Baptism of Slime.

 For some time now I have known about the ever increasing capacity of waters in their catfish stocks, catfish being a species I have had no interest in, at all!. BUT! I am one to try my hand at just about anything and if I fail first time around I'll often get straight back on the horse and try again.

 Thankfully, the lake I visited is quite well known ( Charlie's Lake, in Ashford ) for its obscenely healthy population of slugs ( a term often used for catfish ). With lockdown still in place I made a booking a week or so in advance to put myself in with the chance of catching one.

 Fast forward 1905 on the Saturday evening....I had already banked two. That wasn't too hard was it now.

 Within ten minutes I got a one-toner on my LH rod and proceeded to land a 20lb 9oz specimen which was backed up by a 19lb 8oz catfish. With both catfish in great nick I admired them both before gently cradling them into the lake to roam free once again.

A twenty to ease me in with. 20lb 9oz.

 Sport then did ease up as it took me an hour and a half to register a third fish, this being my first thirty pounder ( 30lb 12oz ) and boy those larger specimens are a different gravy, longer more drawn out battles and more forceful lunges/runs to bankside vegetation and treelines, which in turn did give another dynamic to the battles which I can happily say I endured more of.

 As the night closed in on us we were in for an interesting night as the bigger fish seemed to come on the feed. Between 2247 and 0145 I had four fish with three over thirty pounds with the biggest just missing out on the forty pound mark ( 39lb 9oz ). That was interesting holding it up for a photo! Not quite a chub or roach.

The benchmark has been set.

 After a ( 33lb 5oz ) cat I took the opportunity to have a kip and woke up around 0615, twenty minutes later the LH rod yet again tore off and locked into battle with the second smallest of the trip ( 17lb 10oz ), but then I did suffer a proper lull in action as my next bite didn't come until just after midday ( 17lb 12oz ). By this point I was already very happy, I do have to confess mind you that having come so close to "forty", I now wanted to achieve that.

 Every take I had from then on I was willing for it to be a lunker and although I had had some very good fish already I wanted more. Not unusual for me it has to be said.

Finish it off with a thirty, why not. 30lb 10oz

 Then as we approached the final sector of the trip a few more fish came my way and as the gong went a ( 30lb 10oz ) slug slipped over the cord to give me a final total of an astonishing 337lb 1oz bag of cats. Not bad for about 16hrs fishing if you factor in the shuteye.

 20lb 9oz   1901
 19lb 8oz   1905
 30lb 12oz  2036
 28lb 1oz   2247
 32lb 2oz   0005
 39lb 9oz   0045
 33lb 5oz   0145
 17lb 10oz 0635
 17lb 12oz 1206
 21lb 13oz 1305
 22lb 6oz   1358
 16lb 2oz   1615
 20lb 4oz   1640
 30lb 10oz 1818