Five Day Fishing Session + A New PB!

[natty]

I have just got back from a 5 day session at Hawkhurst Fishery in Kent, this is how I got on:

 

 

I arrived on sunday evening at around 7pm and set up in a nice looking swim:

 

 

I fished with two rods: one for catfish with either halibut pellets, mackerel chunks, squid pieces or luncheon meat, the other for carp with either Carp Vader jelly hooker pellets or boilies.

 

Once it started to get dark, I realised that I had left all of my lights/torches and night fishing equipment in the garage. So I was only going to be able to fish up to around 10pm and wouldn't be able to start fishing to around 4am, the only positive was that atleast I would get a few hours sleep every night!

 

The first half of the 5 days fishing was hard, I caught plenty of carp but none of the big uns came my way, I had loads of singles and a few low doubles.

Here is one of the low doubles caught just after casting out at 4am:

 

 

I also had 2 kittens over the first couple of days, here's one of them!:

 

 

On the 3rd day I managed to catch several more carp with the biggest being this mirror of around mid doubles:

 

 

 

I also had 2 slightly bigger cats of between 5lb and 7lb, here's one of them:

 

 

Later on that day I also lost a big cat on my carp rod - it snapped my 12lb mainline.

 

Day four (thursday) was slow, apart from a couple of small commons at around 11am. At around 6pm, I had a screaming take on my cat rod, my strike was met with something that felt very heavy, after a few seconds it woke up and went on several long runs, I eventually got it into my margins and a big catfish tail slapped on the surface, it looked massive and I was relieved when it was in the net.

My PB catfish before the trip was 13lb 6oz and this cat looked about double that size! On the scales I was delighted to see them read out 27lb 10oz.

 

Here it is:

 

 

Two hours later that evening I had another screaming take on my cat rod. The sheer power of this catfish was incredible, it was like being hooked too a train, it was stripping line off the reel like there was no tomorrow and made the 27lber feel like a baby! Just as I thought I may have a chance of landing it, the hook pulled. I didn't see it at all, but I would say it was over 40lb, quite possibly a lot larger (the cats go over 80lb in the lake and a 60lber came out of my swim five weeks ago).

 

Friday was my final day, I only had one bite all day, but it turned out to be something special. I had a slow take on my cat rod in the morning and when I struck the fish just kept going, it fought harder than the 27lber but still not in the same league as the biggie I lost the evening before. After 15 minutes I eventually had the catfish in the net, it looked even bigger than the 27lber and very close to the special 30lb mark. The scales just crept past the 30lb mark and settled on 30lb 12oz - another new PB and my first 30lb+ fish!

 

Here it is (im not smiling due to it being very heavy and awkward to hold!):

 

 

 

Overall, the fishing was certainly challenging and even though I landed 24 carp over the five days, unfortunately nothing above mid doubles came along. However, catching six catfish, including the two big uns of 27lb 10oz and 30lb 12oz made it a very special and memorable trip.

[Andrew Burgess]

Natty, congratulation on getting new personal best and a good session

[wayne baker]

Some good looking cats there fella well done

[Dick Dastardly]

Nice one Natty.

[BoldBear]

Great Cats Nat, nice report.

[Vagabond]

A nice write-up, well illustrated, and a couple of spanking cats.

 

It was interesting to see the two very different colouration schemes on the two fish - one quite dark with nicely coloured pink anal fin, and the other much lighter. Both handsome fish.

 

Well done.

[Anderoo]

Excellent

[Dales]

Some top cats, it looks like all the hours you put in paid off.

[Janet]

Excellent Natty, and a very good story and pictures.

 

Always a pleasure to read your reports.

 

Janet

[Puzzled]

Good write-up Natty and excellent pics.

 

You looked as if you had a lot of fun!