Everyone loves a big Common, well here’s Oli Mills with an account of what happened one weekend.

Upon arrival at the lake for my first session of the winter syndicate I was met with unusually mild conditions for the time of the year so I opted to fish head on into the warm southerly that was pushing in. Avoiding the normal areas that get fished from the peg I was in I opted to spread 3 rods closer in along the bottom of the marginal shelf. Within half an hour I had all 3 traps set stealthily with slack lines and a light scattering of bait over each rod. 3 hours later and with no warning whatsoever the right hand rod went into meltdown and after a good 10 minute battle this 32l Common was in the net.

An hour later and I managed another take off the same zone but was gutted when I parted with the fish and on inspection found the point of the hook had gone over. Totally out of my control and just had to be written off as bad luck. That aside it was a great session to start things off and I couldn’t wait to get back down to the lake again the following weekend…..