Layer Pit Haul! 20th October, 2016

With very little time over the last few months due to a hectic workload, Deano arranged a last minute social with all round nice guy and England International, Billy Flowers. The duo decided to target a local club water for the short-day session knowing that with the strong winds and overcast conditions, a few bites could be on the cards. Little did they know that the action was to be so fast and furious that the guys never had a chance to chew the fat or sit down once throughout the day! Dean said…

“On arrival it was clear that the fish were in a good mood with, what seemed like every fish in the pond, showing themselves on a regular basis. In fact, it’s fair to say that neither Billy or I had ever seen so many decent fish put on such a display. At times there seemed to be 5 or 6 fish out the water at the same time! It was mental! We started off by casting small bags of pellet at them but after 45minutes, it was clear this wasn’t the way they wanted it. So, we clipped up to 25 wraps and out came the bait and the Spomb rod. Hinders hemp and chopped Mainline Cell was my bait choice for the day and the plan was to put seven Spombs out at first then top it up with three more Spombs after every fish or when the action slowed, which it never did. We fished two rods on the spot, with one up in the water on a five foot Zig and the other on the deck with a small bag of pellet and a 12mm Mainline Balanced Wafter as the hookbait. The smaller 12mm Balanced Wafters have caught me so many fish these last two years I wouldn’t leave home without them!

My rigs consisted of a size 6 Wide Gape, 15lb N-Trap, Lead Clip and 15” of Dark Matter tubing and for the Zig I simply diched the tubing and used a size 10 Mixa, 9lb N-Gauge and a rig sleeve to help prevent tangles. As soon as the bait started going in the fish got their heads down and from the first fish to the very last Billy and I never sat down. In fact, the only time we weren’t winding in fish is when all the nets were full and we had no rods left to cast! It really was mental. We both had a brace of twenties on the day with my best fish falling to the Zig rod. For most of the fight I was saying to Bill that it must be foulhooked as it went from 30yds left of the swim, under all the rods to 30yds right. I kid you not, if a 40lb catfish had popped up it wouldn’t have surprised me it fought that hard! In the end, I was happy to see that the fish was indeed nailed in the bottom lip and its seemed that it was in fact the best fish of the day at 26lb 10oz of pristine old English common.

I would want to put a number on the fish we caught that day, It really was the most prolific days carping I’ve ever had. All I know is that there wasn’t five minutes of the day when one of us wasn’t playing a fish. As for our social, we’ll have to get another date in the diary very soon to catch up Billy Boy!”