Location: Springwood Fishery
Report: With a break from school I managed to get a week away fishing. we stayed in one of the lodges the site provides. well in all fairness I honestly don't think i could have told you where the kitchen was, as i was out fishing constantly, every night bar one. During the week the weather was nice, but cold! it barley crept above 12 degrees. They have 4 lakes on the site and i focused on two, the main lake and the 'beach pool'. The main lake was deep, and it hadn't really warmed up enough to present a bottom bait. after half a day with-out a bleep i set up a zig rig.
I literally casted out the line with a floating dog biscuit as bait, I set the line on my swingers and began to flick a few slow sinking pellets out. After my third flick, my bait runner went mad! i struck into what felt to be a good fish. BUT i was zig riging up about 15ft, so the inevitable happened. the weight moved around to much and pinged the hook out. I thought this would happen, and had only really set the line out to see if i could get a take.
After this i fished the beach pool for the remaining 6 days! around half an acre in size, its tiny. Yet it is crammed with tench and small cats, with a few 20's known. I set about happily catching tench, including a new PB of 8.13lb. But then came the moment i never expected . . . i was had a good head of tench feeding and i was catching regularly, in fact i started just to us one rod. but all this movement attracted a beast! my swinger rose and my bait runner screamed at me, i immediately new this was no tench.
It was obvious a catfish had wanted to join the party. This was my first catfish, and one which has made me keen to catch more. my 2.75lb test curve rod was made to look like a quiver tip, and as i was using a spool loaded with 8lb mainline and literally had no control over the fish. A bailiff turned up, and asked for a ticket, before realising my situation. He fished the lakes often and said it looks as if i had hooked a decent 20lb cat. the fish ran be around the small pool for 20minutes before i could get him anywhere near the bank. just as i thought i was going to get my first glimpse of the beast he darted for some tree roots to my left. which i ended up having to stand on to try get it out
I managed to get the fish out and it finally rolled on the surface. The bailiff generally was shocked. In the main lake there are cats to 70lb, but he said this one was by far the biggest in the beach pool. He netted it for me, placed it on the unhooking mat.
I could not believe it! my first ever catfish, accidentally caught on a cell dumbell, with a size 8 hook, and 8lb main line. He tipped the scales to 36.2lb. As you may know, cats can double this, but for my first and the fact i managed to land it on the tackle i was using i was well chuffed! He is by no means a giant to most catfish anglers but i was overjoyed. I think the smile says it all -->
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