Peter Drew

I was set up in a swim away from the other members just so I didn’t disturb them whilst filming, but my angling instincts were in full flow during that time. I kept hearing fish crashing out around the corner, so as soon as I had finished filming I up sticks which is no small task equipped with all my filming gear and moved swims. I was fishing 29 wraps to a snag on the far margin, deploying 6 Performance X-Spods over the top of my rig.

Well it didn’t take long and the rod was away, a short battle and a mega run stripping line, she got herself into the snags and was thrashing around on the surface and I could see this was a good-sized fish.

Quick thinking I jumped straight in the boat and headed straight to the snags, once I was on top of the snags I had my first glance of the fish up close and could see it was a really good fish, a quick manoeuvre of the boat and the rod I had her untangled this saw her charging for open water, towing me halfway across the lake and back again, she began to tire-out, with steady pressure and clutch ticking she came up from the deep and I slipped my net under her and lands the first of the session a stunning carp and the smile says it all. But it didn’t end there…

I pulled my willpower together after a long 3 days of filming and an epic boat battle. I began getting the rod back out, but with five attempts with a savage crosswind, I was not happy with the drop or the line lay so I decided to deploy the bait boat to get the rod back on the spot.

Only three hours passed when the rod was away again and this time I managed to keep this one out of the snags by keeping constant pressure on and walking back towards to the otter fence, this worked well but it was far from over, she starts kiting to the right towards the shallows, along with a mass of eel grass there’s an island and she’s a long way out and could have quite easily gone around the back of the island using the backbone of my 3.50lbs X1K rod I kept her this side of the island and she hits the surface 10 yards out and I realised this one was much bigger than the last, finally a big gulp of air and some careful playing with legs going to jelly and she’s in the bottom of the net.