After watching this fish swim around for a few hours, I decided he looked game for a battle. A gem of information from my dad meant I changed the set up from gravel to silt, a slightly longer e.s.p ghost hooklink, a few more turns behind the hair to give the hook a more violent kick and reduction of lead size to 2oz.
I mapped his path, and stuck a pva bag full of ‘Krill’ boilies and a single ‘krill’ hook bait next to the pads on his route.
Watching the fish saunter along the line of pads, my heart started to race. He stopped straight over my bait, picked it up, and started head banging to reject the rig that had just snared him.
With one beep of my buzzer I was in.
In such a small area I couldn’t give him an inch. Locked up and praying to god, ‘yellowbelly’ came clean out of the water, tail walking like a Marlin. Thrashing like a  maniac, I held on for dear life. The second best fight of my life came to an end with my father netting my personal best, carp @ 30lbs on the nose.
Fishing doesn’t get much better than that.