07.04.15

Mega park lake session - Dean Macey

Fishing is a funny old sport sometimes. The more I tend to work within the industry, the less social fishing time I seem to get. Don't get me wrong, filming for the Fishing Gurus and The Big Fish Off series is an absolute blast but it really doesn't leave much time to do my own angling.

So, very short quick hit session seem to be the way forward for me and my last trip, even though it was only a few hours long, seemed to go to plan very nicely indeed.

With the kids off school for the holidays I knew that all my local day ticket lakes would be rammed once the sun got up and the frosty morning was a distant memory. The early, cracking of dawn start didn't happen due to my phone running out of juice overnight so I arrived at my chosen park lake, Gloucester Park, at around 9 am.

Thankfully, the area that I was hoping to fish was still free. So I plodded my way over to the middle of the Cockle Bank and set about getting the rods clipped up. The tighter you are to the island that runs down the middle of the lake, the quicker the bites come.

A short 4" 18lb Korda Supernatural hook link, 1.5oz Guru inline leads, 12" of Dark Matter tubing and a size 10 MWGB was dispatched tight to the island with my 1.75lb Dawn Theory barbel rods and 10-15 10mm Mainline Hybrids followed soon after.

Keeping the swim topped up at all times would be the key to getting the hungry carp into my area and feeding hard. I didn't have to wait long before the right hand rod pulled up tight.

The fight was spectacular from start to finish with the fish pulling all the dirty tricks out but my trusty gear held firm and my first carp of the day slid safely up to the spreader block of the net. A low double-figure common that looked just like a park lake carp should look. A little weathered but still in great nick.

From then on I didn't bother fishing with my left hand rod. As soon as I jammed the right hand rod up to the island it was away well before I could get the second hook bait on. One rod in the right place is better than two in the wrong place, I guess.

I played around with hook baits throughout the trip, all were heavily Goo'd and to be honest, they all seemed to work as well as each other. I have found that the Goo really does home the fish straight onto the hook bait and I do seem to get quicker bites because of this.

The action came thick and fast with small single-figure fish every chuck.
After nearly three hours of fishing, my time was up and I needed to be off home for other commitments, so, the famous last cast went out and I'm so glad it did!
Two minutes later the tip slammed round again and I was attached to not only the best fish of the trip but quite possibly the prettiest looking fish I've ever caught from the venue.

I didn't weigh her as when mirrors look like that, the numbers never do them justice but she was a low to mid double for sure and I went home one happy man!

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