Anglers Paradise 2018

Session 1: Nirvana Specimen Catfish Lake

As usual we arrived at paradise a day early for 24 hours on a day ticket lake before the weeks holiday started. This year as it had been pretty scorchio for the last few weeks we decided to try the catfish lake again.

Nirvana specimen cat lake

We had the whole lake to ourselves and instead of setting up in the same peg for a bit of a social like we usually do, we decided to fish opposite sides of the lake and have a proper crack at bagging a catfish. We've done a lot of hours on this lake over the years and only have 1 catfish to show for it between us! This year felt different though, the lake was alive with small fish dimpling on the surface, big carp were crashing in the weed beds and I even spotted a catfish roll on the top in the open water to my right. Surely we'd winkle one out this year...

I opted to fish a big bottom bait consisting of 2 28mm halibut pellets sandwiched between 2 boilie halves in the open water out in front of me, and on the other rod I set up a pike float with a bunch of worms mounted on a size 1/0 hook a couple of feet below the surface which I intended to cast around and let drift across the lake. The float was constantly bobbing from the smaller fish (aka orange army) pecking at the worms, but the worms were holding up to the assault and the float was more than big enough to be able to distinguish between the nibbles and a proper bite.

Time drifted by as I cast the float around my swim trying to search out a hungry catfish. I tried varying the depth with no luck and the only place I hadn't yet tried was tight to the island, as I had a feeling my worms would get smashed by the resident perch if I cast them too close to the cover of the island. My feeling turned into reality as no sooner had I cast to the island, the float was getting dragged all over the place and upon retrieval all I had left was a few tatty sections of worm on my hook. I persevered for a couple more casts but it was obvious all I was going to achieve was to burn through my entire supply of worms in a matter of minutes, so I broke down the float rig and swapped to another bottom bait rig, but with a smaller hook bait of a single 22mm pellet tipped with half a pop up to sit it upright on the lake bed.

Sunrise over the specimen cat lake

Night time came and I recast my rigs with fresh pellets to last through the night, and put a handful of freebies over both rods. As the light faded the big carp left the sanctuary of the reed beds and big bow waves could be seen traversing the lake as they cruised around just under the surface. A large carp leaped clean out of the water before gravity brought it crashing back down with an almighty splash, the orange army were still dimpling on the surface presumably chasing the flies. The lake was alive, surely it was only a matter of time before one of rods tore off.

A couple of beeps from my alarms awoke me, and I rushed out of my bivvy to investigate. The bobbins were still where I left them and I had a ball of orange fish in the margins attacking the pellets I'd taken off the night before (throwing them in the margin wasn't the greatest idea!) right where my line entered the water. The sun had just started to rise through a thin veil of mist and it was looking like the lake was going to beat us yet again.

An AP tench that isn't bright orange!

I had a few more hours sleep before waking around 8am with no further indications. The sun was already blazing down on the water and I knew the lake had beaten me again. When I went to recast my rods with fresh baits, I noticed a rarity for anglers paradise, a normal tench grubbing around in the margins where I'd thrown those pellets. Not one to pass up an opportunity, I set up a lighter carp rod I'd brought for stalking later in the week with a small float and baited the hook with a single worm before lowering it gently into the margins. a minute or 2 later the float was sliding across the surface and I was into the tench. It was only small, around 2lb so didn't put up much of a fight on the carp gear, but it saved a blank and was a first for me at anglers paradise! Steve hadn't fared any better, with only an aborted run during the night. A spot of breakfast on the bank saw the morning pass by and it was time to pack the gear away and go and see Zyg for a glass of wine and collect the keys for the villa.

Session 2: Octopussy

After meeting Zyg at the bar and collecting the keys to our now upgraded villa (thanks guys!) we quickly did the weeks food shop in Holsworthy which was basically £90 worth of pizzas and bacon, and headed down to Octopussy in the late afternoon to set up for the night. The lake was empty so we set up on the bottom bank, I took the monk swim and Steve took the swim on the right. Again I opted to fish the big double 28mm pellet rig on my left rod, which I cast a few feet off the corner of the island, and the smaller 22mm pellet + popup rig on my right rod which I cast into a small gap between the reeds on the corner of the island and an over hanging tree to the right. 10 to 20 matching baits were placed over each rod and the traps were set for the night.

Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Jupiter and Io (left to right)

Not much was going on through the evening, though I wasn't really expecting it to as it had been a real scorcher of a day, so I took to a bit of star gazing to pass the time. Venus had just dipped below the western horizon along with the sun and the moon, and now the brightest object in the sky was Jupiter to the south. I used the camera with my 300mm lens to get a better look and all 4 of the Galilean moons were on show and nicely aligned for a photo. Saturn was also plainly visible to the left of Jupiter, and an hour or so later Jupiter was superseded as the brightest object in the sky as Mars arose above the southeastern horizon glowing a bright orange. I could just make out Andromeda to the north with the aid of the camera and the faint glow of the milky way was visible streaking across the sky overhead.

I recast my rods with fresh baits just after midnight as even the big 28mm pellets only last 5 or 6 hours in the warm water, and settled down for the night. I'd just dropped off to sleep when my left hand rod ripped off to the wail of the alarm at around 1am and I was into a decent catfish. It tore off to the right across the front of the island towards Steve's swim. I grasped at the spinning spool in an attempt to slow it down, but the dew it had been collecting had made it it slippy and the catfish continued on like an unstoppable freight train ploughing towards Steve's swim. Eventually I managed to get some purchase on the spool as the dew wiped off and I was able to bring it to a halt and start gaining some line back. Thankfully it hadn't gone through Steve's lines and I soon had it back in front of me. It tore off again to the right, this time down the margin and I had to lean out over the lake to try and keep it out of the reeds. It headed out towards the island and then kited left, taking my right hand rod with it. I managed to get it under control before it could get to the monk, and after a few more half hearted runs I had it in the net, along with a birds nest of line from my other rod!

27lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

I woke Steve up for a quick photo. The staff at AP now prefer you to leave the catfish on the mat to take photos, which we tried but it was dark, we were tired and neither of us had practised the "catfish glove shot" before and we couldn't really get the hang of it, so I resorted to the old way of doing things just to make sure I had a good photo (sorry guys!). Steve helped me return it to the lake, and just as he'd walked back to his peg, one of his rods tore off and he was into a catfish! 

It took him straight into a large patch of blue pickerel weed on the edge of the island and everything ground to a halt. The celebrity anglers constantly tell you to use "slow and steady pressure" in these situations, and to be honest this hasn't worked once for us, and it wasn't working this time either. Steve tried walking backwards, holding the rod high, dipping the tip low etc... but nothing was working and it was starting to look like maybe the fish had gone. Steve handed me the rod briefly, I think so he could grab his hoody as it was getting pretty chilly, and I felt the slightest of tugs on the line. I convinced Steve the fish was still there and suggested maybe it was worth giving it some slack to see if it freed itself. It's a bit of a gamble when using barbless hooks but he tried it, and the fish was indeed still on and started to take a bit of line. Steve pulled back and by some miracle the fish just popped out of the weed, and after a bit of a battle under the rod tip was safely in the net!

21lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

We got a couple of photos, had a celebratory sip of Zygs wine and I headed back to my swim to sort out the ball of line that my catfish had left me with. I ended up cutting about 10 to 20 yards of line off each rod as it was pretty much ruined and set about putting fresh baits on and getting the rods back out on the spots. I'd probably been asleep for about an hour when my left rod ripped off again at just after 3am. Again it tore off to the right, but this time I couldn't stop it despite my best efforts, and it buried itself into the same patch of weed that Steve's did.

Blue pickerel weed

I tried all the tricks in the book but I just couldn't convince it to come back out. After an hour or so of trying I was stuck as to what to do. The fish was still on as if I slackened the line off eventually the fish would move a little but I could only gain the same amount of line back on it before it locked up again, it was snagged up on something. I didn't want to pull for a break as then I'd have no way of knowing if the fish was still tethered up so I opted to wait it out and keep trying to free the fish up whenever it moved...

Around 5 hours and no sleep later, the fish was still on, and still tethered up in the weeds, but the on site tackle shop was now open so I was planning on leaving Steve to keep an eye on it while I ran up to the tackle shop to get some help. As luck would have it Ash (one of the bailiffs) and Zyg were doing the rounds in the buggy and I managed to intercept them as they drove along the main lake down the bank behind me. Ash got into the dry suit and bobbed across the lake to the patch of weed and confirmed the cat was still there. Apparently it was only a small fish around 10lb and was foul hooked in the base of the pectoral fin. I'm not sure if this was really the case (as I can't believe a 10lb cat could strip line the way it did when my clutch was still set for playing the 27lb fish I had earlier, even if it was foul hooked) or if he was just saving me the heartache of losing a big fish but either way he freed up the fish which was my main concern, and then set about retrieving my rig complete with the ball of leaders, line and lead clips that it had become entangled in amongst the weed. I endured a bit of banter from Zyg who seemed to regard me as a bit of a softy for not going in after it myself, and then set about sorting out the ball of leaders so I could get my rod back out and attempt to get some sleep in the now bright sunshine. On the bright side I did get some free leads out of the deal.

