Its looking like we are up and running now. Great to have Jack here but then a gap with the extra paperwork causing people concern in travelling…. but Paddy and Ben are here with Dan and they always seem to do rather well!!!
We got camp setup under Figgy and the lads got off to a good start with new recruit Dan doing battle with a 78lb moggie his first ever Catfish, Paddy with a 78 himself with Ben landing some 40’s.
Dan’s first cat at 78lb
A 24 hour quiet period came next, in that time I’d brought down some carp rods.. we had baited heavily down the margin and sprayed a few kg of boilies at range. Nights seemed to be the most productive time and it was their 3rd night where the action really picked up. Paddy had a couple of 80’s and Dan did battle with another 70 but this time on one of the carp rods.. real battle. Ben also seeing action from the carp rods, firstly with a cracking common of mid 20’s and then coming so very close to the magical 40lb mark with this cracking 39lb common.
39lb for Ben
So the lads were going very well plenty of fish landed but the bigger fish were playing hard to get, then came to 3pm fish!! Ben was “on strike” and rod 1 hadn’t done much but it was this rod that looped over and was away, slow run as the fish was coming straight at Ben but once it had gone passed it really started to wake up. At about 60 yards out it surfaced….. Then came the cry from Ben and Paddy “it’s the big #£&@ing yellow one”…. indeed it was, we haven’t had a mandarin in a few years so nervous times as Ben coaxed it to my waiting gloves. Safely landed and weighed at 101lb it was photo time. Plenty of great shots taken it was such a beautiful creature a real dream fish.
Stunner 101lb Mandarin for Ben
Beautiful creature
This trip was going very well, Paddy done battle with another 80 then a 110lb cat and Dan and Ben chipping in with more smaller fish….
110lb for Paddy
They ended up with 38 fish. Great to have the lads here again, Paddy’s 10th Ben’s 7th can’t wait until next year ???
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