Beautiful reservoir koi taken on the fly!

When 15-year-old Albert Coales and his dad, Rob Edmunds, went afloat on Grafham Water, the last thing they were expecting to catch was this vibrant koi carp, weighing around 25lb.

After a morning spent targeting the lake’s zander, the pair headed to a sheltered area of the lake for lunch, at which point Albert spotted the colourful fish feeding by some overhanging willow trees.

“I told him to leave it alone, but he really wanted to catch it,” Rob tells us,

“so he had a cast, but his fly ended up in the willows! I said to gently tease it out and, amazingly, it plopped perfectly on to the surface a short distance in front of the cruising carp.”

It didn’t take long for the fish to engulf the fly, and then it was game on!

“We were lucky that the fish didn’t head for the weedbeds, as Albert was using a light 4-weight rod,” Rob adds.

“As we brought it towards the boat the bottom became stirred up and we couldn’t see a thing, but I plunged the net beneath the surface and the fish swam straight in!

“Albert was delighted and wouldn’t stop talking about it!”

Albert Coales wasn’t expecting anything like this on his trip to Grafham