Leigh goes to Church

I’ve been waiting all year for this session to come around as you have to be invited to book a session on Church Lake. I arrived at the allotted time on the Monday morning and made my way around to the lake where my good friend and fellow Nash Consultant Mike Jones was fishing. After a quick chat he told me the fish had been moving on the back of the wind so I set up to the right of him where fish had been showing. Not wanting to spook any fish that were still in this area, I opted for a quick lead about instead of using the marker float and found an area of light silk weed between two thicker weed beds. So I clipped up my rods to this spot.

Both rods were then cast to this area about five yards apart at either end of the weed beds. These were baited with a single 15mm Scopex Squid plus white bottom bait tipped with half a homemade yellow 10 mm Scopex Squid pop up to balance rig and reduce the weight of the hook. My rigs consisted of a size 8 fang twister barbless fished blow back style with a two inch hair and a 24 inch long 20 lb missing link silt hooklink so that both rigs would lie on top of the silk weed. On each hooklink I threaded eight white chocolate Chain Reactions to reduce any chance of tangles and weed debris. The small channel between the weed was then baited with 250 15mm scopex squid boilies with a scattering of white specials mixed in and 12 spods of fishing wizard maple peas and naked oats.

That evening while we sat having a cup of tea, Mike spotted the sandy common in my swim which has been out at over 52lb so I sat there watching my rods excitedly most of the night. After a quite night the fish in this very special lake performed their early morning ritual of bubbling and lumping out all over the lake for the first hour of light. Then a very large common rolled over my middle rod so I sat on my bed buddy next to the rods in anticipation. Over the next few hours the big common showed its self 4 more times over my area and was really bubbling and slicking up in the swim. Then out of the blue the right hand rod burst into life and I was on the rod like a shot. The rig had worked perfectly, the lead had discharged from the Nash weed safe lead clip on the take and with a slightly tightened bait runner the fish was kiting to my left on the surface. I quickly shouted mike and he was straight into my swim and got the other rods out of the way and without any hesitation was straight in with the landing net and in it went first time.

I’d seen some big plated scales as the fish had gone into the net, but when we parted the mesh I saw the most stunning fish I’d ever seen let alone caught. We transferred the fish after checking all its fins lay flat to one of the many Nash monster cradles that are supplied around the lake. On the scales she went 31lb 2oz I was blown away, a credit to how the fish are looked after. This was my first proper session out for nearly a year after injuring my back and what a fish to come back with. After speaking to Alan Blair and Kevin Nash later on, apparently this fish hasn’t been caught for over three years and has only been out a few times ever so to catch such a special fish from such a special venue I’m over the moon and a capture that will remain with me forever.

Leigh would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike for all the help and stunning photo’s and to Kevin and all at Nash for making it happen.