Mike’s Diary

A fairly eventful few weeks...

Well it’s been a fairly eventful few weeks with my own fishing and basically life in general. Furthermore Lee has finally found his ‘fishing head’ and has been out there in the thick of it with some awesome fish, but more of that later.

I finally got around to fishing my new Berkshire syndicate water two weeks ago and what a place it is! A bit of a trip for me but the fish it holds makes it well worth the effort and I must say the fellow syndicate members are a great bunch of lads, and include a number of old friends I haven’t seen for a while.

I arrived late at night on my first trip and after sleeping in the car park I was on the lake for first light and soon found a few fish bubbling and rolling in a small bay. I was soon visited by Jim Shelley who was fishing opposite but had reeled in for a look around. We chatted for several hours about all things carpy and many things not.

Although myself and Jim have had a few brief encounters over the years (not all of them good ones I might add!) I think Jim would be the first to admit that he’s a changed man these days and I must say I found his energy and enthusiasm for fishing extraordinary and his zest for life highly enlightening. This was particularly humbling considering the pressure he is under from the result of his wife being very ill at the moment. Jim is a very misunderstood person at times but I have a great deal of respect for him and he is far more intelligent than people give him credit for. I wish you and your wife all the best Jim and sincerely hope everything works out fine for you both.

Back to the fishing the carp were cruising around in the upper layers and although I wish I could say I used my usual method of a B5 baited trap, it was a zig rigged piece of yellow foam that was responsible for my first carp from the lake – and what an absolute cracker it was – a stunning 30lb 4oz linear! I would also like to thank ‘little Dave’ who came bombing around the lake to help me net the fish after he could see the weed clogging up my rings – top man!

A move of swims resulted in a lost fish followed by a gorgeous little fully scaled stockie and would you believe it, two more lost fish (hook pulls in weed) concluded the action from that bitter sweet first session. Hopefully my bad luck is now behind me but to have five bites on my first trip to such a difficult venue was extremely encouraging. My next session resulted in one bite and one fish, a lovely 19lb 14oz linear (these linear’s seem to like me!) so I’m off to a flyer on this lake but my feet are firmly on the ground with this one because I know it can be a real head banger at times.