Despite my best efforts, getting some sleep in the bright sun in a bivvy as hot as an oven wasn't really happening, so I just accepted that it was going to be a zombie day and got myself some late breakfast. Oddly a bit of food seemed to do the trick and I must have finally dozed off as an hour or so later at around 1pm Steve woke me up saying he'd just caught another catfish and was after a photo. Apparently it had tried the same trick as the others in heading toward the weed but was easier to keep out as it was daylight and you could actually see where the thing was heading.

33lb 8oz catfish from Octopussy

That was pretty much it for the session, we stayed until around 4pm before we had to pack up and cart all the gear back up to the villa to leave us enough time to make ourselves somewhat presentable for the BBQ.

Session 3: Specimen Carp Lake

Feeling somewhat refreshed after a decent nights sleep in the villa, despite the copious amounts of Zygs wine consumed at the BBQ, we were up bright and somewhat early on Monday morning and had a quick look around the lakes before we decided where to fish. We were considering fishing the Main lake, but the dwarf pads had taken over much of the swims that we liked, and there was a layer of algae on the surface which made it difficult to see where the holes were amongst the pads. We walked round anyway but didn't see any signs of fish at all, and the whole lake looked more like a stagnant swamp than a fishing lake so we decided to pass and opted for the specimen carp lake instead which was empty and looked to be full of feeding fish when we did a lap.

1 of many single figure fish, all as stunning as this one.

Upon returning with the gear, 2 other anglers had beaten us to it and were in the pegs we'd been planning to fish. There was still plenty of feeding activity around the monk and bottom bank area though, so we set up in the 2 pegs closest to the monk on the bottom bank. I decided to fish about a rod length off the corner of the island, which would roughly be in the same location that I had the 2 fish from last year. I was baiting up with a mixture of essential cell and pink stink boilies, so I used the same in wafter form for hook baits, essential cell on the left rod and pink stink on the right. It wasn't long before the right rod was off, and I had a pristine mirror carp in the net, of a whopping 3 or 4lb. Almost as soon as I cast the rod back out, it was off again, with another scale perfect pasty... It appears the specimen lake was now sponsored by Ginsters... This continued pretty much all day, to the point where I was probably catching more fish than the pleasure anglers that were fishing the beginners carp lake! Every fish was mint and a real stunner though with an occasional bigger one around the 10lb mark thrown in, so while a little frustrating and costing me a fortune in boilies and dropped leads I didn't mind too much. The pasty action was broken up mid morning as I helped a lad on the left bank net a 35lb catfish as his dad who was no more than 20 yards away seemed completely oblivious to his yells for assistance!

Specimen Carp Pasty Challenge !!!

Thankfully the pasties appeared to fizzle out as night time approached and it looked like it might actually be possible to get some sleep. No sooner had I got into my sleeping bag my left rod was off. I picked the rod up to the usual faint pull of a small carp and pretty much wound the thing straight into the bank. Steve had come over to investigate and I informed him he may as well go back to bed as I was pretty sure it was another pasty, but for some reason I couldn't get it to come off the bottom. As Steve was about to leave the fish surfaced in massive boil of water and dived straight back down to the bottom, it wasn't a pasty. It didn't put up any fight at all, it simply just insisted on hugging the bottom under the rod tip. Eventually I managed to prise it off the bottom long enough for Steve to get the net under it and it was a weird looking thing, it had no belly at all. I realise the fish had only spawned a few weeks ago but even so this thing should have had some kind of belly on it, but it didn't, it was pretty much flat, perhaps even a little concaved. Despite this, it still managed to scrape over the 20lb mark giving me my second bottle winning fish of the week putting me on level pegging again with Steve who'd already bagged 2 bottles with his 2 catfish from Octopussy. (For those unfamiliar with Anglers Paradise, Zyg awards a bottle of his wine to anyone who catches a carp or cat over 20lb, koi over 8lb or a tench or orfe over 5lb, up to a maximum of 3 bottles per person).

