The final trips of 2009 – part 2

Our second 24 hour trip to white springs in October was to be our first attempt at the specimen lake. We arrived a bit late and were setting up as it got dark so it made it a bit difficult to locate exactly were we wanted to fish. I attempted to cast towards the islands with torch light while Barry fished in the margins.

We hadn’t had a touch when dawn came and so we decided to move. I set up on the corner of the pit pond and Barry went back to the Canal. We were joined by Ben later that morning who had come down to catch his first carp. He joined Barry on the canal and we set him up with a maggot feeder.

Although they didn’t enjoy the same success as our previous visit they did land a few fish and Ben did manage to catch his first carp some pictures of which are below.




On the pit I had a big rod tip knock and a couple of bleeps on one rod fishing in the margins. I grabbed it instantly and felt a resistance on the other end and thought I was into a fish. After a second or two I realised that something strange was going on as there was no fight. As I brought it in I then spotted the tesco bag full of mud and water! I’m still a bit baffled as to how I had such a quick and aggressive knock from a tesco bag; perhaps it was a line bite or something?

I re-baited and put it back in the same spot and later in the afternoon I had a screaming take on the same rod. This time I knew it was no tesco bag as the fish charged off into the lake. Barry came over to help net the fish which turned out to be a partially scaled mirror. I can’t remember the exact size but I know it was a low double around the 12 lb mark (pictured below). Barry joined me on the pit late afternoon and landed a couple of single figure carp fishing to the islands.