39lb 2oz mirror carp starts winter campaign for Leon Bartropp

Leon Bartropp couldn’t have asked for a better start to his winter campaign, landing this cracking 39lb 2oz mirror from a Kent stillwater.

It was only the Gardner Tackle and Mistral Baits consultant’s second session on the venue and followed the capture of a 33lb 10oz mirror and two mid-twenties a week earlier.

Targeting a silty gulley between two large weedbeds at 40 yards range, Leon offered a 15mm Mistral Baits 4Season pink pop-up hookbait over a scattering of free offerings.

The following morning he received a steady take but was weeded up by the fish early on in the fight. “Everything went solid and for 30 minutes I couldn’t budge it. I kept the pressure on, though, and it eventually popped out of the thick weedbed,” he told Angling Times.

“The rest of the fight was fairly straight forward and once I got it on the bank I recognised as Bruce’s Fish. I was delighted to land this one as it is one of the lake’s ‘A-Team’ and was one of my target fish for the winter,” he added.

Leon put his faith in his favoured multi-rig presentation, which he constructed with 25lb Gardner Chod Skin and a size 4 Chod hook.