The recent heat wave wasn't as hot as Lee Collings rods recently, as this report from the Mainline carper shows!
"Following the recent heatwave a couple of my syndicates had shut for spawning so I was undecided where to go, as I had a couple of nights at my disposal and didn't want to travel to far. So decided to drop onto Fosters of Birmingham Farm Syndicate. On my arrival I was pleased to see the lake was empty - which is always a bonus.
The fish where sunbathing at both ends of the lake, so instead of disturbing them and dropping on top of them, as they usually do a vanishing act and don't return as they are proper spooky. I decided to set-up in the middle of the lake and would let them come to me as opposed to chasing them. Now most of the takes I have had on the lake are usually after 24hrs to 48hrs even though I do everything as quietly as possible - setting-up well away from the swim etc. But they still know you are there.
So just on dusk only a few hours after arriving I was more than surprised to hear my Delkim go into meltdown and I was soon trying to stop this fish heading into Tamworth town centre after a proper battle, which lasted over ten minutes. I eventually netted the fish and I could see it was a good fish, but didn't realise how big until I tried to lift the fish out of the water. On the scales it went 32lb 14oz I was over the moon, as I thought I was going to struggle on this session down to the heat. With the fish spending most of the time sun bathing and not interested in feeding. So with the pressure off I could now relax.
The following day was slightly cooler, overcast with a slight breeze, so I was hoping the fish played ball, as all my takes have come from dawn to dusk. Even though I hadn't seen any fish show anywhere near my baited spots I still felt confident.
Just after dinner time my alarm gave a couple of bleeps before giving me a one toner! Another tense battle followed using the deep margins to its full advantage I finally managed to slide the fish over the draw cord. I thought it was the lakes big common 'Porky' at first, but was still unsure, so I left the net in the margins while I went to sort out the weighing gear and set my camera for self takes.
After a short while everything was sorted the fish was recovering in the deep margins in my net, but just as I was about to lift the fish out of the water my other rod ripped off! With another fish intent on beating me up this fish was doing a lot of thrashing twisting and turning so I knew it was one smaller residents. It was a good job I had two nets set-up or I could have been in trouble. This battle didn't last as long and there was soon another carp resting in the bottom of the net.
So out with the first fish and this one weighed 27lb 2oz and not a fish I reconised and probably one that has not been out for a couple of years or so. After a few self takes the common was returned so I could deal with the other fish. This one weighed 16lb 14oz so three fish in less than 24hrs. I was over the moon and a rare occurrence on this lake as you can guess the next 24hours nothing happened as the weather got to silly temperatures I pulled off the lake early as I was already suffering from sun burn.
All the fish were caught on Mainline Cell pop-ups fished on long running Chod Rigs utilising ESP components fished over just ten broken Cell freebies per rod."
