One more night pays with forty

Faced with a flat-calm lake and no signs of fish, Pat Jordan was all set to pack up before this lake-record mirror arrived.

The Cambridgeshire rod had endured a biteless two nights but decided to stay for one more and hit the jackpot with the 41lb 3oz specimen on his final morning at Lake Geneva at Nar Valley Fisheries in Norfolk.

The 48-year-old fencer told Angling Times: “It was fishing really slowly, the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction and it was just really stagnant. I was going to pack up the day before but decided to stay one more night and this was my first bite.

“I was packing up on the Friday morning and my right-hand rod gave a bleep. I looked up and thought it was a bird – I was watching out for a grebe when the rod starting running off nice and slow.

“I was fishing about 150 yards out so I went back up the bank to try to get as much line out of the water and away from the weed, and luckily the fish swam towards me. I drop the lead every time there so it came to the surface but it wasn’t until 40 yards out that I saw it and my legs started shaking!”

Pat, who has also banked carp of 38lb 8oz and 30lb 4oz from the venue in recent weeks, added: “I knew it wasn’t a small fish but I certainly wasn’t expecting a forty!”
He fished a tight bed of CC Moore boilies on a bar in about 4.5ft of water at long range. He used a critically balanced hookbait on a long hair tied to a short hooklength.