Remembering is often hazy, it is over shadowed with excitement, gratitude or just the sitting back and understanding what just happened.
This one I remember well. It was 4:35am when a bleep on my receiver woke me, the receiver light flashed on and my clock lite up. Retreating back to the past 2 days, they had been uneventful, not a bleep on any alarm, not a tail slap or a swirl. 24 hrs earlier we sat through an awesome show of nature’s power. A thunderstorm that lasted well into the night, lighting the lake up like a acid house rave. Thunder banging through the trees, raining that hard that it was smashing the bivvy, wind ripping the leaves from the willows and Oak trees dotted around the illuminance water. 24hrs before this and we were having it away, with 6 fish between 60 and 85lb. All falling to Coppens halibut pellets and meat. No glugged pellets, scented or otherwise here. Being a believer in that this is not needed in the catting world, to much has left the Carp fraternity already.
Another 2 beeps, the kipping bag was flipped, the zip went down, sliders slide on, out of the door, solar light on and the rods were in full view. This is the time, these few seconds that follow are what Angling is all about, will it, won’t it, should I, or not.
One more bleep, hairs up on the neck.
Get a grip and wait, the CAT-TEX braided mainline, UPLOAD 0.55 pulled up and relaxed, pulled up and relaxed, one more bleep think quick, this ain’t no liner, rods out of the banks tick, nothing else matters now, only what happens when i smash this rod backwards into the still darkish sky. The strike is met with a feeling of solidness! Which only means one thing! A stale mate for a few seconds, followed by a blistering run, nope you aren’t going there. Pressure, rod half down, never pointing at the stars, go again, pump, with this sort of gear your are not the boss. I am. There will be none of this “christ! It’s heading to the hills” get in control. The Fish soon realised this and that it was being maneuvered by a hook hold like no other than the NAMAZU – NLS hook by CAT-TEX . It Kites to the side, then comes up, swirls, slaps it tail and the battle is now firmly in my favor.
Cranking down and holding the spool I start to pump the rod and soon cut the 80yard distance to half, then 3/4’s.
It’s up again Swirling, then down burrowing into the silt. It then holds bottom only 2 rod lengths out, a dangerous time for some tackle. However the @cattexconnections and #hydraleader are not going to let this one leave this battle early!
In front of me this colossal English cat lies.
Seconds later and it is on the mat, I am standing over another UK 100lb plus Catfish. I would say I struck hard into this fish that was mouthing the baits and free offering and for a second it did not realise what had happened, it was a gamble to strike at a twitching line, a few single bleeps. I could have waited for a screaming run but in my eyes that wasn’t going to happen as I had seen this behavior before on this said water and I had promised myself that I would do just this. Paying off massively, not only as a bonus fish but a 100lb+ Machine. As I was saying I hit it at around 4:40am and it was on the mat at 4:50am. STRONG AND READY TO DO BATTLE AGAIN .
I must point out that this was on a water where vertical rods are not in favor of the owner, so respect always goes first.
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Paul Teahupoo
CAT-TEX PRO STAFF “UK”