On Tuesday this week I took Keiran from Slough back to Twynersh in the hope of catching him some more bream or a tench like the one Josh caught just before Christmas. I stepped up the tackle a little in case of larger fish - he used a fifteen foot Shakespeare carp waggler rod and a Shimano fixed spool reel loaded with six pound Maxima line. I have been trying some new hooks from Preston, the PR 29 to 4lb 12oz hook length.
I also had a lot of casters I had bought for a day on the upper Kennet which had been cancelled due to extreme river levels. I had frozen them at the time but defrosted two pints for this coaching session. I fed heavily with pellets, hemp and casters and Keiran was soon catching the quality roach that we have been used to at Twynersh. The bites were very finicky and as the wind had dropped I set up a pole float fished two inches over depth just under the rod tip next to the lilly patch.
This improved his bite indication greatly and he hooked into a much larger fish that shot out into much deeper water. Keiran did not panic but held the rod tip up and let the front drag on the reel take the pressure. The fish seemed to cruise lethargically round the swim doing pretty much what it liked but at my direction he was able to keep it away from the snags by the liberal application of side strain.
He played the fish for about fifteen minutes - following my instructions to the letter - and did not fall into the trap of becoming impatient as so many young (and older) anglers would have done. When the fish first surfaced I realised it was much bigger than I had expected and knew I would have trouble fitting it in the landing net, but Keiran’s patience held and after three or four attempts it was in the net. My relief was immeasurable as I had been worried that I would knock it of the hook trying to fold in into the twenty inch pan net, we would both have been distraught had this happened but I would have taken the brunt of the guilt as his coach.
Twenty two pound seven ounce common carp
The result was this beatiful fish in excellent condition. We were both over the moon and had to sit for at least twenty minutes just drinking tea. He caught little else that day as the swim had been thoroughly disrupted by the fight but it just didn’t matter.
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