Catching my first UK forty!

Well, true to this one's name, it blew me away.

I recently returned from a trip to the beautiful Hacche Moor fishery in Devon. We had booked to go there for a bit of a social with some of the Carp Particles UK team.

Setting off from Oxford on Thursday morning, my husband and I were understandably full of anticipation and excitement, not just to be out angling for the weekend but for time to ourselves after a very, very long summer holidays with the kids!

Now, we knew there was a big weather front coming in; the forecast was heavy rain, thunderstorms and wind. With this, the air pressure was also taking a drop too, going from around 1022 right down to 1002 (or something very similar) ... this was exciting, not just because of the obvious, but also because it was the harvest moon weekend too! Conditions and the time of year could have been any better; surely, we were in for a big one?

Just as we were coming into north Devon, the heavens opened and the rain was hammering down. Even with the windscreen wipers on full blast, we had a job to see through it! In complete contrast to the rest of the journey, down the M5 and through Bristol, it was like the Costa Del Sol!

Upon arrival at the fishery, we met up with the rest of the gang, who were booked on with us for the weekend and took a walk around the lakes. There were nine of us fishing across three small, intimate pits. We were quite lucky, as for the most part of the walk around, the rain eased off. The first lake we walked around was "Jakes Lake," the smallest and youngest lake, which holds a healthy stock of beautiful carp up to around the 29lb mark. The second lake was the "bottom lake", the biggest of the three, which houses around 140 carp, many of them being perfect scaley mirrors, and I think they go to around the 35lb mark in there. The final lake to take a look around was "Top Lake." This is the one that really got me excited. With around 57 carp, many 30s and two definitely over the massive 40lb barrier, this was the one! Well, hopefully... we needed to do the all-important swim draw yet!

We finished the walk around and I was just hoping I would get a spot on that top lake. While walking around, I saw multiple patches of fizzing and even a subtle show; this just helped me make up my mind! Marcus, the owner of CPUK, had a bucket of numbered ping-pong balls. I was the first to draw my ball, and I couldn't believe it... I pulled out number 1! Which is crazy because I managed to do the same last year too!

I chose my peg on the top lake and placed myself right down at the bottom end of the lake, where I had seen some activity when walking around. Once the gear was in the swim, I was itching to get the rods out. But there was only one problem... I had no line on my reels as I had just collected some new ones!

I chucked the bivvy up in the rain, got everything in and then proceeded to spool up my new reels. Once this was done, I rigged up the rods one by one. The first one went out lovely. I was fishing just to the side of a pipe, which sat just in front of a bed of Canadian weed. I opted for a bright pink scent from Hell Pop Up on this one, the only reason being that the water seemed very coloured due to all of the wind and rain stirring up the bottom. Just as I was finishing up sorting out my second rod, the bobbin on the first one pulled up tight and then dropped back down again shortly after. Usually, I would be happy to leave the rig in position, but I realised that I'd had a bit of a calamity and didn't put any putty on my Ronnie. What a rookie error! I know the pop up would pull the hook up too, as it was a very buoyant 15mm on a size 6 hook.

Anyway, I decided to pull the rod in so I could get some putty on it and get it back on the spot. I picked it up and went to reel... There was a bloody carp! I got the fish halfway in and then the hook sadly pulled. But I just couldn't believe it. The guys who fished this lake last year never had a touch in the whole 72 hours; for me to have a bite within around 15 minutes of the rod being out, I thought I had struck gold!

I checked the point; it was as sharp as can be, got some putty on and managed to get the rod back out on the spot. I also managed to get the other two out as well, with no more calamities, which was a result.

Everything seemed to be looking good. Until that evening, when my mam called me with the extremely sad news that Queen Elizabeth 11 had passed away. I had never thought much about how I would feel when the queen died, but I found myself feeling surprisingly upset. I even shed a tear or two!

I went outside and stood by my rods, looking over the lake, just processing the information, I guess. Out of nowhere, the same rod that had the bite earlier in the day was away. The take was very slow and the rod barely even moved. I picked it up and was just hoping I could land whatever was on the end.

At first, there wasn't much of a battle. I got the fish right over to my side of the lake with no trouble at all. It broke the surface and I knew then that I was into something special. The carp was almost at the net cord when it turned and just bolted. He led me on a right merry dance after this, finding pretty much every clump of thick Canadian weed around me, hugging the lakebed and just refusing to give in. After a while, I managed to finally get him in the net. I stood over it and just stopped. I knew he was big, but I didn't yet know how big!

I FaceTimed my husband Ed, who was down fishing the bottom lake. He reeled his rods in and came up to help with pictures, etc. However, when he got there and realised just how big the carp was, he put a message in our little group chat to everyone else who was there. A few more of the gang came up and one of the lads, Sam, recognised the carp. He said to Ed, "That's the big one." We gathered around Sam's phone screen, comparing the carp in the net to the photo, and he was right. It was the bloody big one! The biggest fish in the lake. The Bullet!

This fish was on my radar, but having been caught a few weeks before our trip, I kind of wrote the idea of catching him off.

Once everyone else arrived at the swim after reeling in their rods, we got him out of the water to get him weighed. He tipped the scaled round to 43 lb. and 10oz. I genuinely could not believe what I was seeing.

Sadly, after this, everything is almost a bit of a blur! All I remember is how immensely incredible this fish was. Just solid, immaculate mirror carp! I also had difficulty wrapping my short arms around the fish in order to capture a decent image. Luckily for me, I had plenty of people around to assist me, both in getting the fish up safely and also getting some incredible shots too!

I had a few buckets of water launched at me and then let him go back to his home. I'm not usually one for this, but I did give him a kiss and thanked him for gracing my net before reluctantly letting him go.

Once the madness was over and everyone else returned to their own swims, I sat on my bed with a glass of red wine and just tried to take in everything that had gone on that day. What a whirlwind, my first ever UK 40, a memory I will certainly never forget.