Darren Allain lands ‘The Patch’ at 31-07

I am delighted to report the capture of one of our ‘missing 30′s’, known as ‘The Patch’ and this time with a decent photograph! This is the first time, as far as we can tell, that this particular Carp has been landed this year.

Darren Alain, who has been enjoying a holiday fishing break with partner Michelle Brien in Osprey Lodge at Cherry Lakes for the first time , landed this impressive male Common on Wednesday afternoon having baited an area heavily with a mix of pellets and spod mix, sweetcorn and cut up boilies. A small pink pop up over this groundbait did the trick. Darren now becomes the latest member of the Cherry Lakes 30+ club. Well done Darren.

As you can see from photo below the fish is definetely looking lean and mean, and yet still weighed in at 31-08. We would expect this fish to be at least several pounds heavier if caught later in the year. Darren caught 5 Carp during his stay, including this very attractive and distinctive 24-00 Mirror below.

As indicated above, there are a number of the bigger carp which have yet to make a visit to the bank. We think we have seen these fish, for example the ‘Broken Mirror’, and they may have been caught without us being told; but it is clear that a number of them are proving to be quite elusive. Some of these Carp have probably been hooked and lost (as we do have a relatively high number of big Carp reported as having been lost) whilst others might simply have become harder to catch. Nevertheless we are hopeful to see these Carp on the bank during the autumn amongst a ‘good run’ of Cherry lake 30′s. Time will tell.