15 August 2015 – Catch Report from: JJ & Taylor Jayne

Angler wins solo battle with big catfish from the boat and lands some lovely specimen carp at our exclusive venue.

This week we welcomed another new couple to the venue. They are both busy professionals and find it difficult to get away on holiday but managed to snap up one of our summer weeks that became available earlier in the year. JJ is an experienced syndicate carp angler and had been to France once before but had never experienced the power of a big catfish. He was certainly tooled up for the job with high end big bit reels and 3.5lb century C2 rods and I felt confident that they would be seeing stresses the like of which they’d never experienced!

By Monday it was 2 nil to the cats and JJ was more determined than ever to bank one of our beasts. Luckily he started off with something of a manageable size when a 54lbs cat picked up his Beausoleil rig. It didn’t really prepare him for his next battle but did give him a taste of what was to come. JJ fished most of our swims and it was while he was in Catfish Corner that he received a powerful take from open water. The catfish headed off on a unstoppable run and ended up on the wrong side of the island from Catfish Corner. Fortunately the tree clearing work gave him a chance to change the angle but it was too late, the cat had stitched him up in some roots underneath the island point fir tree. Determined not to lose another, JJ bravely loaded himself into the boat and headed off towards island point which is opposite the fir tree. The theory was good but unfortunately the cat refused to budge. Time for plan B: JJ drew himself over to the island in the boat and somehow managed to extract the cat from the hole by shear brute force and determination! He also managed to land the 86lb beast solo which, I can tell you is some feat! JJ also had 5 lovely carp and although none of them broke the 30lb mark this time, I know he was very impressed by the quality of our stock.

Taylor-Jayne had a very relaxing time reading and sunbathing and they were both highly complimentary about the quality of service and accommodation which is always great to hear. We very much look forward to seeing them again in the future.