My wife was very understanding, about the anniversary thing because she knew I hadn’t been for a while and said we could go out for our customary posh nosh the following week, so my wallet remained free from assault for a while longer!
As I made my way round the short trip on the M25, the sun’s energy could be felt already and it was barely 9am so I had hopes of getting a spot of floater fishing. It seemed every suitable day for it this year, saw me working at home, working my rota from my printing job or just being unable to get to the lake and was really excited about the thought of tackling these weighty leviathans on the surface.
My arrival at the lake saw me pulling into the Dog kennel car park and there was only one other angler present in swim no.3 and he had caught mirrors of 22lb and 30lb, during the night. I had it in my mind to fish “dog 4” and as soon as I looked in to the bay, I knew this is where camp had to be set up as the carp were starting to appear in there for their usual basking in the weed.
I had a mission on this trip and that was to test one of a new range of rods soon to be released from Century and realistically, the rod I had wasn’t really a floater special but I thought I had a real chance of testing the playability immediately on the surface so I set it up for an “off the top” tactical assault. The new rod is going to be a realistic price to attract new users in to the Century brand and I was extremely impressed when I first saw this new series. The model I had been given to try, was a 12ft 3.25 TC model which has a really nice feel in the hand, primarily because of its very ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing full carbon real seat which functions as good as it looks. This has been tastefully matched with standard Fuji winch fittings in satin steel and it is just enough to grip comfortably without feeling bulky, definitely a worthy addition. The whole balance of the rod is spot on and coupled with my 8000XTE Baitrunner reels, it was a perfect symbiosis of cranking power and playability. The rods appearance is a very minimalist matt carbon finish with understated black whippings and a very subtle logo, making the rod look like a government Stealth project then some fishing tackle. Everything about the whole package just exudes quality and I am sure that it is a future classic in the making. The first cast on a new rod is always filled with trepidation and loaded with a light line and largish controller, I was wondering how the rod would fair, but that would have to wait for a little while as the time wasn’t right for it , just yet. The carp weren’t overly active at the moment so I erected my new SLX bivvy in this tight swim and just left the mozzie front in place as the cloudless sky certainly didn’t look like I was going to be encountering any biblical deluges on this session. Once Camp Trakker was laid out with military precision and attention to detail, I busied myself making up small golf ball sized PVA mesh bags of mixers with some stones in to add weight when catapulting. After getting 25-30 of these done, I got a few out to the basking behemoths and waited for them to show interest, but the seagull scouts sent out the call that mixers were a plenty and the vermin of the sky had soon devoured the first batch, luckily without causing the carp to bolt.
The suns trajectory was getting higher as the heat intensified on my shaved head, my forehead had become a mini Niagara Falls with a constant stream of perspiration and my Polaroid’s were condensated to the max. This clearing of lenses and head wiping was becoming rather irksome but I was thankful that the weather was such that it was allowing me to go for them off the top. Eventually the carp started to show an interest in the constant stream of mixer bags being catapulted out and they had started to mop them up with great gusto. I could wait no longer and mounted my predrilled mixer on the latex bait band and the new rod made its first cast. The line sailed out effortlessly with my heavy controller I was soon drawing it back to the feeding zone, my concentration levels were verging on painful and I was gripping the rod for dear life as large black shapes would pick of mixers all around mine. The swirls near my bait were making my heartbeat pound with what seemed a deafening bass line and those guileful old cypry’s tormented me with their caution in feeding until the swirl at my bait indicated a take and in a nanosecond , I was sweeping the rod high in the air to set the hook. Alas, I was too eager and the whole package landed in my margin as the fish had spat the bait back out. So the cycle of baiting, carp feeding and me striking to thin air was firmly set in motion for the next few hours until one of my strike saw the water erupt and the clutch sang that tension song as an angry carp powered off in to the weed and it was gone!
After one or two expletives were mumbled, I got every thing readied for the cast again by this time I had opted for a shaved down, bright white pop as bait and my CC Moore Sweet Cream hook bait was sailing out to the carp zone once more. Bags of mixers were fired out and within moments I had hooked another good fish and tore off like an express train with my clutch just paying out line. The test rod was at full battle curve as it locked up in the weed and I just applied a steady pressure. The new carbon material on the rod was being tested to the maximum and suddenly the fish was out and moving fast to my left when the rod tip pinged back as everything went slack! I was bitterly disappointed at what might have been and couldn’t fathom out what had cut the line above the controller. The controller was freed from its taxi as it appeared in the swim about 15 minutes later so it was odds on that the fish had rid itself of the hooklink as well. I saw a few really large carp at about 50 yards range just coming into the bay behind the large weed beds near the far bank and I cast my pop up past them and drew it slowly between a channel in the weed.. The hook bait barely came to a stop when it was engulfed by a hungry carp and the new rod hooped over in response to the fast take.
The strike was minimal as the fish had taken it with such force and the kiting fish dived to the lake bed and straight into a wall of weed. I could feel the line grating on the gripping strands of Canadian Pondweed and the dampened kick from the carp’s tail as it went deeper and deeper into the weed but the rod remained steadfast under the pressure and the line sang under the strain. The ergonomic reel seat eased the pressure on my hand but with an impasse for nearly 10 minutes, I decided to ease the pressure and try and trick the unseen leviathan into coming out under its own steam. As the tension was relaxed at my end, the line tightened again and the carp started to fight and headed out in the open water where the rod controlled the angry fish with great aplomb, the action of the rod was nothing short of awesome with a battle curve that made me smile as it arched over under the enormous strain. I thought it was only a matter of minutes before she would be netted but she had other ideas and headed right in to the thick of it once more as the large weed bed in front of me provided a bolt hole for her again. The rod was performing exactly like one of the true pedigree’s from this rod building stable and you have tremendous feedback with the actual fight from the start and you never feel like you are going to have to cope with any surprises. Everything went solid and I was panicking about losing my unseen quarry but I kept the pressure on until, inch by inch, I regained line and all of a sudden, the whole weed bed started to move! There was a phenomenal amount of weed on the line and I had to walk back, as I slowly drew this wheel barrow sized package to Neil who was waiting with the net. Finally the net was raised and he said there is definitely a carp in there with all the weed, so I secured the net whilst I readied the mat, scales, sling and camera for the pictures.
When I knelt down and started to peel away the mountain of weed, I was finally greeted with a ghostly grey figure of a common, a gargantuan common. We both agreed she was a thirty plus but when I went to lift her, I said to Neil that she was easily 35lb+. I got her on the mat and he immediately identified her as the highly sought after Thorpe Park Common and I knew she was going to be big. I hoisted her up on the scales and Neil read out that she was 37lb exactly and I had smashed my surface caught PB and had a new PB common and the biggest one in this 30 acre lake to boot, and all of this on my 12th wedding Anniversary on a new rod on test. To say I was over the moon was an understatement and I sent out the texts to my pals to let them know of my fortuitous capture. No more carp were forthcoming on that session and I just relived the fight over and over through the digital pictures on the camera. Roll on the next session when I have got three days to try and extract some more of the lakes inhabitants and hopefully put the new rod through its paces with a bottom bait munching leviathan.
George Loughlin |
