Greys Carp Academy member, Mark Holmes, has successfully captured his target fish, Blackeye.
At a weight of 52lb 6oz, the beauty was caught whilst Mark was fishing Home Pool, Chad Lakes in Gloucestershire on the weekend of August 15th.
Mark said;
“I always thought I was in with a chance of catching Blackeye, as even though he does get caught, every time I had been on the lake he never made an appearance! In fact, the first time I saw him out of the water, was just as I like it – In the bottom of my landing net!”
With time at a premium and a busy work schedule that took most of May and all of July out of the equation, Mark was concerned time was running out this year. However, his quest ended when perhaps the UK’S largest male Carp in the country took Mark’s float fished Prawn.
Mark said;“It is nearly a year to the day since Blackeye was caught on a piece of freelined flake by Mark Whitehouse, and I figured that at this time of year he would be more susceptible to being caught with a different approach.
“In view of this, during my latest session I kept flicking out prawns along the margins for 24 hours. On the second day, I tackled up with a float adopting a form of fishing called Stret Pegging which was actually developed for river fishing. It basically is to fish well over depth with the float practically lying flat on the surface. In actual fact I had it so the float was just cocked. With this method the line does not hang down in a straight line. About an hour after setting up, the float rose and slid away.
Amazingly I was using my new Torsion rods and the 2.75 TC was able to take the first surge of the big carp without tearing the hook out at extremely close range. After a frenzied few minutes, Mark Pitchers netted the fish first time of asking and told me I’d got him. I knew during the fight which fish was attached but put this to the back of my mind as I negotiated him around the weed beds.”
Summing up his feelings Mark said;
“To catch such a stunning Carp as Blackeye was a real privilege. Even though he was well over 50lb, the real attraction was to catch such a well-known sought-after Carp. He was my 42nd Carp from Chad and in a way I’m glad that I have managed to catch all the lakes inhabitants, except two, as the lake holds some absolute stunning looking Carp, before I caught Blackeye. There is so much more to Home Pool than just the main obvious attraction of Blackeye.”
