This is the day when it all came good for me, I got up early on a summer’s morning around 7am and got my stuff ready and got my bike out, trying not to wake any of my family up. 

The day looked good there was a mist with the sun pushing through. I got on my bike and cycled to the river Lea in Hertford, where I found a swim which looked very carpy with two big trees over hanging and one little spot under the tree to fish and bait.

As I got my rods out of my rod bag and put a Scopex Squid Robin Red boilie on both rods with a PVA bag of halibut pellets, I swung one right tight under the tree on the spot.  The other one went in between two moored boats on the far side.

I put the rods on the rests and turned the buzzers on. About 8-9 minutes later my bobbin start to go up and down very quickly - I strike and I’m in. This fish powered up stream stripping line from the spool and finally I got it under control.I could see it in the water and it didn’t look that big and around 10 minutes later she was mine. I began to lift the net and realised it was a big one and was very heavy to lift for me on my own!

I was amazed, I was staring at the second biggest common in this part of the River Lea. I unhooked it and rolled it into the sling. I could barely lift it up and the scales went around to 18lb 2oz - new PB - I was over the moon. But it didn’t stop there - as I moved around trying to look for some more fish, I found another great free swim which looked promising right by a marina where the boats were all moored up. I moved in there straight away and bingo about 12 minutes later the bobbin hit the top, the rod tip hooped around and off it went - a screamer!

I picked it up, it was another hard fighting fish. It took me all round the marina under boats and I could not stop it from taking line so strong.

Then finally I got it in front of me and landed another great fish this time a mirror that tipped the scales at 13lb. I recast and it went quiet for a bit so I threw some more Scopex Squid boilies in.  Just 20 minutes later I saw some bubbling and then it happened and the bobbin fell to the floor. I connected with a fish which didn’t feel that big and, sure enough, as I brought it over the net it was a common about 5lb but they all count.

A hour passed without a touch so I decided to move the rods around a bit and put one by some wooden posts in the water and left one by a boat. And that was the right place to put them because a little while later, BANG! all hell broke loose.  One bite alarm went off which was the one by the posts – I was playing that when the over bite alarm scrambled off!
I got into a bit of a fiddle but in the end I managed to get them both in. Both commons one 9lb and the other 12lb.

That was it for the day but what a day it was!  No-one else caught apart from me. I packed up about 2pm and went home. I put my success down to the tackle I was using which was 2oz Nash inline distance lead with 20lb Ultrasilk and a Nash Fang size 8 hook.