At 8lb 3oz it’s a fish of a lifetime, it’s easily her biggest and best fish to date as she has only been fishing 6 months.
The fish was caught on Saturday 12th September at Draycote Reservoir, it took a size 10 Traffic Light Cormorant – she spotted the fish feeding (hitting the fry) on sticklebacks and corixa around the weedbeds in the Toft area of the reservoir, covered it and induced it into the take with a couple of sharp pulls to pop the booby on the top dropper and get the fishes attention and pull it to the cast then an ultra slow figure of 8 retrieve. There was a big boil and it just locked up, and shot off which shocked the hell out of her because there was no time for her to think.
She was only fishing on a 5 weight rod and 6lb Fulling Mill fluorocarbon (as we had been fishing dries over the weedbeds) so she had to play the fish with extra care to ensure she wasn’t snapped up or that the droppers didn’t become snagged in the weed – for a newcomer to target such a good fish and actually land it in on such light tackle was extremely impressive after a 10 minute battle the fish was finally netted spewing out sticklebacks.