TOP CATCHES Your best big fish celebrated
THE BEST FISH YOU’VE LANDED THIS WEEK
“I HAD 12 TENCH IN 24 HOURS!” Tony Gibson – 9lb 15oz tench
“I HAD a great tench session last week, landing 19 fish over the course of a few days, although 12 of them came in the first 24 hours! There was a heavy hailstorm that saw the action tail off, but before then it was incredibly productive, with me landing fish to 9lb 15oz and a smattering of ‘sevens’ and ‘eights’ thrown in.
“Targeting a different area of a large Cambridgeshire gravel pit I’d already had some success on this season, I found two clear areas in the weed around 50 yards out. I fed one with a mix of bait pellets, pulses, particles, and chopped and crumbed boilies, with plenty of flavourings. The other was fed with just 15mm boilies.
“My thinking behind feeding just boilies in one area was to see if it might produce a bigger stamp of fish, and while it did result in an 8lb 8oz tench early in the session, my biggest fish fell to the regularly baited spot, fed with my spod mix.
“On this more productive spot, I used 12mm Complex-T boilies tipped with artificial corn.”
“I COULDN’T BELIEVE THE SIZE OF HER” Douglas Futter – 16lb 4oz bream
“DURING a recent carp session to Huntingdon’s Fenland Fisheries I managed this 16lb 4oz bream alongside a 39lb carp and a small tench over three days.
“I was fishing under a tree, and it took a while to get the cast just right, but once it was in I waited all day before having a bite at 6pm. It was just a delicate knock, but the line went slack, so I picked up, wound down, and felt something on the end.
“There was no real fight, but when I saw this bream turn over, I couldn’t believe the size of her! After weighing it at 16lb 4oz I was really pleased.
“If you’re going to catch a bream it’s worth it if they’re that big! The fish fell to a hair-rigged dumbell fished with Live System freezer paste.”
“PB PERCH ON MY BIRTHDAY!” Nick Daglish – 3lb perch
“ON my birthday I decided on a trip to Meadow Lakes in St Austell, Cornwall, hoping to catch a decent fish or two.
“I’d been catching a few good roach using lobworms, fishing both a feeder and float rod. The weather was changeable, and after about an hour-and-a-half in the rain I had a strange bite on my feeder rod and I was into something good.
“It fought like a carp, which I thought it was until I saw it. Then I realised I had a PB perch on my hands, and on my birthday too. What a great present!”