Hard work and tenacity!

Well after the weekends little jaunt over to the estate lake and catching a few lovely specimens. I was keen as mustard to get back on my little water and grab one of those extremely elusive mirrors that seems to keep evading me! I didn't get a bait in the water until best part of 8.15pm due to the long hours I've been working this week. The bait has been flying out and lots of good captures are being reported on our entire range of baits!

I got both the rods out onto the marks I've been regularly fishing and I baited both spots with around a kilo of Red X boilies and placed my 4.5oz cog leads and 22mm boilies with a size 4 saber on, into the chosen spots. After baiting up I sat back with a brew to await said results! I got dozens of tiny bleeps from the persistent bat activity which got a tad frustrating! Pesky devils, got me well excited! The lake had a very carpy feel to it last night and the pleasurable conditions lasted all night.

I took a few pain relievers for my ailing back and laid back on my bedchair to settle down for the night. I had just nodded off about 11pm when my left hand rod let out a couple of fast bleeps and the bobbin shot to the top. I waited a few seconds to see if it was bat activity but the bobbin stayed taught! I jumped up and struck into a strong fish. She pulled hard towards the lily pads but a bit of clever rod angling and some persistent pulling guided her towards the waiting net.

At last a mirror!

She plundered around under the rod tip for around 3-4 minutes before I eventually got the net under her. I took a quick look into the mesh and saw a long chunky looking mirror looking back at me! At last I'd got one of the mirrors I so wanted to catch! I readied the mat, zeroed the scales, got the camera sorted and then gathered the fish up in the mesh of the net to take her to the mat. She was a lot longer than I had first thought and albeit she didn't feel like she was particularly heavy, she did have a big framework! Well, she did 23lbs on the nail. Well pleased with that and a real pretty fish to boot! The one thing I did notice or should I say could miss! Was the terrible smell she was giving off. Very potent smelling slime on this fish. Strange?

Superb! Well and truly chuffed!

I returned the smelly mirror and got my rod back out on the mark. The other rod was next to go but I suffered a broken hook link just below the swivel link. My fault as I hadn't used the correct link for the job and now it had cost me a fish! Dam it!

Well, after that things died a death and I packed up around 10am and headed home. Another great session which should have seen me land two specimens but the one I caught was special enough!

Regards
Keith