Three Forties in Three hours - Tom Stokes

The Spring had already been kind to me in the previous week’s, but one trip in May turned out to be particularly productive.
I turned up on the Thursday with four whole nights ahead of me. Despite my best efforts, the first two nights turned out to be fruitless, but then a stroke of luck in disguise eventually put me on some fish.
I had moved into a swim known as the Murder’s, I had done well to get in there, as it was a popular choice in Spring. A fresh Northerly had sprung up and the fish were showing out there; long on the end of it. It looked really good for a bite or two, until disaster struck.... or so I though at the time!
Basically, to cut a long story short, the wind intensified, the weed growth below the surface was higher than I expected, and unfortunately, despite several attempts, my little Baitboat just couldn’t make the range in those conditions. Frustrating at the time... Especially with fish still showing out there!
So I decided there and then to cut my losses and pack up, although there was obviously fish out there I couldn’t see the point in fishing the swim if I couldn’t reach them. So I packed up quickly and headed up the other end, right off the back of the wind to a swim I had done a lot of time in the past and I was familiar with. Although I hadn’t seen anything here I knew I could get my rods out quickly and efficiently for the night and at least I would be fishing effectively come morning.
As it happens, the previous afternoon’s nightmare turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as in the early hours of that first morning I caught a lovely 38+ mirror, I also heard quite a few through the night as well so there was obviously a few about.

The following day the boats came out early, meaning I had to reel in for the day, but as I had caught one and heard a few throughout the night, I was more than happy to stay put. That evening I recast all the rods, fishing the middle rod slightly further than I would of done usually, as the fish I had heard the night before sounded that little further away than what my rigs were. Everything went smoothly and I settled down for my final night in anticipation....... but never did I anticipate quite what was to come the next morning.
I overslept, missing first light, instead I awoke at 5.30 am to a bite on that middle rod fishing slightly longer, this turned out to be a 41lb mirror.
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Mirror rolled into the net. This one weighed almost 43lb, 42.14 to be precise. This made my first brace of 40s and as you can imagine I was buzzing, but it wasn’t to end there.
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Three more bites followed in quick succession. One i unfortunately lost when the hooklink parted on an unseen snag, but the other two I managed to bundle into the same net, both being mid-20 mirrors.
So at that point I had four fish waiting to be photographed when the left hand rod was away again!
I could tell this was another good fish from the off, and with two twenty pounders already sat in the net I was a little unsure what I was going to do. I did consider letting them go at one point, as maneuvering the net into position with two fish already in there is by no means easy... especially when every time you let go of the handle they’re trying to swim away with it!. But with a little patience I somehow managed to bundle yet another big mirror in there with he’s two smaller pals.
I didn’t weigh the two smaller fish, estimating them to be around 23/24lb, but incredibly the third mirror weighed 41lb 15oz... I couldn’t believe it, a hat-trick of 40lbers in just a few short hours!
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I managed two more bites later that morning, both mirrors again at 31 and 27lb, so in total I had eight bites, landing seven... plus the 38 pounder I had landed the previous morning. Quite an incredible haul for that lake, and having fished there for almost four years now I had never experienced anything quite like it before, and I doubt I ever will again... a true red letter day!
All the fish were caught over large amounts of 14mm MC Nut, with ‘Untouchaballs’ on simple hinges fished over the top due to the Crayfish issues.
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