Page #3

 We frantically "Bivvied Down" as the sun was rapidly setting and scrambled to prepare for the night. Now at this point I have to mention that I had spent the previous hour 'spodding' my swims. My wrist was about to fall off and I hadn't even gotten my hook baits into the water. Utter panic set in as I tried to arrange as quickly as possible all of the gear that had previously been carefully laid out and was now sitting in a heap after having to tear down the Bivvy.

I had that feeling of utter lack of control which I hate when fishing. It's the kind of feeling that you get when you just KNOW that your bait is not where it should be and something just tells you that should be 2 feet to the left and you. Do you move it, are you just being paranoid? You know you are not going to catch.

Well, I was running around like the proverbial chicken with no head. I did eventually get everything together and just cast in over my bait before we lost the light.

I put on an extra layer of clothing and walked over to Karl and his wife and we joined Debbie and Dave for a cup of tea. There is nothing quite like the taste of Tea or coffee sitting by the waterside waiting for a run. We spoke about the events of the afternoon and again, were grateful of the mild weather.

Not long had past and we heard that familiar tone of a fox alarm. We all jumped up and looked to Karl's rod to the immediate left of us - thinking that was where the offending noise was coming from. No little red LED's in the darkness.

Hearing the alarm still singing in the background I then realized it was my rod. I started sprinting towards my swim overtaking Karl who was already off the mark and running towards the rods.

"On your left my son!" I yelled running by him with adrenaline pumping through my legs.

There it was, the left hand Rod screaming away with the blue Euro swinger and alarm LED glaring and screaming at me. I hit pretty hard into the fish and realized that it had taken quite a bit of line. I also realized how out of breath I was from the sprint and that my left leg was cramping up!! Reality set in as my leg cramped up and I realized that, even though I had held my school record for the 100 meteres sprint.....I wasn't 14 any more.

I couldn't really tell what the size was as I had never fished at this distance before. It was all very new, obviously a lot of give in the line but I could feel it was a carp. I was used to hooking a Carp in the margin, feeling direct contact and and having it tear out towards the other side of the pond. Not the 'Ocean !'  I drew it closer and we saw it was a common carp of roughly 8lb. Never the less it was putting up a good scrap.

"Come on then," said Aussie Dave "Stop messing around with it and bring it in !"  with his typical sarcasm.

I laughed and landed the fish to 'congrats' from everyone for the first fish of the day  and returned it to the lake.

I re-baited and cast and realized that it was starting to get quite cold. It was a clear night and because there was no cloud cover the temperature started to drop. We all sat around and chatted for a couple of hours and then returned to the night to our respective swims.

The hours past and I heard various bleeps coming from Dave's swim but no real runs. It was just past 11 o'clock when my right hand alarm gave a quick 'blip' I looked up out of my sleeping bag and noticed the blue LED. I laid back down to another blip. Then the alarm started to go off intermittently. I jumped out of the chair and struck into the fish. There was something on but it felt funny. I heard a splashing and in came a 6lb catfish flapping around on the surface, as they do, looking quite bloody scary if you ask me. Now I don't mind catfish if they are over 10 lb as they can fight quite well. But when your aiming for your PB and a 6lb cat comes flapping towards you it is a bit of a let down. I returned him, ugly little bugger that he was, and re-cast.

I had been using some PVA bags that Nigel had given to me the previous week and had just figured out how to use them correctly. Here's a tip, when you're twisting the PVA bag around the line, it's better if you don't hold the PVA string in your mouth !!!!! I had to learn this the hard way (How do you do it Holmes - I hear you ask !! ).

Debbie had a twitch on her rod and I think landed a few catfish throughout the night as did Karl and Dave.

I was plagued with them until the early hours, biggest being about 8 lb.I eventually fell asleep at around 3 am.

I awoke to the sound of my alarm screaming off at about 4am and I ran towards it and struck. As I did so my right hand rod went off. I naturally thought I had crossed my line, not thinking that this was an impossibility as they were 50 yards apart, and thought nothing of it. I continued to play the fish on the left hand rod and noticed that the reel was giving out line on the right hand rod. While holding and playing the fish on me LHR an my left hand, I struck into fish number 2 on my RH rod. This posed a problem . I now had 2 fish on at the same time.
 "Dave" I shouted, "Can you help me out mate?"
 Aussie Dave being the trouper that he is wriggled out of his sleeping back and came over.
 "Look at  you !!" he said "Two fish at once, any good?"
 "I don't think so" I said, now sorry that I had woken him up.
"Gay fish?" He asked.
" 'Fraid so" I replied to his laughter.

 I passed him the right hand rod which felt like the lighter of the 2 fish (Well, you would wouldn't you !!) We both proceeded to land 2 more catfish. Cursing them for their lack of looks and fighting ability and returned them to the lake.

"That was about as much fun as landing a bream" said Dave laughing. I had to agree with him, the cats were really getting on our nerves at this point.

I was shattered. I hadn't gotten any sleep and it was one hour before daylight. I fell into an uncomfortable sleep, you know the one - too late to get enough and not early enough to stay up. I knew that it wasn't going to be enough.