“I’ve only been specimen fishing for a couple of years after getting into it through a good friend, and I’ve slowly been working on upping my PBs for various species”

One of the targets I set myself for the winter was to catch a big roach.
I’d previously caught them to around 2lb but that was back when I was almost exclusively fly fishing, but the syndicate on the reservoir I was fishing allowed members to coarse fish through the winter.

After doing a few sessions on local pits rumoured to contain big roach with not much success I decided to take a trip to a southern gravel pit with form of producing some massive fish.
I kept a keen eye on weather conditions and noticed a fairly mild low-pressure system coming so took the day off work with a friend and headed south.

Well what a decision that turned out to be after a quiet morning fishing closer in I decided to cast the feeders a bit further out where I’d actually seen a cormorant come up with a roach.
The conditions got better and better and as the light levels started to drop and around 3pm I had a take on my right hand rod and nervously played what felt like a good roach.
Safely played, netted and weighed at 2lb 5oz – target achieved!

I sat back absolutely made up but the best was yet to come.
Probably 45-50 minutes later I received another take and bent into another fish that felt heavy, although it wasn’t until it popped up near the net that I really started shaking.
It was a lot bigger than the first fish and my mate did the honours with the net.
I couldn’t believe the size of it and was absolutely speechless! We got the weighing gear ready and put it on the scales and at 3lb 4oz this fish was beyond my wildest dreams. A true fish of a lifetime that completely blew me away. Both fish fell to maggot feeder tactics fished helicopter style, 8lb mainline, short fluorocarbon hook links, size 16 Drennan wide gapes and red maggot hookbaits.”