Michaels First Overnighter

We have recently bought Julz a new bed chair so we thought we would give it a test run before the Reels On Wheels French trip and as it is the school holidays we thought we would take Michael for his first overnight fishing session.

So yesterday morning we loaded up the Big Blue Bus with food etc and dropped Snoopy (the dog) off at the kennels. We decided to go to the lakes at the Manderson Trust, the same place as the Reels On Wheels festival will be held.

After we set everything up I decided to have a go with my new pole, I started off feeding maggots and using them as bait and had about a dozen small rudd in 15 minutes or so. On the advice of another angler who was leaving I switched to pellets and during the next hour or so had three or four nice carp upto about 1lb, great fun on number 8 elastic.

About 5pm Michael had a screaming run and hooked into a nice carp of just under 5lb followed in the next hour by two more carp of 7lb 2oz and 6lb 5oz, all of these were caught on a flouro popup.


So Julz and I each swapped one of our baits to match what seemed to be the ‘IN’ bait. Within what seemed to be minutes of putting my rod out there were a few beeps on my alarm as I got to my rod the lime screamed of the reel and I struck into what seemed to be a good fish, after a five or ten minute struggle I landed a lovely looking mirror carp which I guessed was about 10lb, when I weighed it I was very pleasantly surprised to find I had caught my new PB it weighed 13lb 2oz. So I was on a high as we settled in for the evening.


So after going to bed, Julz found the new bedchair far more stable and much easier to get in and out of so that was a great success. Well during the night there were plenty of fish moving with splashes all over the place and plenty of single beeps on the alarms as we all got line bites.

About 1am Julz had a screaming run on one of her rods so I jumped out of bed and struck into the fish as Julz struggled out of bed (as you may know she has MS which limits her mobility) just as she got out of the bivvy the fish got off the hook, so she struggled back into bed. At about 2am my rod (flouro popup) screamed off and I landed a nice carp which I didn’t weigh but guessed at about 8lb and an hour later another guessed at about 6ish.

We all got up at about 7am after a chilly night and started thinking about coffee and breakfast however the fish had other ideas so the next hour kept us running up and down the bank (well not Julz) Michael landed a 3ish lb carp followed very quickly by Julz with one of similar size and then it was my turn with a 7lber, just as I had got the kettle on for the first cup of morning coffee one of Julz’ reels started screaming again she hit into a good fish which on the bank went 11lb 10oz her biggest carp from this venue.


So we started to pack up in the lovely sunshine hoping for more but all of us delighted with our fishing trip.

looks like a great nights fishing I would love a night like that
well done Michael Julz & claire

Well if you manage to get to the festival it is being held at the same location so you could have a night like that

what a super nights fishing,well done all of you