Darrell with his new PB, The Peach at 57lb
As you can see by the above picture the fish was a special one! Keith had heard we had a big fish in the cradle and therefore wanted to see which fish it was and how much it weighed, the above picture was one of the pictures Keith took on his camera. Keith witnessed the weight of the fish and was very pleased to see it at it's highest weight, it's not one that get's caught very often and as can be seen, it's in perfect condition in every way. After the release of the fish congratulations came from Keith and a celebration beer enjoyed by all present.
After Darrell catching his amazing fish, it all went a bit quite, we had a few of the 'new breeds' during the day, these were the carp that had bred in the lake two years previous, these fish average 2-4lb and although not that welcome when trying to catch the big carp, does show that the future looks very good for Moorlands. The next action came Thursday night/Friday morning, at about 3.30am to be precise. The left hand rod that was still being fished to the corner of the forest bank and southern arm sprung into life with the Delkim receiver next to my pillow giving me a very early wake up call. Although this fish didn't feel like a monster it gave a really good account of it's self and it was a good few minutes before I felt completely under control, it made many lunges and short runs taking line in it's bid for freedom. After a couple of shouts to Darrell for his assistance with the net (to no avail) I managed to net the fish myself in the inky black darkness, the fish was secured in the net while I went to Darrell's bivvy to give him a shake up for some help. With a rub of the eyes Darrell was to hand with the camera and scales, the fish weighed just short of 30lb but it was one of those fish which look as though it will put weight on but not in an obvious way, it was long lean and mean, with a big broad tail!
Long lean and mean at 29lb odd
After a cup of tea is was back in the sleeping bag to get a few hours more sleep, we were planning on getting most of the gear packed up after breakfast on the Friday. It's always a tough job trying to pack all the gear away before we leave for the long drive home on the Saturday morning. It was just after 9am I'd been awake for an hour or so the mist was coming off the water, no wind and everything looked good to have a shower and a nice cooked breakfast to set us up for the day. The left hand rod swung round, the alarm sounded and I was on it in a flash!! I had been getting into the water from the evening pitch, casting across the eastern arm to the forest bank, baiting up along the far margin with boilies using the throwing stick as we had seen a few fish show off this bank the last couple of days. I then had to wade back along the near margin reed bed, back to my swim to set the rod on the alarm etc. Obviously the angle of the line was far to the left, but luckily was able to miss the nearside reeds by just a couple of inches, after lifting into this fish it decide to keep going left and make it very difficult to play the fish from my swim. Darrell brought my chest waders to the edge of my swim and whilst keeping a tight line on the fish helped me get into the chesties without too much trouble. Once wearing the waders I was able to enter the water and continue to play the fish in a near normal manner, the fish put up a very good fight in the shallow water of the eastern arm. After a few minutes I was able to coax the fish back infront of my swim, get out of the water and allow enough room for Darrell to net the fish at the first attempt. We could see it was a nice fish, not massive but a very nice fish all the same. The fish weighed just over 36lb's and had areas of very big 'apple slice' scales just behind the gills, after weighing and a few photos the fish swam off very strongly back to it's watery home. We had something to talk about over breakfast!!
36lb mirror
Breakfast tasted even better, after catching the 36, all in all we hadn't done too bad considering the lake had been fishing quite slow. The two anglers fishing the first and second pontoons had only caught a couple of the 'new breeds' each. Not too sure what the lads had caught down the southern arm but I think they had a couple each, nothing massive, low thirties I think. Gareth the guy fishing in the boneyard had one of the big girls, Benign at 61lb at the beginning of the week, so he was happy, he also had a couple more, but not too sure of the weights. I think it was either 13 or 14 fish that was caught during our week, so to have 5 between us was OK I suppose.
That was the final tally for Darrell and I, we managed to arrive at the airport in plenty of time for Darrell to catch the plane back to Sweden and I made the long journey south to sunny Spain without a hitch. Moorlands isn't the type of water to give up it's prizes too easily but the rewards are there for sure. Keith runs a good business at the lakes and will help in anyway he can. The food and hospitality are both good, however the showers could be improved, with only one currently available. It can sometimes get a bit tricky fitting in with the other anglers when to shower etc. The swims are more of the 'natural type' rather than big dugout, shingle or bark type of swims, some have a few steps from the bivvy area to the rods, which you have to be a bit careful of in the middle of the night when it's pouring with rain, but I managed it OK. The other slight criticism would be that the swims in the main bowl are a bit cramped with other anglers directly opposite if occupied. Would I recommend Moorlands to others? My answer has to be a yes, I would for sure, as I have said there are some very big fish in the lake and the pro's outweigh the cons in my book!