He told us “This is a large water with a low stock of crucians, but there are plenty of tench, which I expected would keep me contented while I waited for my target species to come along. On arrival, I set up on a bank where a few other angers were catching and began fishing a waggler in around 3.5ft of water.

However, with only a few small roach to show for my efforts, I felt this swim was a little too shallow, so moved around 40m along the bank to a deeper area where there was around 5ft of water. I float fished a double red maggot hookbait over a bed of Dynamite Silver X Roach, liquidised bread and a bit of Sensas 3000 Gros Gardons, and regularly loose fed a few maggots.

A few tench around the 4lb mark came to the net over the next few hours, alongside several roach and rudd before the swim went quiet. I had been fishing a 5AAA waggler, but as the wind picked up the lake became very choppy with lots of tow, I switched to an 8AAA.
I under-shotted this by one 1BB, then added an AAA shot three inches from the hook, which would sit on the bottom and anchor the float and bait in the tow. On this setup, the bite is either a lift or a positive sail-away. It was now 2:45pm, and I had about 30 minutes before I had to leave, when suddenly, the float slid away.

I connected with what I assumed to be another tench as the fish tore off to my right. I turned it and, once under the rod tip, saw a flash of gold. ‘A tench’s belly,’ I thought as it dogged out of sight in the brown-tinged water. Eventually, the fish was beaten, and to my amazement, a monster crucian surfaced. As I netted it, my jaw hit the floor as I looked in awe at the golden flanks wallowing in the landing net. At 4lb 8dr, it was truly the fish of a lifetime and a capture I don’t think I’ll ever surpass.”

Well done Nic!