Was on Grafham on Monday, the fishing was fairly tough but I caught so can't complain (plus it beats the hell out of going to work) but on one drift a huge fish rolled about 20m in front of me and the sun caught it's flank.

It was thick and deep and a golden brown colour so I'm assuming it was a carp. I thought I was seeing things only for it to surface again a few minutes later. Bit of a shock and unexpected.

Make you wonder what a big ressie like that holds.

Anyone caught anything unexpected while trouting?

A 2lb roach on a wooly bu*ger. a nice roach on a g/b hares ear. a dace on a cruncher.a powan on a cruncher. a good pike on a black buzzer. and too many perch to mention.

Jim

__________________
The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

Once caught a pike whilst fly fishing for trout from a boat at Llandefedd Reservoir. Had nothing to weight it with, but measured it at 42 inches long.

Sunrider.

Why are you shocked that there are carp (or other coarse fish) in the big ressies? I thought most of them were formed by damming rivers and streams which have their own populations of native fish. These rivers still flood and the neighbouring lakes will divest themselves of fish into the river.

I remember after the floods 2 years ago a 35lb+ carp was caught from the Thames in London which actually came from a gravel pit in Reading beside the Loddon (Thames tributary).

I bet you wished you could've hooked and landed the big fish

__________________
Cheers,
Lawrence

Had a 6lb pike on a size 14 black hare's ear. That gave me a shock!

There is a very big carp in the garden pool at Delbury, seen it several times. Lots of carp and big perch in Cound.................birdsnest

__________________
Fear not if I steal from your side, as of yore, from paradise streams to fish Teifi once more.
BN based in Wolverhampton

Cracking fish that Jim, 2lb roach a prize on any method.

__________________
Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

I'm not shocked at all it's in there, I'm just shocked to see it rolling so and was just wondering about the level of stocks. There's no major river going into Grafham as the water is abstracted from the Great Ouse so these fish must have been originally stocked.

And yes, tangling with that beastie would certainly have been fun.

Iv had small carp on pheasant tails, a 1 1/2lb roach on a grhe, numerous perch to anything bright and 17cm bleak on a CDC dry!!

__________________
Please......Just one more cast

What you saw could well have been one of the huge browns in there. I've seen some that looked like mahogany chest of dwawers in there

While fishing for trout i've had all sorts. 1lb roach, 2lb perch 6lb chub, 15lb pike, 15lb carp, etc. I once hooked a pike at Lechlade that i eventually lost that was found dead a few days later with my fly still in situ. 37lb it weighed, and is still in the freezer there!