20lb 4oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

All through the night we were still picking up smaller fish, though mostly the better size ones around 8 to 12lb and it looked like we wouldn't be getting much sleep after all. Steve had a nice fish in the early hours that looked like it might just scrape 20lb but ultimately weighed in at 18lb 4oz.

18lb 4oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

As the night started to turn into morning and the light returned, so did the little pasties. I gave up re-baiting the swim in the end and it didn't take long for them to clear me out, at which point they started bugging the other guys on the lake instead! I managed to get an hour or 2 of sleep before it was time to up sticks and decide where to fish next.

Session 4: Octopussy - Part 2

My old mate stumpy through the years

The Main lake was still looking a bit swampy despite finally having a splash of rain during the night, and we'd be out of bait if we stayed on the specimen lake, so we headed back onto Octopussy which was completely free apart from the 2 pegs we'd fished before. I didn't mind though as I wanted to fish a different peg anyway, a peg which allowed me to fish a spot where I'd caught a catfish missing most of its left whisker which I'd come to know as "stumpy". I'd caught him from that spot 3 years in a row 2014 - 2016. I didn't have the pleasure of being reacquainted with him last year and I was eager to have a catch up with my old mate stumpy!

I thought I'd have another crack at the worm rig I used on the specimen cat lake, but it soon become clear that this wasn't going to be possible as the orange army descended upon it instantly tearing my poor worms to bits. Instead I decided to try a big lump of meat popped up off the bottom by about 18 inches, a rig I'd caught stumpy on before, and cast it into the spot while I had a crack at trying to get a grassy off the top with a floater fishing setup.

New PB feather carp

I managed a mirror of around 8lb almost straight away, and soon after lost a much bigger common which I must have foul hooked as I was left with a single scale on my hook. It seems all the commotion must have woke the family of ducks up however, as when I recast and fired out a pouch of dog biscuits over the top about 7 or 8 ducks dived out of the reed bed on the island and flapped across the lake in an effort to beat their siblings to the dog biscuit banquet. Unfortunately one of them managed to hook it's leg in the commotion as I tried to get my line out of the way, but with the help of Steve we soon had it unhooked and safely back with it's family which unsurprisingly kept their distance for the rest of the day.

chirp chirp, chirp chirp

After all the disturbance from the duck raiding party, the fish that were feeding on the top had all gone somewhere else and I couldn't convince anything else to start taking the dog biscuits. The sun was hot and high in the cloudless sky so I wasn't really expecting much action in such conditions, but decided I'd put out another catfish rod into the shallow waters of a deep set bay in the island. From previous years I knew there was a lot of twigs and leaves in the margins of the bay, but I also knew the cats did get in there under the trees when it was hot so took my chances with the debris on the bottom and cast a pellet rig out as close as I dared to an overhanging tree on the left of the bay. I decided to check on my meat rig in Stumpy's spot, which had been whittled down by the orange army. I made the decision to swap that over to the big pellet rig so I'd know it'd last while I could attempt to get some much needed shut eye in my now baking hot bivvy. Of course this wasn't to be, I mean it's not like I needed any sleep, I had plenty of that 5 days ago. As I lay there all I could hear was chirp chirp, chirp chirp! So instead I gave up on sleeping and decided to track down one of the culprits. It didn't take too long to find in the longer grass on the bank. I'm guessing it's some variety of grasshopper as it had short(ish) antennae which is pretty much where my cricket or grasshopper ID skills end.

The day turned into evening and I had another crack at getting some fish to feed on the surface but couldn't manage to get anything interested in taking more than the occasional biscuit. I figured I'd get an early(ish) night and set about putting new baits on my rods. I put the big pellet sandwich rig back out to Stumpy's spot but opted to move the smaller pellet rig to more open water as I didn't fancy casting to the overhanging trees of the bay in the dark. I managed to grab a couple of hours sleep before the big pellet rod sprung into action at around 1:30am. The fish charged up the lake to my right, again heading towards Steve's swim. I can only imagine they do this on purpose as fish, especially catfish have a tendency to come off when in Steve's swim! It didn't come off though and I managed to haul it back into my water, where it made a second run towards Steve, this time ploughing through an overhanging tree on the right margin. I plunged the rod tip into the water to keep the line out of the branches as best I could, and thankfully everything held up and with the help of Steve who had woken up during the fight we had it safely in the net. Upon placing it on the unhooking mat it had a familiar look to it, and a quick check of the whiskers confirmed it was indeed my old mate Stumpy! He affectionately bit my hand while I unhooked him, and I gave him a loving pat on the head while Steve looked on declaring that I'd gone insane. He'd obviously been looking forward to our reunion as he'd lost a bit of weight to make sure he looked his best, and weighed in at 23lb 12oz rather than his previous weight of a rather chubby 26 to 27lb.

