Almost nine months have passed since I last wet a line on the lake in early February, when I managed to extract a PB Mid-40 and a low 30, much to my delight on my birthday. I have not fished between bookings this year to give the Carp a rest from angling pressure and have been biding my time since our last anglers left in mid-October, waiting for the perfect day to present a bait

Such a day arrived on November 1st, very mild overcast conditions prevailed, with a strong south-westerly blowing across the lake. The air temperature recorded 20 degrees Celsius and the water temperature a ridiculously high Autumn reading of 14C. Plenty of areas in the lake were showing fish activity, particularly the spots where I regularly introduce food.

One of these places, a hot-spot christened the ’Hole' by one of our regular customers, would be where I would start. This particular spot is next to a large canopy of mature bank side Alder trees that overhang the lake by some distance. The actual area to present the bait is though a hole in the vegetation on the very clean hard clay lakebed below.

The plan of attack was to be stalking with a minimum of tackle. A month earlier I had purchased a lovely little rod I noticed in one of the French sports superstores over here. It was a third off its normal price and I just couldn't resist buying it for future use by our customers for 'lighter' work on the lake. The manufacturers Garbolino call it the 'Ossau' ( I think it's named after a River) it is designed as principally a Trout rod for presenting natural baits. It just felt right when I put the three sections together in the shop and had a play with it. Matched with the Ossau would be my trusty old Shimano Stradic 3000 with very reliable clutch ( little did I know then how much I would need this later) loaded onto the reel was a brand new 200 metre spool of Platil Strong line in 4.35 kg breaking strain, 9.6lb in English money. The Carp in the lake are getting a bit wary of lines, so a low diameter 0.22mm, supple but robust mono would be just right for float work. Choice of float was a Sensas balsa bodied 3g model with wire stem, shotted with 2AAA about 10 inches from the hook, a Drennan specimen barbless in size 10. The rig would be set slightly over depth, with the bait on the bottom

Well, it was now 1pm and I was just about to leave the house to make a start when our phone rang. On answering, it transpired that friends of ours with their two young children had just broken down in their car, could I come and pick them up and take them home? Well of course I could, it was no problem at all, but in the back of my mind I realised this could eat into my 'perfect' afternoon, with my float fishing approach I only had so long before dark. Much colder weather, with high pressure was forecast for the next day and the remainder of the week. The rescue was made in record time and took 2 hours, I was back home for 3pm, which gave me plenty of time before dusk. But it was now pelting with rain!

I approached the 'Hole' very cautiously making my footsteps a light as possible and immediately introduced 2 small handfuls of sweetcorn to the side of a leaning Alder tree trunk about 2 metres out. After only a couple of minutes the float started ‘bobbing', I struck, but nothing. This happened again a few minutes later, another missed bite. The 3rd time the float started travelling along the surface, when I pulled the rod upwards it met with very solid resistance, I was hooked into something that felt very large indeed

The fish moved slowly and steadily to my left, just as well really as if it had gone right, under the large leaning tree, it would have been extremely difficult to control. Line started peeling off the clutch on the tiny reel as the beast powered along the margins and the Ossau rod took on a very alarming curve. At this stage I was rather 'pinned in' between the big tree to my right and 3 smaller trees to my left. I decided to pass the rod around the 3 trees to get a more open position to play the fish in. This I achieved with some difficulty, the line on the rod getting caught on a couple of small branches and pinging off by the tension caused by the big fish on the end when it freed itself. While carrying out this manoeuvre I had lost concentration slightly and the unseen lump was now a good 50 metres to my left and the line was caught in another overhanging tree about mid-way between man and fish. luckily, after about 5 minutes of the line grating through the branches, it came free and I was attached directly to the fish once more. Determined to keep the brute away from the marginal tree roots I kept pulling the rod out into the lake trying to encourage what was on the end to move to the open water.

Another 10 minutes elapsed, the Ossau was doing a fantastic job considering it's only designed for Trout, as this creature was no Rainbow or Brownie! I managed to bully the fish a bit and get it in front of me, as I did this it past right along the margins below my kneeling position. I got a good look at it and could see that I was attached to some seriously monstrous Carp. It reminded me of the scene in Jaws, when the 2 guys say ' its a 20 footer..... no a 25'! ( sorry, I'm getting a bit carried away!). This was the only stage of the fight when I panicked a bit, as I now realised how big the fish was, that I was very under-gunned and the bruiser was heading for the roots of the large Alder tree to my right. I really had to put the brakes on and hope, this I did, and amazingly everything held and the Carp was back in front of me again.

Half an hour had probably elapsed since hooking the fish and its runs were now getting shorter and less powerful, could I at last be winning? I decided to give it one really strong pull by exerting as much pressure as I dare with the rod to try and coax the weighty specimen to the surface and towards the landing net. This started to work but it resulted in the fish travelling at speed just under the surface towards the net, the rod did not quite have the power to get the fish right on top of the water for proper landing. With the fish still powering towards the net I made the split second decision to turn the landing net at right angles to the water’s surface, not something I have ever done before, but fortunately the tactic worked, the bloater went straight in!!!

I looked down into the landing net and admired the gorgeous Mirror Carp it contained. I noticed the 4 large scales in a row on the tail root and the 4 'falling' scales below the dorsal. Fran, the biggest Carp in the lake was mine! I let the fish recover in the landing net in the margins while I contacted Val on the walkie-talkie. My opening line.........' You know I said , what are the chances of catching Fran out of 200 plus other Carp in the lake, well.........................My comment was met with the words ' no way!'