Patience pays off for a personal-best grass carp

Grass carp are notoriously difficult to catch, but Mark Mole turned a frustrating day into a success when he set a new personal best for the species at 20lb.

Fishing at Shatterford Lakes in Worcestershire he had been forced to compete with the wind and local birdlife in a bid to present his floating baits before finally coaxing one of the resident fish to take his trimmed-down pop-up boilie.

“It was a really tough, tiring day as not only were the fish not really having it, but the ripple was making presentation hard and the ducks were cleaning up the pellets and dog biscuits as soon as they hit the water,” Mark told Angling Times.

“But finally I saw a pair of lips appear on the surface and I had a split second to react as the fish and strike into it as it wouldn’t have hooked itself.”

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