Record Breaking Fish

[Golden Paws]

We all like to read stories about fish of monstrous sizes. It seems every lake contains a whopper that a few people have seen but has never been caught. Some stories are told by respected anglers which gives them some credence, others by younger and more inexperienced anglers and the size gets higher by every pint downed!

Twice in my angling experience I have "witnessed" fish that would make the record books but on both occasions I realised that all was not what it seemed.

The first was whilst fishing a water in the Cotswold Water Park fishing on Hills Pit. At the time it was crystal clear and I would stalk tench by watching them pick up my sweetcorn baits fished on a float and well over depth for a bit of casting weigh. One day whilst fishing I caught sight of a fish coming along the marginal shelf. My jaw dropped, it looked absolutely huge, far bigger than anything I had caught previously. I watched it for a good 10 seconds and couldn't believe how big it looked. As it got closer, something didn't look quite right and then I realised it was actually two tench swimming in perfect unison but about a foot apart and they had overlapped giving the impression of one big fish. They literally swam under my rod and continued on their journey, oblivious to the near heart attack they had given me.

The second was on the Throop Fishery on the Dorset Stour. Again the river was crystal clear and I saw so many big chub that day that 5lb'ers seemed to be the norm. I fished an area called the Highbank later in the day and it gave me a superb view of the swim, I could see every bit of gravel on the bottom. I put out a couple of droppers of hemp and corn and the chub downstream seemed to notice straight away. I cast out another dropper and a chub of record breaking size appeared from the streamer and made a beeline for it and ate the hemp out of the dropper before the current could take it away. My knees knocked and my mouth went dry at what I had just witnessed. Then as I looked closer, I realised that is was a silvery common carp probably just into double figures and I managed to calm down.

 

There must be countless tales of similar events or unexplained mysteries that turned out to something more explainable, anyone else got any? 

[B B]

I was fishing the taff close to Cardiff castle for the Mullet small float 5 lb line, bread on the hook had a couple Mullet when the rod almost gets ripped out of my hands played what was obviously a record Mullet for 15 mins running up and down the bank... turned out to be a Babel of 4lb hook clean in its mouth. 

[harpz_31]

15 hours ago, Golden Paws said:

I could see every bit of gravel on the bottom

if the water was that clear how on earth did you mistake a carp for a chub ?

[Golden Paws]

2 hours ago, harpz_31 said:

if the water was that clear how on earth did you mistake a carp for a chub ?

I wasn't expecting to see Carp on the Dorset Stour and it was only a few seconds before I realised my error. If it was a mirror it would be evident straight away but being fully scaled, it did look a bit like a chub. I bet many fishing "stories" of large chub could be pale carp.

[harpz_31]

Bit of a double take moment lol

I had 1 of those when I spotted what I thought was a bream in formation with a shoal of barbel in fast shallow water and on closer inspection I realized I was right first time and it was a bream