Hail Mary

As a member of 'The Bake Brigade' (Robbie's imaginatively gifted name for our group of fishing friends), I naturally have great love and affinity for Bake Lakes in Trerulefoot, Cornwall. Robbie runs the place as a family venture with his Dad. It's a simple commercial Fishery really that gives the tourists, who travel down to East Cornwall in their thousands in the summer, something to do when not getting their pasty nicked by a seagull. It's a place not known for 30lb Carp or 8lb Tench (yet) but it's a place where if you do things right you will always catch a fish.
It has a variety of lakes ranging from the large - Luxor, to the small - Canal. It caters for the child on his first ever cast and the experienced old hand who's making his hundred thousandth. Personally I have caught all the species there to catch including some lovely Tench and a personal favourite - Gudgeon. The Gudgeon in Luxor particularly grow to near record size, admittedly that isn't a large fish but to anyone who's caught these delightful fish in a natural river as a child, these fish that gorge on the feed intended for Carp are of a superb average size.

So, to my most recent fishing trip on home ground so to speak.
I had a rare half day at work and finishing early I was determined to go fishing. I had been really quite ill for a week or so and another day in front of the TV was not a desirable option. I packed up the carp and float gear and made my way to Bake along with my long suffering girlfriend Ellie. We arrived just as a very heavy rainstorm was passing through, not inspirational. Blue sky was on the horizon though so we set up on Luxor as the rain dried up. I baited up the margins either side of our peg with pellets and boilies and put one rod in each spot. Ellie had the left and I had the right. I see a lot of people cast out miles on Luxor and catch very little, the fish are not shy in there and feed more readily from about a metre out. I find this is the case with many commercial fisheries. Probably as a side effect of so many anglers chucking left over bait in the edges when they finish. We also had a float set up each with Red Maggot to keep us occupied in the cold. Soon we were catching lots of Rudd and Roach as predicted, warming up our chilly limbs. The weather decided we weren't quite cold enough though and hammered it down with hail. Ellie ran to the car, I decided to stay and see it out (persistent if not very clever!). Just as the hail reached its peak the left rod's alarm made that beautiful sound of a running fish, I picked it up and with the hail bouncing off my jacket and making the water boil, I played my first Mirror Carp of the year. It was a humorous exercise, I laughed out loud at myself for how crazy I looked, soaked and freezing cold with a plump little Carp tearing around in the water before me. I got the net under it after a spirited fight and with the fish still in the water I called Ellie. The hail was easing now and she came up to take a photo. Frozen, me and the fish posed, it was around the 5lb mark, not a remarkable size but the conditions had made it very memorable and I was a happy man.

We proceeded to catch numerous small fish including a couple of those specimen Gudgeon I love so much. My right rod then went and a slightly larger fish was landed, I lost another soon after. The hail soon returned though and after a couple of hours fishing we headed home, truly frozen and dripping wet. It was a hugely entertaining afternoon though and added another sub-species to my Challenge list, taking me up to 9 now.

Thanks for reading as always.