoped that on picking one of these up shortly the old Hearn would hold its curve….. night turned to dawn and the winds had dropped slightly and no more activity had occurred but I was sure the carp were close.
Soon after 8 o’clock the tench activity started again and I banked 4 or 5 in quick succession and then nothing. So I took this little lull to put the kettle back on and ponder my breakfast plans and on doing so my left hand bobbin pulled up tight and held and watching the line it was picking up at pace and starting to kite to my left and I instantly knew this was no tench.
On picking up the rod it took its carpy curve and powered off down deep to my left through the gully and after a short battle I managed to turn it back and the fish was soon plodding around back in front of me when I caught the first glimpse of its flank, full of winter golds and it wasn’t much longer and it was all over and she was safely in the folds of my net. I remember looking down at her splendour and saying “ Morning Merry Christmas”….
Merry Christmas!
I was one know as Two Sides and another of Roach’s jewels off the list.
Tactics and Rig components used were : Short 20lb Anchor braid hook-links tied to size 7 Curve Shanx fished in Perforated bags which are perfect for fishing in very deep water.
Brizzle.