Testing Times

Darrell Peck reflects on a superb start to 2017 and some exciting times ahead.

- Darrell Peck

I started 2017 over on the Bayeswater syndicate lake and it was tough going early doors. The last bite had come the previous September and it wasn’t until the end of February that it did its next. Luckily that bite fell to my rods. I had just fished through the big winds of Storm Doris without success and, on a hunch, I relocated to the back of the wind as it subsided. Four short zigs were spaced out to cover as much water as possible and within an hour a 38lb common lay in the bottom of my net!

Over the following four or five weeks I fished Bayeswater as much as I could. The fish were all falling to zigs which, although I like to think I can turn my hand to anything carp related, is certainly not my favourite way to angle. The going hookbait was unflavoured black foam and many of the bites came during darkness... work that one out, eh? It takes a lot of faith to sit behind suspended unflavoured black foam on such a tricky lake, but during March I had three more thirties before deciding to knock this lure fishing on the head.