Orellana can be a cruel mistress and has a habit of beating you up until you are physically and mentally drained and wanting  to give up before she will relinquish her prizes and this trip was no different… At 15000 acres and nearly 30 miles long with very limited access its a challenge at the best of times but this year even more so..

2 weeks of awful weather big cold easterlies for the first week, then one day of sun before a big change came in from the south bringing 45mph winds…

We made 4 massive moves covering over 15miles from the mid section to the top and back again, one day actually towing  Dan’s boat behind mine for over 6 miles while he did a shop run just to get to a new area.. we managed to locate a few fish but they were soon gone and we would once again be on the move, catching a few along the way but only small fish..

Our last move on Friday was back to the middle section to find an area on the end of the big weather front coming in from the south on Saturday morning. The lake had been busy up until now but the area was all free and the locals clearly didn’t fancy being out on the lake with the approaching storm and for good reason lol. Saturday morning was total carnage with all our rods being ripped off the spots within an hour, 12oz leads rolling like pebbles on a beach!! We spent all day watching just hoping for a break then just on dark she eased off enough for a mad dash to get the rods out.. That evening we made a lovely roast chicken dinner on the cob and chatted about how the storm had to have brought a few carp into our bank when my rod in the weedy bay screamed into life… A long dash over the rocks  and I was bent into what felt a good fish buried deep in the weed, slowly bit by bit I could feel the strands of weed breaking off and she headed in my direction. I was in too minds on what to do I wanted the boat but it was 50y up the bank so I just kept it coming, by the time Andy and Dan arrived in the swim that point was gone, there was just one small weed bed 20 yards out to deal with. Luckily this caused me no problems at all an she was soon close to the margins, she popped up under my other rod and Andy shouted out it a good’un mate, I walked it back still none of us knowing what it was, but as she slid over the cord all was revealed to Andy… I will never forget that look on his face his eyes looked like they were on stalks “its a Linear, A fucking big linear what have you just done” were the words… My head was gone I just screamed out in the dark of just pure relief and joy at landing an Orellana 1 in a 1000 fish… I was such a state I double sacked the fish and cable tied the zips to make sure my prize was still there in the morning!!! Several bottles of wine were then sunk by me and Dan before I drifted of into a hazy sleep… Then if that night couldn’t get any better Andy was at my door in the early hours screaming like a kid at Christmas  about a massive common in the net… unreal!!! The following morning will live with me as the best i’v ever had when fishing, not only to see the fish I’d landed but to share the same feeling with your mate with another massive carp on somewhere like that is just priceless and worth every moment of pain she puts you through…. 2 fish for 107lb!!!  52 and 54.12

We ended up leaving a day early as another big storm was due the day of pack up and we would have been stuck not being able to get back to the van. But as with all these trips there’s always one at the end and I was greatfull to land a crazy 36lb common with lips like Jagger just before pack up!!