Saturday 8th March – My first boat session in the fens with Mark Barrett

Sorry it has been a while, but it has been rather hectic the last few weeks.

Today was a completely different session out in the fens. I was very fortunate enough, to be invited for a days session with predator specialist Mark Barrett after chatting to him at a local PAC meeting. I have known him a while now, but have never got the chance to fish with him until now. Obviously I snapped up the invite!

Instead of being on the bank, we were on his boat. Of course I was a nervous wreck, as I had never been boat fishing before, especially in the fens. A boat “virgin” as referred to by Mark. Completely different world!

First off we started in one of the back waters, leading to the marina. Mark had a jack and I had a 15ib pike. Which funnily enough, Mark had caught the week before! It then went quite and we moved to the marina itself. We fished the bowl first, which was more like a lake.  Mark had another jack, but I had nothing and his jigs tail nipped off by a zander. As you can imagine, Mark was’nt best pleased! We then moved to another part of the bowl, this is where the action started. First fish I had was a 6ib zander then a 8ib zander no more than five minutes later. Whilst were taking snaps and admiring the 8ib zander, the bait runner was going on the second rod and a nice jack around the 9ib mark graced the net. As you can imagine, it was quite fun trying to deal with a nice zander and a good jack at the smae on board a boat! We then went to the other end of the bowl. Mark had two more jacks on the lure. We then trolled across the bowl, and down one of the arms leading into it. No fish this time. Whilst motoring down to the next part of marina, we disturbed a nice shoal of roach and rudd. We stopped here for about twenty minutes and bagging up nice roach and rudd on the float. We kept a few back for live bait and carried on to our final swim, where alot of the boats are moored. I had a go at jigging which I had never done before. Absolutely loved it. I bagged three nice perch. One was 3ib, which smashed my pb. Mark also smashed his pb perch. He bagged one at 3ib.11oz, I have now decided to buy myself a jig rod. The jig rod went quite, so Mark suggested I try and catch a few more on the float, as this was sat around on the boat doing anything. Changed the hook to a size 8 and baited up with a bunch dendrobeena worms. Had a few perch and bagged my fish of a lifetime! We were watching the float and then it sailed under. I hooked into something substantial. Mark piped up and said “looks like you have a bream there”. I was fighting it and said “No it is’nt. It has red fins!” He didn’t believe me and kept on saying it is a bream! I kept quite as I knew exactly what it was when I saw it’s golden tinge. Any we got the net ready and Marks face was picture when it slid into the net. He said with a few explitives, “thats a rudd!” I laughed and said “I know, I just wanted to see your reaction!”.

Any we weighed it and it was a gorgeous rudd. All 3ib 4oz of it! We took a few snaps and I was in world of my own. Not only did have a great days fishing with Mark, I also smashed two pb’s!

As you can imagine we both went home, smiling like cheshire cats and discussing the events of the day. This will go down as one of my best days fishing in the fens for a very long time!

 

 

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