Reunited and it feels so good! Reunited 'cus Stumpy understood... Ok I'll stop now!

Happy that I'd not only caught up with my old mate, but had a third bottle in the bank with a few days to spare I figured I could finally get a decent nights sleep... I didn't. An hour or so after returning Stumpy to his home, Steve's rod took off and I was awoken from my slumber by a chorus of beeps from his alarms. I went to investigate and upon arrival to his swim could see his rod arched over to the right while the sound of snapping tree branches echoed through the night as his catfish seemingly made it's bid for freedom by climbing a tree on the island from the sounds it was making. Cue the sad music, as it worked. The line gave up as Steve tried to stop it from reaching what I assume by now (going by how much line it had taken) must have been the top of the tree, and his prize was gone. Usually at this point Steve becomes suicidal, throws his rods in the reeds in a tantrum and becomes the least fun person on the planet to talk to for the next few hours, but oddly he didn't seem that upset, maybe he wasn't feeling well or something.

That was the end of the excitement for that session. We did manage to get a bit of sleep in during the morning though due to the lack of action which I for one was grateful for. We had arranged to meet Joe for some lunch at the pub as he'd been off work with hip problems, so we packed our gear down ready for a move upon our return.

Session 5: Specimen Carp Lake - Part 2

After catching up with Joe and eating the first meal that wasn't a pizza or bacon since the BBQ (props to the guys in the Junction for the ham egg and chips!) we headed back to paradise. As I had my 3 bottles in the bank, Steve chose where we'd go next, and he picked the Specimen Carp lake again. I'd have picked it myself to be honest, sure we'd have more pasties than a Cornish bakery, but the word on the grapevine was Main wasn't fishing great, with only 1 of the other guests having caught anything all week, and we were pretty catfished out by now.

Monk swim on the Specimen Carp Lake

There was only 1 other person on the lake and he was fishing in the ramp peg on the right hand bank, so we decided to hop back into our previous pegs and fish roughly the same spots as before, though I decided to move what was my right hand rod over to the left and fish the open water, and fishing my right rod where my left rod was previously. Confused? Good!

We'd stocked up on more bait from the tackle shop. I only had 1 kilo of essential cell left in the freezer, and I was saving those as I was planning on fishing Kracking for the last night to try ride my luck and catch a real whale. So a mixture of my home made "Mutz Nutz" and Paradise Baits Beeze Kneeze and Pink Stink it was.

I put out about a kilo of bait spread over a fairly large area from the corner of the island to the open water towards the front left of the island. The swim started fizzing pretty much straight away as the pasties got their heads down, but for whatever reason I didn't really pick many up and things remained pretty quiet until sunset. I wasn't entirely sure what bait I had left out in the lake as I hadn't been catching the pasties, but there had been a fair bit of feeding activity in the area during the day. I guestimated that I probably still had about half left in the swim, so topped it up with another half a kilo ready for the night ahead.

I managed to get to sleep pretty easily despite the sounds from the guy who we guessed must have been on a midnight shed building bender for the whole week, as all through the nights we could hear things being whacked with hammers and the wobble board sounds of large sheets of metal being carried around. I was however woken in the middle of the night by a knackered but happy looking Steve who had managed to bag himself a scraper 20. Like mine it had no belly at all, but had apparently put up a good fight. While we got the camera kit sorted Steve informed me he hadn't had any sleep yet as he kept getting pasties. I pretended to care like all good mates would, and got some photos for him, not the best in the world as truth be told I was in a pretty zombified state myself.

