CLASSIC CHRISTCHURCH
31st August 2021
Ben Talbot continues his great run of form on the Linch Hill complex, with two classic Oxfordshire mirrors!
The variety of carp strains in the UK is one of the most diverse in the world, we are truly blessed to have such a varied range of carp to fish for. Over the decades, certain fish have become synonymous with specific venues and even entire counties and perhaps the most famous and recognisable are the fish of Oxfordshire. The classic strain littered with scales along with a perfect body shape is widely regarded as one of the best of all time and Linch Hill still has so many fish following this fine lineage. No strange to the complex, Ben Talbot has been slowly working his way through the magnificent stock and as such it came as no surprise his most recent session bared fruit!
Utilising a combination of fresh tuna and a mixture of rich, pelagic fish, Pure Fish Liquid has been designed to have a superb nutritional profile that offers superior levels of natural attraction.
“I arrived at the pond, knowing it’d been fishing pretty tricky the last few weeks, so I was up against it a bit. With conditions not looking to good, I decided to continue where I had left off a few weeks previous. In terms of my approach, I decided to fish a swim that would give me a good view of the pond for the following morning to locate the fish if I wasn’t on them already.
“My confidence grew a little as I started seeing fizzing in the area while setting up. To try and avoid the obvious, I decided to fish off the gravel, where I found some nice areas close to the weed which the carp seemed to be using. Sticking to my usual approach, I baited with Krill Active, soaked in the new Pure Fish liquid before casting Blowback rigs over the top.
“I went to bed optimistic about my chances, and as the morning broke my middle rod tore off and following a short fight I had a long, scaly, classic Christchurch mirror filling the net; buzzing! The rest of morning passed by uneventfully but without seeing anything else to go on, I decided to stay where I was and repeat the process for the following night.
“The liners throughout the night barely stopped and I was kicking myself thinking I had maybe put all my eggs in the one spot basket and should have gone with one rod a bit shorter. That was going through my head all night, until around 4:30am when one of my alarms lit up my swim and I was into a fish. It felt powerful from the get-go but after a few hairy moments I finally managed to net the fish and I was happy to see it was one known as Four Scale, one of Christchurch’s real good ones. You really have to earn your fish this time of year down there and I went home satisfied that I had done just that after catching a couple in what is a testing period on there.”
