A Crazy Overnighter for Craig

With the syndicate lake being very kind to me I couldn’t resist another single night the following week. I arrived at the syndicate gates and the car park was once again relatively quiet. I had meticulously been watching the forecast all week. The forecast was for sunshine during the day but drizzle through the night. The following morning the sunshine would be back again with strength. After a lap of the lake it soon became apparent the fish were mainly bulked up at the shallow end. I opted for a new swim that I was yet to fish. Fortunately the swim had it all shallow water to the right with loads of weed growth present and to the left a large gully that ran down the lake. I pushed the gear around to the swim and arrived dripping with sweat . The temperature was almost in the 30s and hardly looked good for a bite. 

I decided to cast a couple of bags up onto the shallows while I set up all the gear. I could make out a small area of fizzing next to a large weed bed that touched the surface. It was worth a couple of rods in the area for a while as I had a while before I would be getting the leading rod out and creating disturbance. 

As I was putting the brolly up to get some much needed cover from the sun I heard a short series of bleeps from the RX. I turned around to see the rod buckled in the rest. I dropped what I was doing and leant into a clearly powerful fish that tore 20 yards of line from a tight clutch then burying itself into a weed bed. It took nearly 30 minutes to get the fish moving after it had festooned itself with the sanctuary of the underwater jungle. After what seemed like an age I could make out a good zip linear of around thirty pounds twisting in the margins. Just as I thought to grab the net, the hook pulled. I couldn’t believe it and obviously I stood there and said a few words I can’t write here. I put the rod on the rest and looked out across now dead looking shallows. The fish had well and truly trashed the shallow water during the fight. I felt my chances for the remainder if the day had gone.

I set about locating some spots for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t long before I found some lovely firm areas among the weed. I soon had a few kilo of my mix that contained hemp, tigers, crushed C-food and lots if whole boilies. By 8pm everything was set the rods were on the money and the bait had been deployed. Not sure why but I didn’t feel confident this trip and felt my first blank on the syndicate could be here. 

I needn’t have worried as the carp well and truly moved in front of me on dark. Through the night I managed a lovely couple of carp to over 30lb. But the morning was just mad the fish really got on the feed and it was hard to keep all 3 rods in the water at one time. I managed 7 carp in the end up to 33lb. This included a couple of beautiful 30 pounders. It really had been yet again an amazing session. The fish really couldn’t get enough of the mix I was using. 

Bag a biggun 

Craig Runham