COUNTLESS fruitless hours spent on the bank finally paid dividends when a specimen hunter landed personal bests for three different species in one five-day session.
Lee Snow had fished the secret lake for 150 nights in three and a half seasons, and only caught 12 fish, before his perseverance finally paid off with stunning big bream.
His reward came with two stunning slabs of 17 lb and 16 lb 8 oz – and bream was the species he was targeting. He also landed a tench of 9 lb 9 oz and a carp of 36 lb 5 oz.
The Leicester-based joiner told Angler’s Mail: “It is a low stocked syndicate water of 100 acres but the fish do run big if you can locate them.
“In all that time I had fished I had only previously had ten carp and two tench, and there are thought to be maybe less than a dozen bream in the water.
“I had taken a ribbing from a few people about the number of times I had blanked but I had an inkling that one day it would come good, and I should stick at it.
“I had the tench on the first day, the bream two days later and the carp on the last.
“Amazingly, given I had never caught one there before, the big bream came from a double take within five minutes of each other and I couldn’t have been more surprised or delighted.
“The carp was a fish I had caught three times before but it has grown bigger each time.
“It is a hard water and not many people have fished for the big bream in the past until a 21-pounder was caught last season, but even with more anglers going after them I believe mine were the first two out this year.
“It was a very special trip, one of the best of my life, up there with the 40-bream haul, including 33 doubles, I had elsewhere four years ago,” added the 42-year-old.
Lee used a bait boat to fish a helicopter rig at 180 yards to a 15 ft silt gulley.
He offered one grain of sweetcorn tipped by an artificial red maggot and fed a gallon of red maggots, sweetcorn, hemp and pellets.
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