SEALINE NAME - Chris Shelton
DATE - 08/12/2007
CATEGORY OF CLAIM - Freshwater (stillwater)
SPECIES - Common Carp
LENGTH - 1 metre
WEIGHT - 7.72Kg
LOCATION - A private dam in the Durbanville Hills
TIME - 16h30
ROD, REEL, LINE, BAIT USED - 5# Greys Missionary, slow sinking Cortland 444 6# wt fwrd line. Fly- self tied newly christened 'Hot Spot Scud'
COMMENTS ON CATCH - South Easter was pumping and I saw some splashy rises in the windward corner. Casting straight out over some tall reeds with the wind in my face with my 5 weight Greys Missionary was impossible, so I waded in about 5 metres from the corner and did a short side cast to where I saw the rises, gave the fly a 3 second countdown and proceeded to figure eight the fly back to me with a slow twitch/pause retrieve. On my third twitch there was a solid resistance and my line started tracing an arc towards the deep water. I was left in no doubt that this was a big fish and since I had no landing net with me, I had many anxious moments trying to lip the fish. Every time I got him within arms reach and tried to grab his lip, he would shake his head like a bulldog, slip from my grasp and speed off in the opposite direction again. I was by myself with nobody to help me, so it was quite a thing. I eventually got him up alongside me when he was a bit more tired out and managed to get my hands under him to pick him up. I have another photo which I managed to take while playing the fish where his head broke the surface, and the fly is visible in his mouth for those of you who don't believe me that I caught him on fly. That is not all though, I caught 3 more before last light, all on the same fly fished blindly.
