As the months and trips had worn on, I had noticed that I never saw her from the trees with the other groups of fish, and when I’d seen them feeding together, she was never to be seen. It had started to make me think she acted a little different to the others, and maybe stayed away from the bigger groups of feeding fish and activity, as it turns out that did eventually seem to be the case. 

The trip last week panned out beautifully. The first two nights were with Stuart and his son James, the hope being to work on their spot finding and clip hitting and maybe have the chance of a thirty pounder. After a good look around we finally spotted a few, decided on the best options and plumped for one of the central points, having spent the afternoon working on finding some good spots amongst the areas of thick Canadian we settled in for the evening. Hookbaits were Krill Pop-Ups over a mix of 12 and 16mm Krill Shelf Life, crusted up in the usual GLM, salt and Krill Powder with a pinch of corn and some tuna in oil. The next two days produced a total of 11 bites for the three of us, with James banking the pick of the bunch in the form of a lovely deep, Italian looking 31 mirror. A new PB and a mega way to finish the trip, he was made up! 

The next night was spent with a chap called Malcolm, again with a focus on weedy water angling and the hope of his first thirty-pound mirror. This was a trip we had had to rearrange from earlier in the spring due to spawning, so it was only really chance that we were there.. it also happened to coincide with the peak night of the New Moon. 

After spending the evening getting Malcolm’s rods set sweet on the tiny spots out in the weed, I got mine sorted as the light started to fail. Before I’d got my third in, the first was away, producing a lovely scaly low twenty. We shots a few pictures quickly in the fading light and got her back, I whipped up another rig and just about managed to get all three in before dark. After dinner and a good few rounds of tea we turned in. 

At around midnight, the left hander pulled up tight, and started ticking off slowly. Night bites are a real rarity on Junction so it took me by surprise. It also didn’t take me long to realise I hadn’t set a net back up after the dusk capture either so after fumbling around I was finally back in control. The fight was a bit different to all the others, she stayed up above the weed, but felt really slow and heavy, and it wasn’t until she got closer that it dawned on me that it might just be the big girl. The swim is awkward, flanked by reeds and so I flicked my torch on, only to see the the flank of a huge mirror wallowing in towards the net. 

Thankfully there were no dramas and she went in first time. After giving her five minutes to recover I was keen to do the shots quickly as it was an incredibly warm, still night and knowing oxygen levels would be low I was conscious of getting her back as quick as possible. Malcolm helped out, blown away by the size of her, and did me a sterling job of the shots in difficult conditions. To my amazement, she swung over 50 when I first hoisted her up, but it settled on 49.04 after steadying her on a bar, a lake record by a big margin and a right result!

Hookbait was a balanced 16mm Krill, tipped with a bit of yellow and fished over around a kilo of 12 and 16 millers and some Bloodworm Pellet.

To round the trip of perfectly, both Malcolm’s carefully laid traps were sprung that morning, resulting in a beautifully scaled and well-proportioned 31lber and another just an ounce under 30. I added to the tally with another last minute 31 and in retrospect, it was just one of those trips that was meant to be, especially as by rights we shouldn’t have even been there that night anyway.

Whether it was chance or not, the fact that she came off a spot on Junction 12 that is rarely, if ever fished, and at a time well outside the norm made me think she does act a little differently to the rest and my earlier hunches had been right. Either way, sometimes you just need a little luck as well!’