So what else have I been up to? Well, I’ve been across to Belgium a few times recently, as well as several trips to the south of France, oh and not forgetting about a magical return to the mountains, you could say I’ve been busy!  All this and not forgetting my English fishing as well!

Of course I’m busy with magazine work each month, but my passion as many of you will know is special old carp and each year in the spring I love to fish for a special fish, preferably one that’s not known about to all and sundry, because big fish attract numbers of anglers . This spring was no different on that front. I’ve written about the capture of the old Italian from a Colne Valley pit elsewhere, so I won’t go into too much detail, but late last year I found out about the capture of a very special old carp, the type of which are now rare - a huge understatement in this instance as the fish is pretty much the last of its kind. Since the capture, I’ve discovered that the fish is in fact an escapee from the legendary Savay lake. During the storms of 1988, the lake flooded into the river and the lake lost fish into the river Colne, which runs alongside one bank of the lake, including some of its most famous residents. Interestingly, I spent several years chasing these escapees in the grand union canal many miles from the lake nearer London where they eventually ended up - no doubt some of you will remember stuff I’ve written in the past about those days.  Now although I’ve only recently  found out that the old Italian was indeed a Savay fish, I always had my suspicions because of its strain and obvious age, so it was nice to have my suspicions confirmed.

The lake where the fish ended up is a small forgotten club lake surrounded by very popular carp waters, so the fact it had gone undiscovered was a miracle in itself! The biggest hurdle to me was obviously going to be gaining a ticket for the controlling club and then getting to and from the water without drawing attention to what I was up to! With so many carp fisherman around these days it’s hard enough finding fish like this to target and it’s even more difficult planning a campaign without having it ruined, so I pulled out all the stops and went the extra mile by being very careful about coming and going while I prepared a swim.

As with all fishing, timing was paramount and I spent a month baiting a couple of times each week in the middle of the night before the start on the water. During the very first night of the season I not only caught my target, but also the vast majority of the other big fish in the lake - I was a very happy man indeed!

Of course in a few words it can all sound so easy, but when you consider that after the event the lake became very busy, you can see that I was right to go to such great lengths to keep the mini campaign under wraps. That all happened at the start of April and up to now(mid Nov) there’s only been a handful of fish caught from the lake despite it being busy, so I was wise to keep it low key!

Right that’s all for now...I’m off fishing!

Be lucky

Nick