Urbanist Sam Mee With A Stunning Catch!!!
Urbanist Sam Mee With A Stunning Catch!!!
After 4 years my time on my club water has come to an end and it’s time to move onto a new venture. Before I moved onto my new water a friend and I had agreed to go for a week session as he has just got back into carp fishing from a 7 years absence. I’ve been fishing nearly every weekend so far this year and have been struggling to get a hold of the lake due to the extensive stock of catfish in the lake. It seemed you feel like your on the carp and when they feed the most comfortably at night here the catfish move in and don’t give the carp a chance to feed. As you can imagine this is so frustrating if you arn’t targeting the cats as they trash your gear and a lot of the time take out your other rods if nobody is too hand to help you out. I’ve been trying for a while to keep the cats off me but I felt the best way to go was the particle route. I’m not a fan of particle mixes but I had to try something different.
After a weekend of preparing our particle mix we had a bathtub (yes a bathtub!) full to the overflow with lots of goodies in which was prepared in some hemp oil and and a couple bottles of UB salmon oil. With 8 and 1/2 massive buckets full we made the trip to the lake. Upon arrival we pretty much knew where we’d be fishing as there was a silverfish match on the Sunday afternoon/eve so we knew the lake would be empty. After a walk round and seeing a lot of fish behind the swims we wanted the match finished and we got our gear on the bank.
The first night we got a fair bit of bait out and I added a lot of nutcracker glug to the particle mix, well 2 bottles infact with a little chilli extract to spice it up. We left the rods on the bivvys clipped up to where we where fishing for first light chucks as it is 5 night limit and we wanted to get the full from the week ahead but that first morning brought me a stunning dark original 23lb common and my friend another original common of 23 1/2lb. We were both made up with that and started the week of in great style!
As the week progressed we caught an amazing amount of carp and had our fair share of the smaller carp from the lake aswell but we were loving the fact we were getting so many fish when the rest of the lake wasn’t fishing well, infact not really at all.
As the week started to draw to an end we both felt that we were due to start seeing some bigger fish move in and on the Friday afternoon I felt my feeling were being reassured as I saw various shows of what looked like chunks from 120 yards away while spombing just a few feet behind my spots. At this point I was physically and mentally exhausted from 3/4 hours a day of spombing at 120 yards and being up at all hours catching and helping my mate out. A couple of friends came down to see us and I was still spombing but I took a break for an hour to have a chat with both of them and just as they were about to leave my middle rod tore off. As I striked the fish with braid on I could tell straight away it felt nice and it gave a scrap coming in going under my lines a couple time and not coming up. When it did show I saw this chunk of a Lin roll on the surface and as you do to the person holding the net you shout at them to get it in there! One failed swoop saw my nerves in tatters but on the second attempt the fish was mine. As I walked toward the net Callum leaned over the net and looked inside to then look back at me and smiled, at that point I knew it was a stunner. After getting it weighed the fish went to 28lb 12oz I couldn’t believe it. After the photos as saying fair well to Callum and joe I sat down and took a moment to embrace it. I’d beaten my PB and to such a stunning fish.
The week came to a close and I’d seen nearly as many carp on the bank in 5 nights as ive had in 4 years. I finished on 17 carp and my friend finished on 16 carp. A couple more friends fished a few swims down for a couple nights and had 4 fish out so a staggering 37 carp in total. Amazing week to which I’ll never forgot and an end to an era.”
Sam Mee
