Tactics behind 90lb and 70lb brace
Seldom-caught fish singled out and banked as the climax to a concerted 11-month campaign
SCOTT Lloyd has landed the Burghfield Common at a mind-blowing 62lb 8oz – to become just the 11th angler to catch it.
Only 11 months after starting his campaign on the 90-acre Berkshire venue, the 27-year-old from Crewe caught arguably the finest carp in the country on his first session of the spring.
The railway worker had last year watched it take his bait without being hooked and, agonisingly, he lost it just yards from the net on another occasion.
Scott told Angling Times: “It takes about four or five hours to walk around the lake – it’s blood, sweat and tears because it’s so overgrown in places.
“I went all out to single her out as best I could. I’d get up a tree and see thirties and forties feeding on my spots, but if she wasn’t there I would leave them.”
From that moment on Scott realised the common could be a solitary fish, generally only flanked by a much smaller fish he nicknamed the Twisted Mouth Common, which he eventually caught just before the main prize.
On his successful session, in the Compound swim, Scott fished a spot where the water drops off to 16ft, but suffered two fish losses early on before re-spooling all three of his rods with 20lb braid and 8ft of leadcore.
He landed the next two bites – mirrors of 24lb 10oz and 42lb 10oz – and then, at about 1pm, it came.
“The rod just slammed round and I jumped on it. The speed of it… I had to give it line. It took about 70 to 80 yards on its initial run.
“I got it into open water where I wanted it, then it just kited right round the island. I was pumping,
trying to gain line, but I couldn’t. It should have been gone – if I’d been on mono I one hundred per cent wouldn’t have landed it.”
Despite going 50 yards round the island, Scott somehow managed to tease the fish back, before it shot towards a scaffold jetty, then around the back of another tiny island. Eventually it was subdued.
“It only just fitted in the net. I just went absolutely mental.
“I was blown away, I wasn’t thinking about the weight, I was thinking ‘I’ve got the Burghfield Common, the most sought-after fish around’.
“You cannot describe that lake – unless you’ve been there you will never have enough respect for that lake or that fish.”