Rooney's Right Result....

Rooney!!! · Rooney's Right Result....

Thought I'd share the weekend's fishing with you guys... It's been a while, so deffo nice to be back... It goes something like this....

Arrived quite late on Friday evening at a syndicate lake I was trying out on. I went with my trusty mate Cookie, who has been a member there since half way through last year. It was quite busy

, I guess due to the recent break in what has been some terrible weather of late. So we had a ganders about and finally decided upon a couple of swims with a fair bit of open water in front, as well as some decent margins (which I decided I'd concentrate on for the first night).

The wind was blowing a westerly up to our end of the lake and into our bank.......Perfect! dance

Whilst setting up camp, I chucked a good 10 or so handfuls of mixed size pellet into the right hand margin and 30 or so freebie boilies into the left. After setting up, we decided to have a quick cuppa and a rollie before wishing each other luck and hitting the sack for the night at about 1am.

At first light (just after 4am) my left hand rod screamed off and I ran out (with no shoes on! erm, well...

) and struck into it. After a good fight of about 10 minutes i drew a decent sized mirror over the net. On the scales it went 20lb 2oz... What a start!

At that point I decided to rebait both rods and put them in the same spots. About an hour or two later the right hand alarm sounded and I struck into nothing, which got me wondering... So I checked the hook - fine, but decided to put on a different rig and put it back in position. After a "dead spell" which lasted for ages (about 12 hours!) the same rod tore off again and although I'd struck almost instantaneously the fish had snagged up hard in an overhanging/submerged branch.

Try as I might i couldn't free it, so another angler, called Matt, who was in the process of changing swims, said that he had shorts and a change of clothes and offered to go in to free the fish. After accepting his kind offer, he neared the fish gradually, so not to alarm it. But the carp was well onto what was afoot and i could feel it struggling and then suddenly nothing.

When Matt got there the fish was long gone and he retrieved my rig and line from th snag branch. I thanked him and mentioned that it was a shame the carp hadn't stuck around!

The rig was in a right mess :? , so I replaced it and decided to try the open water with both rods instead, as I'd seen a fair few fish topping out there. Just at last light the same buzzer sang again and I was into something fairly hefty

plodding and lurching about using its full weight against me. After a spirited fight, trying to keep it away from the snags either side on the way in, I drew a lovely linear of 22lb exactly over the net.

I couldn't believe it! The first two fish landed and both twenties! rockin'

I then heard one of Cookie's rods tear off and soon he had an 18lb 8oz common on th bank. Thing's were starting to look up, I thought. After just a few more minutes Matt was into a large fish as well, which turned out to be a gorgeous 24lb common. I was quite glad he'd caught after helping me out earlier that afternoon. Nice things happen to nice people, I thought...

After a fair few cups of tea we all turned in for the night. Again I was awoken at first light by a single toner on my left rod this time. I struck into a fish, which immediately decided he wanted line... Lots of it! :? When i eventually got it in a little closer it was determined to find every snag in my swim and for a good 10 minutes it went from one side of my swim to the other. All in all it didn't give up the ghost for 20 minutes or so.

When I got it close enough I tried to net it and this seemed to send it ballistic for another 5 minutes. When i got it in the netI breathed a sigh of relief and quickly got it weighed, photographed and put back. It went.......(wait for it!).......17lb 7oz!!! LOL

I don't know about you guys, but I often find that smaller fish punch above their weight when it comes to fighting them in. I really needed that fag and tea that so followed (after putting my rod back out, of course!). Matt heard the commotion and popped up for a quick chat and said he'd had another good common of 21lb in the night, but had nobody to take the photograph. I told him he sould have woken me up! cripes!

Just half an hour had passed and Cookie was in again, this time rewarded with a fine 12lb common for his efforts. Within minutes of this Cookie had a strange drop back, followed by the line kiting, which he struck into. He felt the kicking back of a carp on the other end, but something more...

At first glimpse on the surface he seemed to have a branch as well. It turns out he was hooked onto a length of mono wrapped around this branch and attached to a carp!

He carefully guided it in and I was given netting duty, which was extremely difficult given the branch was in between me and this carp. Eventually after a few tense moments, I netted the poor thing.

What I saw, once we lifted out the (estimated mid-double) carp and the branch, shocked me to the core and is undoubtedly why carp anglers get a bad name for the sake of a minority.

The carp was attached by a barbed hook (on a barbless only water) to a huge 4oz lead and a length of leadcore with a bead and some lead wire wrapped around the top (presumably to stope the lead from falling free!)

In addition there was nigh on 100 metres of line wrapped around this sizeable branch. How on earth could a carp find itself in such a predicament, dragging this lot around.

Due to the length of line tangled around and around, i can only guess that this fish was hooked near a snag and had been given some considerable amount of time to snag itself up. Her mouth was in a terrible state and the hook was now attached to her cheek!

After freeing her, we put some antiseptic preparation on her wounds and rested her in the landing net in the margin to regain her strength. Much more time, dragging around all that with the potential for snagging herself and that carp would not be alive to tell the tale.

It really gets my goat!

It certainly put a bit of a negative vibe on the day...

At this point it had brightened up considerably and I saw many a decent fish cruising around on the surface. So after having read Ian Russell's article in CA on zig fishing I decided to give it a go for the first time. I markered out and found the depth to be around 4ft in most places, so I tied the rig about 3 1/2ft and cast it out with a pop-up. I waited in eager anticipation for about an hour......nothing!

Then i saw some carp cruising the surface a couple of rod lengths out, so I reeled inand chucked it out a bit closer.

It was a bit shallower here, so I could actually see the pop-up, just sub-surface. No sooner had I clocked where th pop-up was when a long, dark, carp-shaped shadow came into view. The next few seconds I can only describe as some of the most exciting of my carping life so far, particularly as it was my first zig rig.

I was literally willing this carp to the area where my bait lie in wait. LOL

I can remember thinking, "He's going, he's going for it!" LOL

Then this fish passed literally within half a foot of my bright yellow offering.

Just as I thought all was lost, the carp did a quick 180 and nailed the pop up before my eyes! cripes!

Within half a second the alarm screamed off and I struck into the fish. I had to be very careful with this fish, as i was using 8lb mono for the zig (!). Eventually, I got the beastie to the bank and landed it. The sigh of relief on netting this fish was infinitely greater than that after the last one. It was a mirror and it looked stunning!!!

I quickly zeroed the scales on the sling and it weighed 20lb on the nose!!!

REEEEEEEEEESULT!!! dance

I was shaking like a leaf and I think it showed when I had my pic with the fish! By that time it was approaching mid afternoon and we decided to call it a day. But what a day!!! LOL

One that I will remember for the rest of my life. It's my first session since being out of the country for quite some time, so I just hope its a sign of good times to come!!!