Change has brought success for Peter Kingsbury

20 January, 2017 | Carp | News

8 Comments

I was struggling in my 2016 season on my target venue, it seemed every time I went I had a disaster, but things were about to change. I managed to get a bit of time in August and in one hectic night managed to bank two fish I hadn’t caught before using Monster Tigernuts as the eel population are very active around this time of the year.

With this extra boost of confidence I continued into September only doing two nights for the month but managed nothing but tench.

 

It was one Friday afternoon that I was called by my brother Phil, advising that he had just taken delivery of a new boilie called CompleX-T, I popped round for a cup of tea and to have a look, I was very impressed, it just screamed carp!

I had booked off 3^rd and 4th of October and arrived at the lake around 5am for a 36 hour session, it was still dark so I walked around until it got light. I was standing in a swim when I saw a huge head in slow motion just rise out of the water and drop back without a sound or ripple, I continued to scan that area only to see it do it a further couple of times, I viewed these sightings from three different swims until I had pinpointed the area I needed to be fishing.

I rushed and retrieved all my gear from the car and started the long walk round to my chosen spot. I wanted to fish both hook baits about a rod length apart around the same area and started with around 3 kilo’s of CompleX-T in assorted sizes with some frenzied mixed particle.

By lunch time I was all set up with baits in a clear area at around 50yrds using pop-ups on hinge stiff links, I proceeded to put the freebies together using 10mm, 15mm and 18mm crushing a few and chopping also with mixed particle. The mix looked fantastic and I was excited to be using this bait for the first time. Once the bait was put out I set up base camp and made a much needed tea.

 

That all done I just sat and watched and soaked up the atmosphere, I watched all day and saw no more shows over the area and started to think I might have blown it, I surveyed the lake well into dark and around 11pm turned in. At around 1am I had a couple of bleeps on my right hand rod so got up to investigate, this water has a lot of tench, eels and birdlife and your baits must be constantly getting picked up. Nothing else occurred so I dived back into bed to try and sleep as I was due to start callout at 16.30 the next day.

At around 4.25am the right hand rod just melted off on a really tight clutch, I picked it up only for it to be nearly pulled from my hands, this fish was motoring, I managed to gain control of the rod and tried to stop the fish going through some old weed beds, which eventually I did. The weed must of helped as being old it broke up and must of covered its face. I slowly gained line and at one point thought it had gone as I was just pulling in a mass of weed. Closer in the weed slid up the line to reveal a massive common which decided to come alive again after its little breather. I had to get the weed off the line as it was pulling at a different angle, all of a sudden the weed just fell and I was back in control and I managed to steer this fish into the net first time. I put the rod back on the rests and just looked in the folds of my net, I just cannot explain the feeling, I was well happy.

I waited till 6am and phoned a few people to see if they could assist with weighing and pictures and a new member said they would be around at 7am. That hour went really slowly as I contacted family and friends and made copious amounts of tea.

As 7am approached I got everything ready, as the member turned up I could see it was a guy I had met before on my Horton fishing days called Jerry Hammond, we both weighed her at 44lb 8oz and Jerry took some fantastic shots.

I returned my prize and made the decision to have a slow pack up and celebrate this common PB with my family.

Tight lines

Peter Kingsbury