The Don!!

 

Short and sweet this one, iv'e ruffly six hours spare so why not make the most of it! Cars loaded, lets go catch a carp.

Dispite the picture of my rods my approach was to catch a couple off the top! Rocking up and being confronted by a busy car park isn't the one but luckily as a lot of anglers tend to do is get out the motor as set up in the closet swim to them. Meaning one half of the lake is ramo and the other half was empty. Good for me tho as the barrows loaded and im off down the far end.

I started off down the far end, catapulting out floating pellet and slowly working my way around watching the water as they started taking off the surface. As they became more confident and started competing for the pellet i tried to pick out the larger ones from the group by free lining a trimmed downed Salamino pop up on a size eight Hex gape hook. I attempted to drop it right in front of their noses but it was getting frustrating after about an hour of aborted takes from smaller fish diving in front of the selected targets and me narrowly missing them by whipping the pop up out of the water away from them, trying not to spook the group that was now only a rod length off the bank from me. I noticed a thick pair of lips very delicatley taking floaters off the surface tight to the bushes just to the side of me down the left hand margin. I got down on my knees and one at a time flicked the odd pellet in front of it and watched as it took them with caution. The carp dropped down out of sight than reappeared only a few feet away with it's back towards me! As it took the last few floaters Infront of it I carefully dropped my hookbait right Infront of it's nose and BAM! Nailed it. It took off like an absolute rocket spooking all the other carp, causing a massive eruption on the surface and shot off out into open water. 

After a lengthy scrap she was ready for the net and was quickly slipped over the net cord. With quite a distinctive head I was pretty sure this was one of the named fish, so after putting a bit of carp care on the pin prick left in the top lip and a few self takes with the camera I put her back and sent a pic to a mate of mine who's one of the bailiffs. Sure enough it was one of the named fish known as "the Don". Needless to say I was absolutely buzzing and decided for the rest of the session I'd put two rods out on a spot I'd been pre baiting with some 15mm Salamino boilies and chill for the rest of the session. 

About an hour before packing up I was rewarded with one more for my efforts. Caught using a 15mm Salamino wafter on a size 6 Hex gape hook over a handful of Salamino boilies. Happy Days!