Tom Clark

Age:17
From: Hull, East Yorkshire
Sparsholt student
“We arrived early at kingsmead 1 on the Saturday morning to find the lake fairly busy.. After walking around the lake a few times midweek and seeing a few fish show I had a rough idea of were I needed to be. The area I had in mind was taken up but had produced a few decent fish on the Friday night so I knew they were still in the area… A couple of lads who had done particularly well were leaving Sunday morning so I decided to move into a swim a few pegs down ready for a early move on the Sunday.. By mid-day I was all set up and ready to go in my new swim and felt confident I had made the right choice in the move as shortly after setting up I saw two fish roll at range in the same area that I had seen them mid week… I lost what felt like a decent fish just after dark and felt as though my chance had gone as after losing the fish, the swim just seemed to go dead.. I didn’t hear any more fish show during the night and the liners dried up.. However after a screamer just before first light I was attached to a very angry fish that certainly didn’t fancy getting its picture taken.. The fight was unbelievable but after a 15minute battle with the fish going mental in the margins it was finally ready for netting.. We weighed her in at 39lb 5oz’s, I believe this is the biggest weight the Thorpe park common has done and is a new lake record common for kingsmead1.. I am still on cloud nine. I would just like to say a big thank you to Roo Newby, Mick Barnes and the rest of the Cemex team for allowing us to fish the great venue whilst on work experience.. And also to my good mates john and Stuart for coming down at a stupid time and taking some cracking pics.. Cheers lads!”

The big common was taken on a 7inch 15lb stripteaze hooklink, size 6 e.s..p big T, e.s.p lead core leader and a 4oz atomic dung lead on a lead clip... It was taken at 100yards range to a silt patch at the base of a bar.. The Thorpe park fell to a Tails Up Ocm dumbbell fished over 3kg of the matching bait and groundbait. It was brought to the net using free spirit rods, shimano big pits and 15lb daiwa sensor.

The big common upped my PB from 36lb 10oz so I was totally over the moon.. It was caught during a two night session which was my first visit to the venue.