Kev Hewitt has been on a roll recently, an enforced lay off from work meant more time fishing and as usual, Kev put it too good use on Linch Hill and Linear, bagging some cracking carp. This story also has a happy ending, the shop got a new owner and Kev got his old job back 🙂
Unfortunately early on in October I was made redundant and lost my job. Luckily for me it only took five weeks to get a job sorted and get back to a normal life. As you would expect I spent as much time as possible on the bank making the most of my stop gap between work, fishing four nights a week for five weeks and getting a small sample of what life is like to be a full time angler, if only for five weeks.
My first session on Linch hill coincided with some fantastic weather, proper carpy conditions. Gale force south westerlies, pouring rain and mega low pressure. I unfortunately managed to lose a very large fish very close to the net during the storm on the first night; if it wasn’t over 40Lb then it wasn’t far off. It was an absolute killer at the time but the blow was softened when I landed a fish known as the long fish at 40Lb 14oz the following morning. I was fortunate to land a further six carp that session with the biggest scraping 30Lb.
My following two sessions were unbelievable, six mornings in a row the sun rose and I had a 30Lb+ carp in the sack. Six bites in six nights all between 2am and 5am, it really was like clockwork. The icing on the cake was a 39Lb 2oz mirror and one known as the toe jam common at 40Lb 9oz, both fish which were high up on my wish list. Little acid pear hellraisers from CCMoore mounted on ESP Curve shanx hooks fished inside mini ESP pva bags of pellet doing the trick on the business end. Rod wise I am still using ESP snipers in a light 2.75Lbtc, perfect for middle range casting with PVA bags and a gorgeous action for playing fish. As I was in my last report, I am still on the ESP Syncro in 15Lb, its performance was fantastic at first and still is four months down the line. It is good to finally get on a line which has all of the attributes that I require for my fishing with no compromises. Most other lines I have used have had quality features but always seem to have an element that lets them down. With this line it has strength, low diameter, nice suppleness, is sinking, has very little memory and casts like a dream. I really couldn’t recommend it more.
The lake really slowed down over the next few weeks and my following two sessions were a bit of a struggle. Despite this, a move of swims payed off during both sessions and resulted in me nicking a bite each session with a 32Lb common and a 33Lb 14oz mirror and my run continued. I had already decided that this was going to be my last session of the year on Linch. The 32Lb common was a nice way to end the year and ensured that I went the whole season on Christchurch without blanking other than three quick overnighters inbetween work.
As if things couldn’t get any better, I popped over to Hardwick for an overnighter for a social with my good friends Harry and Alexei who were doing a winner stays on feature for crafty carper against Finchy and Poolie. It is only because my buddy Scott Lloyd offered me his leftover bait as I was packing up from Christchurch to head to Hardwick that I actually fished the night. I wasn’t going to bother at first. Scott gave me five pints of maggots with Myles winter mix boilies mixed. Now i’m not a big fan of mixing boilie and maggot but had no other bait so why not give it a try?? To cut a long story short I set up in the next swim to Harry and Alexei and got spodded out and rods out just on darkness. Nothing occurred for me during the night but I had a twitchy take in the morning and 15 minutes later i’m looking down at the big tailed common in the bottom of my net. Not only is it the biggest fish in the lake but it was the biggest fish to come out of Hardwick so far in 2011 at 36Lb 12oz. One bite, biggest in the lake, job done on only my second ever night on the venue. I know you make your own luck and all that but the last five weeks has been unbelievable, proper fantasy fishing. Now it’s time to get back into the real word and back to work.
Until next time – Tight lines and catch a big’un.
Kev Hewitt