Wes revealed:

“I first noticed this particular carp around two-years ago, when I was scrolling through social media and it really did catch my eye, it was such an incredible and unique looking carp and I had to find out more about it.

“Luckily for me it turned out that the fish lived in a lake that’s only five minutes from my house; how’s your luck! After a bit more digging, I managed to find out the name of the syndicate, and more importantly the person who ran it. James, the guy that runs the lake turned out to be a friend of mine on social media and after a few chats he said it wasn’t a problem getting a ticket. I was buzzing to say the least.

“With a head full of potential plans and excitement of seeing the pit for the first time, I couldn’t wait to get down for my first trip. It was the 1st of May when I ventured onto the pit, I was greeted with a lovely, unique looking venue of around 4-acres in size, relatively narrow with a couple of islands in it. There was also a couple of big snag trees which had fallen in over the years, and subsequently became a favourite area for the fish to spend a lot of time in.

“Stock wise, the lake held around 100-carp, all lovely dark fish with plenty of character. But, for me it was all about a fish known as The Half Lin, a long fish with a tiny tail and a very small mouth, jet-black in colour and around the mid-thirty mark too! It almost sounds too good to be true, but he was out there somewhere.

“The syndicate itself is not really that busy, and so with this in mind I decided to bait a swim and really concentrate most of my efforts in there. With the lake being so close to my house I could bait up most evenings, keeping everything consistent and always feel in tune with the lake. With the severity of the weed, I made the decision to use lots of particles and Manilla boilies to try and get the fish to clean spots off and get them visiting areas regularly with confidence. This worked perfectly and over the summer months I’ve caught nearly every time I fished, and I was making my way through the stock nicely, I just knew the Half Lin wouldn’t be far away.

“On my latest trip, I baited the zone heavily with Manilla and fished pink Signature hookbaits over the top, I was confident that a bite was on the cards. As the sun rose the following morning, I received the bite I’d been waiting for and after a spirited battle the Half Lin was mine! I was blown away and with the help of a few of the lads we weighed and photograph the fish, the scales spun to 35lb, and the pictures came out bang on. Happy days and on to the next adventure.”