After fishing a local club water on and off for years I finally got bored of the same old fish with the same old damage and similar weights, I needed a challenge, a new direction in my angling and for this reason I decided to try and catch one of the mythical lumps from Brockhurst Moat in Gosport.
Why I had not done this before is beyond me as I live very near by. I had dabbled with a few evenings and had a couple of small ones and I had met half the bream population and even a 9lb tench, but a big carp was what I wanted and I wouldnt settle for anything less....
I arrived at first light and set up in swim one which is round the back nearest the road and proceeded to put some bait in, cell freezer baits tipped with popup corn. I always use a new piece of corn every trip so I have maximum visibility for the fish to spot. By 7am both rods were set and we sat back and chilled out.
Around 8am I had a short run on the LH margin rod and I wound in the first bream of the day! 'Oh no' I thought, hope they've not moved into my baited area. Luckily they hadn't and the rods stayed silent.
We decided to have a brew and while Claire did this I put some more cell over the spots and sat back down to wait for my tea. As I did the margin rod was away, proper screamer and as I leant into it iIknew straight away it was only small, possibly a tench or a pasty with attitude! As it turned out it was a tench of 9lb and was proper old and really dark in colour, I was well chuffed with a new PB even though a tinca!
Claire returned the tench whilst I cleaned the slime off and I recast down the margin and sat back and drank my tea, me and claire can drink tea with the best and hate having a brew interupted, unless its by a fish!
Time passes really slowly when your waiting, as fellow anglers will know, but I was very optimistic almost dare I say it, confident! Two fish from the margin spot, both on the cell/corn combo, so we sat and chatted all the while waiting, we didnt wait long as the margin rod was away again, a very angry and powerful fish which I struggled to tame at first, proper strong, it was trying to get to the safe area of the bridges and I hung on just trying to turn it with thumb pressure on the spool skirt. Claire was on standby with the net and I was clinging on trying to gain a turn of line when I could but it kept changing direction staying down deep and plodding away not showing itself. There were rumours of catfish in the moat so my mind was on overtime!
After what seemed ages I had it in front of the swim throwing up massive tail patterns and all the time staying down deep and I still hadnt seen my quarry. I was aching by now, shouting things like "really" and "give it up will ya"! When it suddenly rolled on the surface looking more exhausted than I was. What a fish it was, a cracking plump common, absolutely glorious and claire promptly netted her first time.
I shouted all the usual and claire was a bit puzzled by my elation,my first proper day session and a PB tench, and now a PB common at 30lb 10oz. What a day!!
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