Ruddy Fabulous!

 

 With a start of the season planned in search of Rudd I have a few venues earmarked, these venues vary from narrow pacy waterways to wide expansive river systems, neither straightforward to extract the sized fish I desire. Now the target has been a three-pound specimen for a few years now from a river. Back in my youth I was lucky to have access to a public lake at the right time when a handful of old Rudd reached peak condition and weight where my father and I caught specimens to nearly 4lbs (my best weighing an incredible 3lbs 13oz with back up fish of 3lbs 11oz and 3lbs 8oz, where my father went one better with a specimen of 3lbs 14oz, unfortunately we lost these images from 1996 and were never found (the digital days are so much better for this reason!).

 But those moments in time are still etched in the memories museum forever. One day I hope to emulate that special time in my angling life once again. However on the rivers I don't think such specimens exist but you just never know. 

My first outing was on the glorious 16th of June and my task, to find a big Rudd! I only had a few hours as I had to collect the other half and kids plus spend a few hours at the beach to chill out. When I arrived at this specific location I was surprised to see how little had changed since I last visited, back then big Rudd existed and very few people knew they were present, I didn't at that time manage any massive Rudd but had a few good ones, but the reeds now are even bigger and very little access can now be gained along the windy narrow waterway, it really is a lovely looking piece of water and although after 5hrs I didn't see a single Rudd I did manage to locate a solitary Common carp of about 20lbs which after much persuading I did manage to hook and after an epic five-minute battle my fight was finally lost as the hook pulled, a gallant effort to get that far but thought the fight was nearly done and the net was readied, shame I could not get it over the rim of the net. 

 For the 16th, there wasn't to be a grand opening, so all eyes on to the 17th as I went up north in search of big Rudd instead. To somewhat familiar grounds where ghosts of epic proportions show themselves for just a heartbeat before vanishing to never being seen again. 

All cleaned and ready!

The new equipment for SS Rudd.

 So Brian and I set off yesterday morning for a couple days in the boat, boy was I excited, a new engine, new battery held much promise and it didn't disappoint, much more powerful, for much longer. I was having so much fun and the Rudd didn't disappoint as we both found good fish early on to 1lb 11oz but we were really hoping to find bigger fish, with plenty of smaller fish showing and long dead patches where no fish were present, the task was to try and find the small pods of big Rudd and once found to get them confident into taking the bread before the smaller ones could intercept it, a tough task as you couldn't get too close as it would put them on edge so it was a gamble each time as to whether the big fish stuck around or shot off downstream beyond our trotting capabilities (which happened often). 

Upper 1 in the bag :)

 But, a five minute spell unfolded that we have both dreamt about. We found some good fish rising at crust but we didn't see anything much over 2lb, but a couple of the swirls seemed to be made from decent fish, so we both trotted down to the "hot zone" where my float slipped away after the crust was steamrollered.

 Initially I thought it was a good fish but when it rolled about 20m from the boat as it headed for some lily pads I got a glimpse and I knew it was a very big fish and she wasn't coming in easily as I played her in and out of pads and thick eel grass before finally succumbing to the net and I breathed a deep sigh of relief, my best Rudd in years and a river PB weighing a superb 2lb 11ozs, that will certainly do.

EPIC!!! my best Rudd in 27 years!
And river PB.

 But that 5-minute spell wasn't just mine, Brian also got in on the act with a beautiful specimen of his own Brian' Report. It is these moments we make all this effort for. 

 We fished on for the remainder of the day up to 10pm where we still had a little light on the horizon but the mozzy activity meant we had to call it a night, by which point we were planning on doing Sunday (today) but the weather was not what was predicted and heavy rain / thunder and lightning storms meant we had a decision to make, either risk it and stay out for Rudd until it got to risky or wrap it up last night and back home which reluctantly we decided upon, somethings are not worth risking and yes there was no guarantees it was going to be terrible weather, however I think we made the right call and will go back up in a couple weeks in search of more!!!