20lb 2oz from the Specimen Carp Lake

11lb fully scaled

I managed to grab a bit more sleep before being woken again, this time by my own rods going off. It wasn't a big fish, and again put up no fight at all but at least it wasn't another pasty and was a bit of a looker. Unsurprisingly Steve was already up and about having still had no sleep at all, so I got him to take a quick snap for me. I didn't get so much as a beep for the rest of the night until early morning when I finally started to get mobbed by the pasties. Steve still hadn't had any sleep. I tried casting my baits away from my baited area to no avail, no matter where I cast to I'd have a fish on the end within 10 minutes, usually a lot sooner. Yes I could have used bigger baits, or snowman rigs or whatever to help cut down on the takes from the smaller fish, but over the years I've never caught a decent fish out of that lake on a big bait and I'd have just sat there the whole time with the heebie-jeebies wanting to fish a smaller bait, so I didn't go down that route.

After the pasties had cleaned me out completely they moved out of the area and let me catch a few Z's before it was time to up sticks and move one last time.

Session 6: Kraking Carp Main Lake

If Steve had gotten his 20 (which he did) I had planned on fishing the Kracking Carp lake for the final session to try and bag me a 30+, but in all honesty I was too knackered to move all my gear that far. We had a little wander round the main lake which was mostly empty bar 2 people on the far bank, and seemingly recovered from its swamp phase. Most of the algae had gone bar a few wisps here and there, and we could actually see fish moving around for the first time all week. Nev's point and the adjacent peg were free and only a stones throw away from where our gear was on the Specimen Carp lake, and we could see fish in the area so we decided to fish there instead of Kracking.

Nev's point on the Main Lake

I hopped into Nev's and Steve took the weedy peg on the left. This was how we'd always fished these swims and where we both had our confidence so it made sense. I had a quick lead around and found the hard patch I'd had success from in previous years (though oddly I couldn't find it last year) and decided that's where I was going to concentrate my efforts. I put about 1 to 1.5kg of boilie out over the spot which was pretty much what I had left from the previous session plus the essential cell boilies I'd been saving. I put an essential cell snowman rig out to the middle of the spot and attempted to do a bit of floater fishing out towards the middle of the lake whenever the army of 300 ducks would allow it as I still wanted to try and catch a grassy.

It wasn't long before Steve was into his first fish, and it wasn't long before his first fish was buried in the weed. Steve had seen that it was a decent common and was praying that it wouldn't come off as he'd never caught one over 20lb, he'd had about a million 19lb fish, including a fish that I'd had out a few weeks before him at over 20lb. The 20lb common was his nemesis, and it looked like this one, if indeed it was a 20 was going to give him the slip. For some reason he decided to try the old "slow and steady pressure" trick that never works, and by some miracle for the first time in history for anyone that isn't Mark Pitchers, it actually did work, and the common was out of the weed and free to swim straight into some more weed! I'd gotten a good look at it and it did look like it could go 20+ so I told Steve it wasn't as big as he thought and that it was probably 17lb tops in an effort to try stop him shitting himself so much. The carp gods must have been shining down on him that day as against all odds, the slow and steady trick worked twice, and the fish was quickly bundled into the net hidden in a ball of dwarf lily pads.

Not only that, but it was indeed a 20 and a fine looking one at that!

21lb common from the Main Lake

During Steve's battle with his fish, the 34th duck battalion had buggered off to the other end of the lake giving me a golden opportunity to get some floater fishing done. Fish were topping at 40yd+ range and I only had a simple bubble float set up which I could just about cast to 50 yards, but couldn't see that far out. I did have other controller floats on me, but I didn't want to take the time to re-tackle up as Captain Drake and his armada of ducks could turn up at any minute and ruin the party, so instead I changed the hook bait from a small biscuit coloured pop-up to a rather in-your-face 18mm bright pink CCMoore dairy supreme which I could probably still see if I'd cast it to the moon. There was a bit of a left to right tow on the lake from the breeze and my bait was soon dragged out of the danger zone. It was heading down a channel between the dwarf pads on my right and the island though, so I decided to let it ride, and then out of nowhere the bait disappeared in a big boil of water followed by a slap from a big tail and the line was tightening up across the lake. The fish didn't put up much of a fight and by some miracle seemed to willingly swim around the set of pads on my right and straight down the clear channel to the bank in front of me, where it then went mental. It was of course a grassy, renowned for their lack of spirit in the lake and tail slapping acrobatics when on the bank, and it looked a half decent one too. After it had finished throwing it's tantrum in the margins, we got it in the net and on the bank, where it was surprisingly well behaved and weighed it in at 17lb.

