Leon explains;

“After arriving at my local syndicate, Riverton I opted to set up in the deeper water. The lake had been fishing very tricky, and it just seemed to have switched off for the last couple of weeks. To add to this, there was a cold snap coming in, and I just knew I had a tough session ahead of me.

“With the gear in the swim, and some spots found, I positioned my rods, these were armed with two on Krill wafters and one on a Mulbz Pop-Up, with 40-50 Krill Active freebies over each rod. With everything done, it was time to sit back and watch the water as it got dark.

“No sooner had everything settled and my right-hand rod was away. This resulted in a lovely mirror, and a good one at that, weighing 36lbs 1oz. My session couldn’t have started any better, and my trip was already made! I was confident of another bite, even with the temperature dropping, but the rest of the night passed uneventful.

“The following morning, I awoke to a hard frost and the lake looked incredible, but also really dead. I saw the morning out with nothing to show for my efforts. At mid-day I decided to re-do all my rods, along with topping up with another scattering of Krill Active over each rod. It was a very quiet day which seemed to soon past. Just as it started getting dark the fish started to show and in numbers too. I could hear fish through the night and was feeling confident of another chance in the morning. Night bites seem to be very rare on Riverton, with the majority of bites coming in the day for whatever reason.

“Once again, I woke up to another cold and frosty morning. With the kettle on, I sat back to enjoy the sun rise, when out the blue, the same rod was away! Straight away this felt different and I could tell it was another good fish, staying deep, over the deeper water. After what felt like an eternity, I finally started to gain some line on it, catching a glimpse of the tubing I could see a huge shape underneath it. At first, I thought I had one of the big mirrors in the lake. I was in total shock when I finally had my first proper glimpse of the fish and it was a massive Common! The next 10-minutes felt like hours as the fish had other ideas, trying to take me from one weedbed to another but eventually the fish was finally tired enough to net, and in she went. What a moment, and one I will never forget.

“All the hours of blanking were soon forgotten about, as I looked at one of my target fish in the net, I was totally blown away with it. After a quick phone call to the owner Carl, he was soon down to help me with the weighing and photos of the fish. We couldn’t believe it when the scales settled on a massive, 47lbs 2oz. Not only a new personal best for me, but also a new lake record comm­on for Riverton.”