Getting to grips with a new carp venue can be difficult. But not for Max Braby, who got in on the action on 'The Deep Pit' in rapid time. Here he tells the story...
I arrived at the venue on a Wednesday evening, hoping to get my first session on my new lake under my belt, but upon arrival I realised that this lake was very busy!
Good observation would be critical if I was going to catch, so I walked each side up to the out of bounds section and soon found a large group of fish showing at long range. Unfortunately, this was exactly where all of the other anglers were set up!
The closest I could have got to the group of fish would have been at least 400 yards up the bank. After seeing this I decided to drop onto the other lake on site, which is actually a lake I did a few nights on last Spring.
GETTING TO KNOW IT AGAIN
Not knowing what had been going on at the lake for nearly a year, I chose to set up in a central swim which allowed me to see the whole lake, ready for first light so I could move onto the fish in the morning.
By the time I had my kit sorted and three rods out, it was well into darkness, so I wanted to get my head down and be awake for first light. I was woken up in the night by what sounded like a big fish showing right over my spot and before I got back to sleep, the first rod was away...
A few minutes later, I had a lovely mirror of just over 26lb in my net - a great start to my session!
Just before first light I was woken up by my buzzers again rather than my phone alarm and I was in battle with another nice carp of 23lb.
As it was getting light I noticed a large group of fish showing in the far corner but I was hesitant to move because of my two bites in the night.
As the morning played out a few fish had shown in the area that I was fishing, so I opted to stay where I was for the day just to see if anything else would occur.
The day went past without a beep but as it started getting towards darkness the lake came alive again, with fish showing all over the lake apart from where I was fishing.
THE BIG ONE ARRIVES
I was getting ready to move to where the bulk of the fish were showing, but as I was packing the first bits of kit away, I had a slow take on the middle rod, a typical big fish bite.
As soon as I picked up into this fish I knew it was a good one just because it was slow and felt really heavy in the deep water in front of me.
The fish was staying deep and it did not take long for it to find the big weedbed halfway up the marginal shelf. Everything ground to a halt for a few minutes until the fish kicked its way out of the weed and I was back in the game.
The fish was powerful and I could see what it was as soon as it came to the top of the marginal shelf, a wicked linear, which looked like it could be one of the bigger fish in the lake.
As it went over the net cord and it filled the whole net, I knew I had just caught one of the biggest fish in the lake...
The two other people set up on my side of the lake came down to see what it was, and to see what it weighed. It was confirmed to be the biggest fish known to be in the lake, down in weight from spawning, not that it bothered me at all. The fish weighed in at 36lb 2oz - a seriously cool carp and I was over the moon to have it in my arms!
After getting the rods all sorted again and more bait into the swim, the rest of the night was carnage, with a double take and seven other fish as well!
I ended up just
giving the fish some more bait and getting some sleep for a couple of hours with only one rod in the water. At first light the last rod ripped off too, producing another cool linear - a really long, wide and solid carp.
I only had three hours left before I had to leave for work, so I put the three rods out again and topped the bait up. I was not expecting a take literally seconds after all of the commotion, but a nice little scraper 20lb mirror was in my net, quickly followed by another mirror of around 24lb.
I had two more fish before I had to be off the lake that morning, one of them being this mirror, only a little one of 22lb but it was a really awesome fish to end the session.
I caught my fish this session on two different Rigs,
a Spinner Rig and a
Slip-D Rig made up of these OMC Rig Components...
Talk about an epic session! Keep up to date with this Blog section for more stories from Max and other anglers who have had tremendous success on OMC Tackle Products.
Journalist Chris Haydon joined the OMC Family in the spring of 2024, after six years working for the UK's number 1 fishing publication, the Angling Times. He is a keen Coarse and Carp Fishing All-rounder, fishing in the South West region, including the famous Cotswold Water Park.
