Lymmvale - 24th May - Another PB???

This week has seen the weather change to a Mediterranean climate so I planned for an early start. I was out the house and at Lymmvale by 5.20am. I arrived to find 4 cars in the car park and the swim by the hut taken! I chose to fish the next peg round the corner.

I set up the usual two rods:
1.25 T/C, 8lb main, 2oz inline maggot feeder, 10lb braid hooklink, S14 Drennan specialist barbel hook
1.50 T/C, 8lb main, inline finned method feeder, 10lb braid hooklink, S10 Korum S3 hook

I spombed out some maggots to my left and away we went, maggot/corn cocktail one one rod and double fake corn on the other with a scalded pellet mix on the method feeder.

I settled back and enjoyed an early morning cuppa, occasionally disturbed by the odd bleep! But by about 7.00 all went quiet. Changed baits, tried pop up boilies, casters....still all quiet....8.30.....no change.....the sun is trying hard to put in an appearance but no action on the rods yet!!!

At 10.00am I decided to move to the hut swim and see if the fish were there....then I waited...... & waited.......1st run at 10.45.....struck....nothing there!!!!!...then waited.....until....another run...

First fish of the day at 11.00am just as the sun is burning off the clouds, a male tench of 4-03 on the maggot feeder rod falling to a corn/maggot cocktail.

I had no further bites over the next couple of hours. As the sun broke through the day really warmed up and lots of Carp were cruising, some looking to mate others just cruising. I threw a few pop ups in and after a while got the odd fish feeding, so I cobbled up a floater rig:

1.75 T/C, 12lb main, crystal waggler, 8lb gamma hooklink, S12 Guru QM1 hook

I spent 25mins whilst packing up with no luck so I moved further round the corner and after a further 20 mins hooked into a Carp, after a long fight, I landed a beautiful Mirror Carp.
After regaining my breath I weighed he fish only for the scales to bottom out easily at 15lb, very frustrating as I have been thinking of getting some digital scales. So I thought I better take a photo, I set the camera up on top of my ruckbag only for me to loose the fish when picking it out of the net, bugger! I am estimating the weight at 17lb, but it could have been more!!

Packed up after this and headed for home after an interesting session. This was the first time I have used Guru QM1 hooks and they performed very well. I will definitely keep using them.