Teenager Conor Young caught his first ever 20lb plus carp whilst fishing overnight at Swan Lake. His fish was a 23lb 8oz mirror carp that put up a desperate scrap for nearly 30 minutes before being finally landed. Conor’s fishing companion, Kaleb, was well pleased too landing two big bream weighing 12lbs and 10lbs. Another teenager, Brad Hollidge, recently caught a 20lb 2oz mirror carp from the lake using a pop-up boilie.
Yanis Spalis has fished at Gingerbread Lake for the past two years but openly admits that it has been a bit of a struggle to get to grips with the lake’s big carp. However, this year Yan had already banked a couple of good-sized carp but was still anxious to catch that elusive 30 pounder.
Since the spring floods, all of Gingerbread Lake’s known big carp had been caught with one notable exception, ‘Cluster’, the lake’s record mirror. The doom and gloom merchants were beginning to speculate as to whether the big fish may have escaped or even died. Ian Warner was able to put their minds at rest though when he finally caught the fish weighing 41lb 3oz together with another big mirror weighing 25lbs. Ian Fisher has concentrated on fishing swims often neglected by other anglers and his tactics reaped huge dividends for him in the form of two 30lb plus mirrors caught on the same day. The two fish weighed 30lb 4oz and 31lbs respectively. Polish angler Slawek ‘Figo’ Figura caught another of the lake’s sought after residents, the cut-tail common carp weighing 29lb 12oz. Another big mirror carp weighing 39lbs was caught too thought to be the fish known as ‘The Lookalike’ or ‘Cluster Clone’. Keith Hoggett reported catching a stunning brace of fish on pellets, a 10lb 4oz bream and a surprise 20lb pike.
Ian Fisher baited a quiet corner at Gingerbread Lake that had received little attention from other anglers. He fished the swim the next day and was rewarded with the capture of a 24lb mirror carp. Later in the week, he re-visited the swim and caught a double-figured carp too. A few tench were caught during the week including a 5lb 12oz male tench by Dave Holland. Dave found bites hard to come by and very finicky. John Murphy had a surprise catch when a 13lb 5oz pike picked up his bait intended for carp.