17lb grassy off the top from the Main Lake

Double bubble! 17lb 2oz and 15lb 2oz

The flotilla of ducks still hadn't realised there was an all you can eat buffet of dog biscuits floating around in the middle of the lake and I had another crack at getting a fish off the top. It wasn't long before my bright pink bait vanished beneath the surface as if it had been dragged down through the depths by some kind of ninja stealthy colossal squid. The line tightened and the rod hooped over as the culprit realised it had made a mistake and bolted across the lake. Almost simultaneously Steve's alarms started wailing and he had a fish on too and a few minutes of battling through the weeds later we both had a fish in the net. Double bubble!

16lb from the Main Lake

Steve managed another fish of 16lb as the sun was setting, and then it was my turn for a bit of action through the night and early morning despite only fishing 1 carp rod (I decided to fish a cat rod too as nothing much was happening on the carp front during the day). At 1:15am I managed to bag an 18lb 8oz mirror, not long after that I had a belter of a take which took me right around the back of the pads on my left before locking up. I finally managed to free it up by leaning out across the lake and getting the rod tip above the fish. I managed to guide it through the rest of the set of the pads before it locked up again about a rod length out. Then I felt the dreaded jolt through the rod as the fish threw the hook and was shortly after presented with a neatly bundled bouquet of dwarf lily pads for my efforts. Cue the sad music...

18lb 8oz from the Main Lake

Things went quiet after that and I managed to grab a few hours of much needed sleep before I was awoken by the horde of plum sauce dodgers swimming through one of my lines at 6 in the morning. As I was up and one of my rigs had been dragged out of place already I figured I may as well, put some fresh baits on and recast both rods. I put the carp rod back out to the spot and was debating whether or not to change the cat rod over to a second carp rod when the first rod tore off again, it'd only been in the water about a minute! The fish had gone right, around the back of the dwarf pads on my right. It hadn't gone in the pads though, and the line held out as it grated against the stems of the lilies as I slowly coerced the fish back into the open water in front of me. After a short battle out in the open I had it in the net and it looked another good one.

20lb 2oz from the Main Lake

19lb from the Main Lake

About an hour later the carp rod was off again and I had a lovely 19lb mirror in the net. I decided at that point to ditch the cat rod and swapped it over to another carp rod with an essential cell snowman rig and put it out onto the same spot. Naturally I didn't get so much as a liner on either rod for the rest of the morning. The sun was really hot once again and was rising in the sky so all the carp moved from the more open water where I was fishing back to the cover of the dwarf pads, where Steve was fishing, and once again he started getting takes while my swim lay dormant. 

12lb from the Main Lake

He lost one, possibly even 2 fish to the pads. It was such a hectic session that I didn't have chance to record the order of events at times so I got a bit lost and had to rely on my rubbish short term memory for some of it. Later on in the morning, perhaps even around lunch time he did manage one last fish, the smallest of the session at 12lb. My swim had been dead for a number of hours by this point and I was contemplating doing a bit of stalking in a weedy area that had done me a few fish in the past when things had gone quiet. It was at this point that a rather large golden orfe caught my eye as it briefly left the sanctuary of the pads to my right. I decided to reel in and do a lap of the lake anyway, and as I suspected there were a number of fish in the weedy area I was planning on stalking. When I got back to my peg, the big orfe was still about, this time in Steve's swim. I had a tin of corn in my bag, and I'd already caught a few decent carp in the session so I decided to bin off the stalking in favour of trying to nail the big orfe.

I baited an area in a V shaped cut out in the pads to my right with the entire tin of corn as I knew there were a few sub 1lb carp around that'd clean me out in no time and swapped one of my rods over to a pop-up corn rig and cast it tight to the pads within the baited area. I had a couple of twitchy takes that didn't result in anything, and on my third or fourth cast I had a proper positive take. As soon as I wound into the fish, a huge orange mass hit the surface, I'd only gone and nailed the big orfe! It went straight into the pads on my right, but I got it out easily and back into open water. All I had to do was guide it across the surface and into the net. I was just half way through praying to the fishing gods that it doesn't come off, when it it flicked it's tail, rolled over and threw the hook! I was pretty gutted to be honest. In all the years we've been going to AP none of us have ever caught a bottle winning fish that wasn't a carp or a cat, and although I already had the maximum of 3 bottles safely in the bank, this fish was more than likely over the 5lb mark and it looked like a right minter too. Time had pretty much run out after that, and we faced the gruelling trek back up cardiac hill with all of our gear in the scorching sun if we wanted to make it back in time for curry night. Next year Mr Orfe, next year...