Gary Owen lands 3 x 30's in five hours!

I obviously jinxed it!

Only last Thursday, in my last update, I was saying how well the Carp had been feeding around the complex. The 'monsoon' which arrived around mid-day on Friday and lasted until late Saturday certainly changed things. Unfortunately for the anglers arriving for last weekend, the Carp switched off. The water temperature which was 22C on Monday was 16C by Saturday. The majority of the fall in temperature happening after the rain . Just like they do at any time of the year, the Carp responded to the temperature drop by 'disappearing' and going off the feed.

The Carp however knew the change in conditions were coming, because in the early hours of Friday morning, Gary Owen, fishing in Grebe Lodge, had a mad five hours when he caught three thirties in quick succession.

Gary Owen is one of our long term regulars. For this trip he was joined by Dave' The Cameraman' Shaw. The guys struggled for the first few days landing, from memory a couple each including the 25-08 Ghost Common and 22-12 heavily scaled Mirror (I will talk more about these later). Gary will admit to becoming a bit despondent when I saw him on Thursday evening as he had surprisingly gone 36 hours without a 'bleep'. By the next morning, his face told a different story!

I might have the order wrong here...........Gary's first Carp screamed off shortly after midnight. This one turned out to be a 33-08 Common. This particular fish has a distinctive scar on it's shoulder and was another addition to this year's 30+ catalogue.

Gary's next fish was a lovely 35-08 Ghost Carp, pictured in the lead photo above. This Carp always seems to have a 'big gut' on it. I hope it is this rather than that it is spawn bound. Gary holds a unique distinction for a Cherry Lake angler, in that Gary has been the proud captor of 4 different Ghost carp over 35lb in weight. I wonder how many anglers can claim this from English waters?

Gary's third thirty was the one which most caught my eye. At first I thought it was the Carp known as 'Houdini'. I was not sure. On closer inspection, this is another rarely caught Carp and is clearly not 'Houdini'. You can see for yourself by comparing the photos immediately above and below (Houdini is held by Kate Blake when she caught it in August 22 at 34lb).

This 34-10 Mirror is a new thirty for us and a further addition to his year's catalogue. A real bruiser this one, and a fish which I think is destined to be a fair bit bigger!.

Given that all Gary's Carp were caught in the dark or twilight, I just wanted to say what a great job with the camera Dave Shaw did. Recognising the fact that he was not catching, he joked that his role was to be Gary's cameraman. Hence his new nickname.

As indicated above Gary caught two very impressive 20's. Both of these lovely young fish are examples of our home bred and selected Carp which have been introduced into Cherry Lake. As regular followers know, we like to put 15 or so young Carp into Cherry Lake (normally between 4-10lb) each year. We do this to ensure we are replacing the Carp which die each year. It also ensures we have a good range of ages, and should avoid a situation where we need to stock with Carp from outside (and avoid all the risks this entails)..

Sometimes these smaller (under 10lb) Carp are caught. Whilst I appreciate catching a small Carp is not what an angler wants when fishing Cherry Lake, given all these lovely Carp are hand picked for their beauty, I hope any captors appreciate them for what they are.

Needless to say, well done Gary on your much deserved trio of 30's. Well done Dave for your humour and photography!