Davy Claus relays a tale of when unrelenting persistence and flexibility in his angling paid off.
Simon Kenny’s Welly Monsters
13th September 2019
Simon Kenny has experienced a superb run of big carp over the past few years, in particular since late last year when running into the Christmas period he landed not one but two winter 50’s! Well a change of venue this year has seen yet more huge carp slide into his net and this last trip was no exception. Simon gives us the details…
“As is my usual routine I arrived at welly on Sunday morning. The weekend boys hadn’t seen or caught much and after a few laps myself I was none the wiser to the carp’s location. The carp in welly can be hard to track down sometimes they don’t allows follow the wind and don’t always show. So for my first night I dropped in the little lake by midday the follow day I realised my mistake and I hadn’t heard or seen a thing so the gear went back on the barrow. While looking around I stopped in to have a cuppa with another member called The Doc and after about half an hour looking out from his swim I saw a monster common carp show – it was a long way away, probably 250 yards, but I saw it plain as day it glistened in the sun and sent up a big spray as it crashed back in. That would do for me – it had showed in front of the boathouse swim. I’d caught the Chinese common out of the boat house a few weeks before, and I knew a couple of lovely gravel spots so I could get my rods out with minimum disturbance. The rods were wrapped and went out first time. That evening I started getting liners on one of my rods, proper big slow ones all the way up and down. The welly carp may not show much but they give themselves away with the liners. Over the course of the evening I had 5 or 6 big liners and I was super confident. It was now well into darkness and I was just thinking about turning in for the night when I had another series of bleeps, but this time the line pulled from the clip and it was game on! I lifted into the fish and instantly was met with solid resistance. The whole fight the fish felt big, just slow and heavy typical big fish fight and the time I was thinking of that big common I was show. I saw the bulk of a massive fish go over the cord in the moonlight but as I left my head torch in the bivvy I couldn’t see for sure. Once I turned on my light i couldn’t believe the size of it almost certainly the fish I’d seen show the big common on the scales she went 55lb 8oz and set a new PB. I was over the moon.
I thought the fish had done the off after that as all the liners stopped but late morning the following day the middle rod busted off completely out of the blue. After another hard fight I had a good mirror in the margins. The next thing I know the other rod was melting off luckily another member was with me and he picked up the rod and managed to slow the fish down. After a few hairy moments I managed to land both fish. It was a crazy moment and I never expected to get a double take on somewhere like Welly! The first fish was the thick wristed at 45lb 9oz beautiful chunky mirror this one and really one I wanted the other was a 41lb 12oz Ghosty. That was all the action I had for the trip but I was proper made up, 3 fish for over 140 pound. I’ve worked really hard at Welly since getting my ticket and it’s lovely when things all come good.”
The bites all came to a Spinner rig using Tungskin booms, Curve Point hooks and our quick link swivels. These rigs were fished on 45lb Olive Camo Leadcore leaders and fished over a spread of boilies.
Superb Simon, congratulations on your new PB!