After the relatively mild winter we’ve had so far and the increasing light levels day by day it looks like the carp are now becoming more active. ESP consultant John Claridge couldn’t ignore the good conditions and returned to a large lake which has a good winter pedigree for him after doing well there at the start of last year. Using his experience gained from the previous captures he’s kicked off 2012 in fine style with a cracking big winter mirror. Good angling John!
After a hard summer trying to get to grips with a new water, I finally got to hook two in October but unfortunately I lost both of them, the second one leaving me shaking such was its immense power.
After a Christmas lay off with the family, I started to think more about my plans for the remainder of the winter. With a most welcome milder winter, the obvious place was a large local lake where I’d been successful last February taking eight fish up to 31.12 but although the lake holds a handful of big fish I’d never been fortunate enough to get one of the big girls. Unfinished business! Being local I was just popping up for the odd day and waiting for the weather to trigger them out of their winter slumber.
With the weather going milder, I turned up first thing in steady drizzle and with my rods walked out to the distances of the spots I caught last year, I cast out single Richworth Tutti pop-ups on looped chod rigs, tied with 20lb Bristle Filament to a size 5 D-7 with the eye tweaked outwards, tied with a small loop to a size 11 Uni-link swivel, on 6 foot of original Camo leadcore and leadcore stop beads, with a 4oz lead, with the main line 15lb Syncro XT.
The drizzle petered out around 11am and the wind eased off and the only thing missing was a bit of sunshine. I’d been getting liners from the grebes working the area and when at 11.50am the bobbin pulled up and then started dropping back I assumed it was another grebe swimming through the line. However the bobbin dropped back 2″ more and as I moved towards the rod, it picked up again. I wound down and pulled into it and after another couple of turns of the reel the rod hooped over properly and I felt that satisfying lunge of a hooked carp.
After taking about 10 yards of line, I had it coming straight in and had to wind quite fast to keep up with it. At about 30 yards it surfaced and thrashed and I eased off to allow it to dive down again. With such a short hook link I didn’t want it thrashing about. Steadily it came in, surfacing another couple of times and I could now see it was a good mirror. As it neared the margin, I threw in the net and as soon as it was in reach I scooped up a big January mirror. With some assistance I got her onto the mat and recognized it as a fish that had been out in October at 39lb+. But how big now? At 39lb 8oz, it was short of the magical 40 but with it being by far my best ever January fish, I was more than satisfied!