Ben Fenner - King Of The Pond

This entry was posted on 15th August, 2018

Finally got a day off from work and the weather conditions were perfect; dark, moody and a forecast of showers ahead, so I decided to head back down to the res for a full day’s fishing.

Arriving at the res there were a couple of cars in the car park. I knew that there would potentially be a few good swims, so I loaded up my barrow and went to take a look around. I was surprised there wasn't an angler on the far bank; with the conditions of the day in mind, and the wind hacking into the far bank I decided to fish the same swim as my previous session. Whilst unloading the barrow I saw a few shows only a short range from the bank. It's very easy for anglers to loose themselves with the sheer size of the water and feel they have to fish at long range right into the body of the lake, whereas these fish were showing at around 80 yards which indicated to me where I needed to be.

Looking out at the res I could see a huge wall of rain heading over the hills in my direction, at this point I proceeded to get the brolly up and wait for the rain to pass before setting the first rod up. During this time I tied up some new rigs. The rain shower lasted about 15 minutes before allowing me to get my first rod out. On the first rod I was fishing a single PB Popup on a traditional popup rig at showing fish, I then continued to wrap both my other rods to the same range of 80 yards (20 wraps). Both rods were fished with a 15mm S7 topped with a 12mm S7 Corkdust Popup presented on a nine inch German Rig. I decided to fish the rods tight together.

After casting the last two rods out I grabbed my spod rod and wrapped that to 20 and a half wraps and grabbed my spod mix that consisted of hemp/maize and 15mm S7 boilies. I spodded out around 25 spod fulls to start with and added the S7 hydro spod syrup on every cast! This may seem like a lot of bait, but these reservoir fish are hungry fish and have to compete with a lot of big bream that reside here.

To my surprise it really didn't take much time before I started to have indications from the baited area...... couple of bleeps... I knew this was bream. I kept the baited area topped up with 4 spods, again adding the hydro spod syrup for that extra attraction. I knew the bream would soon move off the area and was hopeful of a carp or two. I ended up with 4 bream from the spot. After I slipped the last bream back I re baited and put the rod back out onto the spot. While I was spodding over both rods I heard a couple of bleeps and watched the stow hit the blank of the rod and slowly start to peel line from the reel! So I put my spod down and hit into this fish; everything just screamed big carp - the weather was moody, this fish was heavy plodding... After a long battle I slipped the cord under it... I didn't know the full size of the fish until I lifted the net up! It was lovely to see this big set of shoulders slowly revealing itself from the bottom of the net; at that point I knew it was a big fish for sure! I left it in the net in the margins to get that rod back out on the spot. Again, after the rod was out I grabbed the spod and topped the spot back up and then got my camera set up. After taking the pictures and weighing the fish, the beautiful old common weighed in at 30lb. I released it back into the reservoir and sat back and started to tie up a few more rigs, but before finishing my first rig the same rod from that spot started to strip line from the reel and broke the silence. I was connected with another hard fighting fish. I was playing this fish for a few minutes now and could already see other fish rolling over the baited area, so I knew that they were definitely enjoying the free bait out on the spot! So my hopes of potentially catching a few more were quite high.

After a long and tiresome battle, I finally got it in the net, and it looked to me like another long, lean, torpedo shaped common. So again I left it recovering in the net while I put on a fresh rig and bait and put it back out on the spot. This time I didn't spod over the top, as I thought I'd try and nick a bite fairly quickly from the activity I’d seen.

After weighing the common at 19lb I returned the fish back to the water, the rods then laid dormant for a few hours despite all the activity I was seeing in front of me, not just over the baited area but equally spread out across my swim. I decided to trickle in a bit more bait to potentially draw the fish back down into the area, but before I could finish getting the last couple of spods out I had a few little indications that I suspected to be bream, I ended up having quite a big backdrop, so I reeled down into it before setting the hook into another fish. However, this one felt a little different, not as heavy, and in fact it gave up fairly early on in the fight.It was a mid double mirror. It's nice to get amongst the mirrors as they are very few and far between to actually bank, as the majority of the stock is commons. Yet again the rod went back out on the spot, and I topped up the bait before photographing the fish, which weighed in at 16lb.





An hour or so had passed without a single bleep or seeing a fish show. I decided to put in a few more spods to keep the bait going in throughout the day. I sat back and watched the water, minutes passed by and nothing. When the sound of the alarm broke the silence I grabbed the rod and started to walk to the right; as the fish looked to kite to the left, I was worried it was going to take out the middle rod due to fishing them both tightly on the spot. A couple of seconds into the fight my middle rod tore into life and I thought the fish may have picked my other rod up, but in fact it was another fish from the same baited area! I had to turn my alarm off as there was nothing else I could do but play one and allow the other fish to run freely, all I could hear was this fish melting line from the reel and knew I had to net the one I was attached to fairly quickly, but without bullying it in! A good 10/15 minutes of dogged fight, and I finally slipped what looked to be a decent common into the net. I put the net and rod down on the ground to grab the second rod, I was worried it may have come off as it stopped taking line for a while before picking it up and I had to wind down a lot of slack line. Boom, it was still on; this fish was some distance away from where I originally hooked it and was nearly in the centre of the lake. I knew this was gonna take some time to gain some line back. Slowly but surely I started to make ground. After what seemed like another 15 minutes I eventually slipped another decent sized common in the net. Leaving the fish to recuperate in the net I took my last rod out of the water in case of another take.

After weighing both fish and getting some photos, the first common of the double take weighed 25lb and the second common came in at 20lb. These two fish came in at the end of my session; returning them to the water, with the light fading fast, it was time to pack down and head home after another great session at the res.