With only one week left before the Southern Park Lake was to be closed for a month I felt it was time to squeeze a couple more nights in and I arrived at the lake on a Monday evening to find the lake fairly quiet.
After a walk around I opted for the ‘Pissing Tree’ swim; I had seen several fish show between the islands in front of the swim so I cast two single pop ups to them as I got set up. I baited up one spot at around 80m range with Hinders’ sea salt hemp and Mainline Cell boilies and with my second rod I was simply going to fish a single Cell fluoro pop up at around the 120m range.
The night was quiet until first light when I hooked a fish on the fluro pop up and after a good battle I slid the net under a cracking looking mirror which went 22lb 6oz on the scales. As I started to pack up the baited area rod was away and after a somewhat scrappy fight I landed an upper double common, which I slipped straight back and got packed up ready for work.
A couple of days later the lake closed early due to the fish spawning so I switched back to my Essex syndicate for a while. I decided to drop back on for the following weekend and was intending to get up there for midday but with a load of dramas at work I did not arrive till nearly 5pm. I thought it would be packed but as I approached the car park I was amazed to see only three cars there – crazy for a Friday night!
After a quick walk around I dropped into a peg called ‘Jeff’s’, a swim I have fished a couple of times in the past. I placed my rods in clear areas between the weed beds and baited with Cell pop ups on chod rigs over a bed of mixed pellets from Mainline and Hinders and Mainline Cell boilies in various sizes.
Friday night was very quiet with no fish showing but at around 9am I saw a fish just to the right of my right hand rod; three more shows and I was just going to put a bait on the showing fish when my right hand rod was away. It was a monumental battle that took over 30 minutes with the fish nearly snagging me in the margins to my left on numerous occasions but eventually I got the upper hand and slipped the net under a good 30lb plus mirror, and on the scales she went 33lb 5oz.
I was well happy with that and I got the rod back out and leapfrogged my left hand rod to where the fish were showing. Thirty minutes later I was in again on the right hand rod and after another good battle netted a mirror of 28lb 3oz. The afternoon was quiet with no fish showing but just before dark I landed a 23lb 7oz common.
After another quiet night I started to pack up when once again the right hand rod was away and it was another tremendous fight. The result was a cracking common which went 32lb 3oz and made the journey home that much more pleasurable.
