I started fishing from an early age of 8 and have carried it on for 13 years of my life and can honestly say its become more than a hobby, to me it is a big part of my life and who i am today. When i first started i had a small float rod catching rudd at only 5oz along with other small sized fish. Catching these i would use sweetcorn and maggots now 13 years on im catching 20lb + my biggest to date is a 27lb 11oz caught at my local water River Farm.

Back in my early days of fishing roughly a year after i started i remember having my float roughly 2ft out the margin when hearing my clutch screaming in my ear, I knew this was not going to be a small fish as a struck into it the rod tip bent over it was the first time i felt aggregation in a fish as it was fighting like a warrior as I managed to get it on the bank i then see it was my first ever carp which happened to be a common weighing 5lb that’s when I knew I had the fishing bug!

After catching my first 5lb Carp I asked my old man if I could start buying carp gear and he looked at me and said its expensive stuff son I then looked at him with a smile on my face and said carp fishing is going to be my new hobby dad so then of I went to buy my first ever carp rods and all the tackle after I had got all my gear I went to buy a club membership ticket where I fished for 8 years solid it was a little lake in the middle of no where with only a few decent fish in there with the biggest being 24lb after I fished it and caught all the fish out of there I then moved onto my local water river farm it was stocked with 20s and 30s it was only a lake with double figured fish in there I fished it for 2 years and I constantly kept trying to beat my pb and it just wasn’t happening one night I went down there and done a weeks straight fishing 7 days 7 nights I was setting up my bivvy and I suddenly heard a beep I looked round as saw it was my left hand rod so I carried on setting up my bivvy and it just screamed off I moved so fast I fell over as I managed to get up and strike into a fish of some size it bent my 3Lb test curve rod in 2 the line ripping of my reel I couldn’t stop it I then managed to get the fish in close and control it myself as I slipped the net underneath it I just dropped the rod because from the waters edge I could see it was a lump! I picked the net up and placed the fish into my cradle as I pulled the net from underneath I slipped the weigh sling in and zipped it up I grabbed my scales and zeroed them out as I lifted the sling up with the scales it read 27Lb 11oz at this point my heart was racing as I cracked my personal best by a massive 22Lb 11oz That’ll be a day I’ll never forget Is Catching my first ever carp and then smashing it with a greater weight.

Big thanks to Paul Fellows for writing this article