Here’s the back story… my mate needed to catch a fish to win back bragging rights from a mate who caught a 3lb bream from the Lancaster Canal.
This is serious business. There’s been an AI song written about “Bartholomew the Bream” and endless gloating on WhatsApp. My mate’s face has been rubbed in Bream slime for months. Bartholomew the bastard Bream is haunting his dreams and I feel his pain.
What’s a man to do in this situation but take his mate to a good lake, put him on the right spots and help him restore honour to his family name.
We got down to the lake 5:30am and had plenty of nibbles, pulls and line bites but no obvious signs of proper carp. After 30mins the doubts are already kicking in… has this corner of the lake got too shallow and weedy? Has it been too hot recently? have the fish wised up to my baits? Are my rigs shit?
I decided to blame the ducks. At times it was like the battle of the Atlantic out there. The duck pack is stalking, diving on the spots and giving us the sneaky side eye, waiting to pounce on the next catapult of pellets. It’s a good job I didn’t have any depth charges on me.
And just to add to the tension, we’re being eaten alive by midges and everything is getting more intense as the second freshly brewed coffee kicks in.
By now I’m fully contemplating the blank and it’s a terrifying prospect because I made statements like this…
“oh I’ll put you on the fish mate, you’ll 100% definitely catch a carp, yes mate I know exactly what I’m doing, I’m basically the legend of this secret lake, I’m on first name terms with the carp, it will be easy”
Jesus! If he doesn’t catch today it’s over for me as a fisherman. I’ve danced with the angling devil and he’s about to declare me “king of the blankers”
With all this weighing heavy on my mind and nothing caught from the prime spot (which has done all my recent bites) we decided on a move to the classic lily pad swim.
And WHAM! the rod hooped round, the clutch is screaming and there’s a fish bolting into the weeds. My mate got control of the situation and thankfully I didn’t have to go all Paul Whitehouse on his ass and bark any orders about winding. He played the fish with no drama, brought it in with a load of weed and praise the fishing gods, my man’s got his first common carp!
Just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he sneaked another nice carp and a small tench before we packed up at midday.
My mate regained the “king of the fisherman” title from his mate, a new AI song about “Colin the Carp” is being AI’d into existence and the Cult of the Shrimp head lives on!
