A couple of personal bests this season

The problem with blogs is keeping them up to date and I seem to be falling behind with this one. It has been nearly a year again since I last recorded anything and my entries seem to becoming sparser and sparser. Not that I haven't been fishing! This season has been a good one for me as I had a personal best carp of 12.5lb at Park Farm Lakes, Hockering:

This was on the 22nd July 2018 - a hot day that started out as a family fishing trip to the lakes. For most of the day I had been with my brother and his two young boys and a friend of the eldest. We didn't really catch much all day and certainly found it hard to catch any carp. I think the boys were finding it hard to sit still and concentrate! My poor brother was run ragged! Later on they all left and I carried on on my own. I think I had a decent 3lb+ bream before this common fell to a krill carp bait float fished near some water lillies. I only had 5lb line on my reel and so the fish took 20 minutes to land!

More recently I have been fishing for pike again with my mate Tony. We have been oscillating between Wroxham (fishing between the road and rail bridges) and Neatishead Staithe. I have had success at both locations (5 pike in all) and yesterday (the 11th February) was the best when I hooked this personal best pike at Neatishead:

This was a 12.5lb fish and was caught towards the end of the day at 5.10pm. Tony had caught an 8 pounder before I arrived at about 2pm.

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2019.