Big Simmo from holes in weed

Ian Warner targeted small holes in the weed to bank Monk’s Pit’s Big Simmo at 48lb.

The Welling, Kent-based rod found small gravel clearings in a swim known as the Swamp and was rewarded with two 20s and the big mirror during a 48-hour session.

The telecoms engineer, who has enjoyed a fantastic season banking a string of big fish, was fishing just his fifth session at the Cambridgeshire venue.

The specimen mirror came at 6.30am and was the fourth bite of a session which also saw two fish lost.

Ian told Angling Times: “To be honest, I thought it might have been one of the lake’s big commons because it was an absolutely crazy fight, it was all over the place. But then it weeded me up and I had no idea what I had got in the net until I removed a few handfuls of weed.”

The 47-year-old was fishing to a couple of clearings in the underwater vegetation at about 60 yards and presented his Denham Baits’ Element snowman rigs on soft braid and ACE curved-shank hooks.

Each spot was baited with 30 free offerings and the fish were tamed on Free Spirit rods.