november-2026-big-carp-part-1 - Flipbook - Page 56
BIG CARP / ON THE WATER
NOVEMBER 2026
THE MIDDLE ROD
FROM THE WATER
Around lunchtime I was away again and landed a small, angry common
for my troubles . I topped up the spots and waited, and waited, it was my
fifth and final night that I was on the phone to my good pal Dane talking
about fishing of course, I d already joked earlier that day that there would
be a live bite this evening (while he was on the blower) and sure enough,
all hell broke loose on the middle rod again! It s ya fifty!!! I heard him
shout as I ran down to the rod!
The battle was different, right from the start, stripping line off me at range
and unable to do a thing about it, it went hard right, tunnelling under the
masses of blanket weed on the bottom and making its way up the finger
arm to my right with its back out the water, this thing was an animal! I
managed to curtail its runs and it was getting tired as was I, as it got closer
the blanket weed blocked up my tip so at one point I had the rod in the
water behind me over my shoulder, tearing weed off the line with my right
hand and handlining a carp with my left!
With all the weed clear I wound down into it and quickly pulled her over
the chord
I didn t even have to look I just knew .. in the folds of my
net was a fifty-pound carp, for about seven years now I d been fishing
venues with carp of this size in them at times but had yet to land one of my
own, many at spawned-out weights of sub 50 and many that have gone on
to do 50, but this one was mine . I stood in the lake with a net in one hand
a rod in the other, covered in shit and in complete awe .. I stood there,
looked up to the sky and I m not afraid to say, I shed a tear . All those
years of anticipation, waiting for that one magical bite, time after time ..
and there she was, my fifty
A fish called Dropscale renowned for its wild fights. On the scales she
went 52-4 and I ve not smiled for so long in years
a lifetime s ambition
complete. When I was a wee lad the record carp was Chris Yates s fish,
the vicar and I remember being ridiculed among my mates back then
for claiming I d catch one bigger one day
one of my proudest angling
moments! I fucking love fishing!
BIG CARP
54
