May 2008

Shaun Gave Lee the Runs All Night!!, 1st May

I know it sounds a bit sad, but I was really excited to hear about Shaun's new Liver B8 recipe from Quest Baits, and couldn't wait to give it a good testing.

When you watch fish as closely as I do, your gut starts to tell you what baits should work well, and I was well pleased to be proven right.

The new B8 arrived here at la Gléhias last Thursday afternoon, and after looking at the 5 day weather forecast, decided to try it over a couple of sessions from Saturday onwards.

My son William (9) and I got down the lakes and set up for the night just before 7pm. I put out 3 rods into some of the usual likely spots and a 4th rod out into the middle of nowhere; all using the new Liver B8 20mm, on 25lb Mantis, stiff all the way to the size 4's.

I then set about baiting up around my hookbaits. For this I had pre-soaked about 2kg of 7mm carp and 5mm halibut pellet in lake water for about 2-3 hours along with about 30 broken boilies mixed in. This was to moisten them just enough to get the pellet slightly sticky so when it was balled in, it still broke up roughly back into individual pellets with a nice cloud around it to create some instant attraction.

I only baited up around the first 3 rods as I wanted to see how effective a Liver B8 would be on its own in a particularly difficult spot out in the middle of the lake. By 10.45pm I was getting regular beeps on my 1st and 3rd rods which were out in the reeds so I knew at this point there were carp grubbing about in these swims and it was now just a waiting game.

At 1.40am, a slowish run came from my 3rd rod that turned out to be a Common of 23lb 6oz - the smallest fish of the night's session. By around 2.00am my nerves were on knife edges as the first 3 rods were now getting knocked about regularly.

At 10 past, a screaming run came on rod 1 which was planted at the inlet and, being unable to sleep, I was on it like a rocket. Annoyingly the run stopped as I touched the rod, so I decided to wind it in to check the bait and re-cast back to the inlet.

By about 2.30 the same rod was off again and this time I connected with the fish, a pristine but bad tempered 26lb Common. I renewed the boilie and re-cast to the same spot again. 3.20am and I'm out of bed again, rod 3 is already running and I don’t know for how long as I had managed to fall into an incredibly deep sleep!

I strike and ARGHHH, I felt the fish for a moment and then ping, nothing there. Still, I put the rod back in where it should be and go back to bed. Amazingly, William is sleeping through all of this!!

At 4.45 I had a short run from the 1st rod again, but this stopped before I could even unzip the door, I was so shattered that I decided to leave this where the fish dropped it.

One hour and many beeps later, rod 4 tore off with such force that it pulled the front of the rod sideways off the buzzer! This one REALLY had the hump, and didn't get any happier as I struggled over the next 15-20 minutes to wear it out and get it in the net. The struggle was well worth it as it turned out to be one of the lake biggies; a Mirror named Golddigger, this time coming in at its heaviest weight yet of 40lb 7oz. This is a new PB for me and certainly made up for all the lack of sleep.

At this point, having weighed and photographed the fish and got my rod back in the water, it was now 6.30am and I had decided to pack up at 9.00. Just as well really as I got another screamer from rod 3 at 8.50. An unknown deep, thick-set Mirror of 27lb 14oz - a lovely fish to end on. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Shaun's new bait turned up more unknowns not seen since stocking, and I've a feeling the Cats should love it too! 

I will get some much needed rest today and go back again tonight as there were fish still lumping out over the baited spots even as I was winding in!

Total weight of Carp landed in one night 117lb 11oz.

Thanks a lot Shaun; I got next to no sleep at all!!! 

Lee