Belated Frank’s Blog – I did it on my mobile!

A bit belated guys as my laptop crashed and won’t boot up. I just hope I can get it repaired without losing all of my photos from over the years.

After having a new personal best UK Mirror of 48.8 from Emperor lakes in South DevonI decided to go back on the 600 mile round trip with my son Guy for another bash. We were buzzing with excitement all the way back down on the long drive, listening to fishing podcasts always makes the miles fly by. As we were guests of the lakes owner our great friend Dave Lidstone we decided to share a swim so we were not intruding too much on Dave’s syndicate members swim options. Using 2 rods each we found the fish after a good slow lap of the lake and settled in. We opted to fish on silt rather than gravel areas as we knew that’s where the carp were feeding on naturals as the bubbling gave the game away and a quick lead round confirmed this. I wont labour the point but it was super successful Guy and I managed 15 bites which is pretty exceptional for that venue. I managed the biggest fish of our session a tad under 35lbs which was a fish well over 30 years old it reminded me of the old Savay carp – Guy did his usual with some stunners including a fully scaled beauty. All fish fell to bottom baits tipped with Pineapple and N butyric acid plastic corn.

My next trip out was to my Cheshire syndicate where I had in the back of my mind “ The Scar common” one of 3 fish I was yet to catch. Its elusive and big very big. It was a frustrating start to the session as the lakes Tench and stockies were ravenous and were constantly tripping up on my rigs. 6 tench and two stockies later and a stunning 28.14 two tone fully scaled mirror, my right hand rod had strangely not budged I had a gut feeling to leave it in place and see what happened. First thing in the morning after the second night I had a slow hefty take on that rod. How I landed that mental fish I will never know it was like a raging bull, it hit two weed beds, a big patch of pads and was exploding on the surface going mental. My knees were shaking as I finally netted it.I opened the mesh to see to my delight there he was the Scar common a big male. The weight was 44lbs 4 a ridiculously big common for my home county of Cheshire.

The next big trip planned was to make a film in France with Prologic at the stunning Meunier lake. This gorgeous venue is situated In Limoges central west France. Four of us were on the trip Ed Bettridge, Simon Dew my son Guy and IWe split into pairs Ed and Si got the lakes house swim which was prudent as they had all of the camera gear to keep charged and dry for that matter as heavy rain was the predominant forecast. I wont ruin the film which is out at Christmas but it was hard work but very rewarding as we were snag fishing mostly which never lets you sleep well as you have to be on the rods instantly. We got several soakings and were sleep deprived but what glorious carp they were ill show you a few. Yet again wafters over catapulted freebies tipped with my old faithful Enterprise corn tippers doing it for me and Guy.Yet again Guy got the stunners ( nothing new there then ;)). The big common was on two grains of plastic only with dried sweetcorn and mixed pellets in a PVA mesh bag where Guy stalked the common close in.

Tight lines

Frank