Manor linear out at 41lb 6oz

Nathan Bailey christened a new set of rods with the capture of the largest carp in Essex’s Manor Farm syndicate.

The Reading angler has dedicated his summer to targeting the famous water and was rewarded by taking a spawned-out Northern Linear at 41lb 6oz.

He explained: “With the venue being so far away and having a nine-’til-five job in IT I’m pretty much limited to booking time off as holiday to fish the venue. I like to do these in chunks so I can keep in tune with the lake for that period of time, so with this in mind I booked off Monday to Wednesday off for five weeks running, starting from mid-July.

“On my fourth session I arrived on Sunday evening and decided to go in a swim where I had seen the carp at night in recent weeks, and with the added bonus that it wasn’t fished the night before I thought this would be a great starting point.
“I decided to double up the rods on one spot on the exact area where I had seen them and put out a kilo of bait fairly tight at 30 yards’ range.

“At midnight I had a very twitchy take. I reeled down and lent into a carp which gave a decent account of itself. When I lifted the fish out it certainly felt heavier than first thought. When it was on the mat I was a bit baffled about what fish it was, but was obviously over the moon when it registered a weight of 41lb 6oz.

“After a good look with a fellow syndicate member it turned out to be a very spawned-out Northern Linear, which is normally the biggest resident – result!  This was my first trip out with my new Greys Isoflex rods, so what a fantastic way to christen them!”