6 August 2017 – Catch report from: Ben and friends

On Monday, Jamie was bursting with excitement to tell me about his new PB of 36lbs 2oz (Shorty) Very nice mate! He’s no mug that one. Chris was also firing on all cylinders with a 98lbs catfish (PB) and two sturgeon. It was his first proper cat and in the heat of the moment he badly ripped the muscles in his back while handling it and was walking like an old man when I saw him.

These creatures are massive, very powerful and yes very heavy. He was delighted with it as he really wanted one this year but he was in a right state!

Ian had also had a take from a big catfish while fishing Island point but just couldn’t control it and it went round the back of the island. The guys took to the boat and managed to get over to the point swims to take up the battle from there but unfortunately the25lb fluorocarbon boom failed and that was the end of that. Unlucky mate.

That’s not a catfish mate!
In the Point swims, Jamie had been moving a few traps about searching for a bite and hooked a very powerful cat which ended up wiping out all his and Ben’s rods at 3am. 25lb Big Game is good but it won’t survive being dragged round trees and roots for too long and eventually it failed. Jamie did manage another fine specimen in the shape of a fin perfect 28lb common.

He’d be trickling bait into the point ‘B’ fir tree all week and this time decided to leave a rig under there for a full 36hrs as he was confident that the carp were visiting the spot and cleaning him out. At first Jamie was convinced he was into anther cat so he took his time to play it out in open water. After 30 minutes, he was rather surprised to see a beautiful common surface for a gulp of air. Jamie described it as the hardest fighting carp he’d every hooked!

Pac-Man style!
Ben loves the challenge of fishing Point A and had great success in the past there. At the beginning of the week, he tried a few new spots and the bites didn’t come so a couple of days in, he switched back to the spots that had worked before and he opened his account with a 31lb mirror.

Later on in the week, Ben saw fish crashing along the margin in between the home swim and the stream and decided to target them from where he was. Spreading a line of Beausoleil baits along this margin to force the carp to move from bait to bait Pac-Man style was the right tactic and Ben caught two more nice carp. Very well angled!

See all this week’s captures here.

Slow start… strong finish!
Ian was struggling a little in Island point which is unusual as the carp love this south facing margin and by Wednesday he’d banked one carp of 30lbs. It’s typical during the summer to see low frequency ripples emanating from various spots along there. The margin is heavily undercut in places which provides a perfect spot for the carp to hang out.

Ian decided to drive his bait boat very close underneath the fir tree and ferry glide it in until it bumped the margin side on. This meant he could drop his rig right on the carp’s door step and eventually temptation got the better of them and he added two more nice specimens to his score sheet.

What was really special for Ian this trip is that he got to share all these experiences with his 8 year old son, Levi. Levi is not an angler yet but his dad set him up with a roach rod and he caught a few nice ones. He also got to experience the insane power of a catfish as Chris gave him the chance of playing one of his fish for a few minutes!

Chris is top rod

Chris had learnt a lot during his first visit to the venue last year and was delighted to have a better session this time. Armed with our Beausoleil rigs and bait, he caught steadily all week and had two large cats, two nice carp … and the sturgeon … four times.

Our sturgeon do like pellet and Chris was fishing damp pellet with hemp and our boilies. Dropped in a big heap from the boat it gave the sturgeon a food signal it couldn’t resist and he got nailed every time! You’d have thought that the mouth of the sturgeon would be destroyed by such regular captures but their mouths are really tough and you can barely see any previous hook holds!

The great sturgeon mystery continues!
As many of our regulars know, there’s a bit of an ongoing debate as to whether we have one or two sturgeon. We’ve only ever seen one during the last 2 nettings we’ve done but some of our guests swear we have two!

This week Chris knows that the first and the third he caught were the same fish as the tiny hook hold mark from capture one could be clearly seen on the third capture. The 2nd sturgeon weighed 1 lb less than this other one and Chris swears that the mouth was smaller, it felt lighter and there was no sign of a previous hook hold.

So, no definite proof yet as we’ve never had 2 sturgeon on the bank at the same time but the debate continues!

We love welcoming guys that love the venue as much as we do so this week was a real pleasure for us. It looks like we’ll be seeing them again in 2019 as much of 2018 is booked already!