Jim Walker

A up Ash !!

I have just returned from 5 nights on Bantons Lake, weather was rubbish and conditions far from ideal but i perciveered and at one point had the whole lake to myself for over 24hrs ! I spent the first 3 nights without a bite but continued to trickle 18mm OCM into the swim. The lake is now very weedy and on thursday night i lost 2 fish into heavey weed. It won't be long before alot of people consider it "unfishable" and drop onto another water. At around 0530hrs on another damp northern friday morning i received a couple of "liners" on the rod i was fishing at approx 20 yards into very light weed then nothing for ten minutes until the "delk" let out a scream and line was ripped from my reel, i hit into the fish and to my amazement instead of going head first into the weed she came straight to the surface missing all the weed and gave me a good scrap on the surface for about ten minutes until she came to the net.

I popped her on the scales and was well chuffed when it read 33lb 9oz, i took some photos and returned her safe and well. I had never seen this fish before so when the bailiff came around he looked at the photos and told me the fish was called "Kinky" and was a new 30lb fish which had only ever been caught once before over the 30lb mark this made the capture even sweeter ! This fish is currently the 2nd biggest resident of the lake and like the biggest has fallen to my rods with the help of OCM. On saturday morning i lost another fish into deep weed before packing up and going home. Big fish "up north" are hard to come by but it seems the "big girls" like the OCM.

Regards

Jim Walker