Had a great day at Rutland from the boat. Went to the creek next to Stockie Bay and found fish all day drifting on the NWesterley toward said Bay.

Fished a Di-7 with a 2 booby set-up spaced 5ft apart. Used Orange (fritz body and marabou tail) on the dropper and minky booby on the point, fish took both but orange was possibly the most productive.

Sport was great ... bagged up by 2pm... had a lot of follows to the boat ... some visible takes on the hang ... and, what seemed like either a monster fish, or a snag just east of Whitwell Creek before stocky bay... the line went whizzing round/under the boat narrowly missing my drogue, off to the backing and when I tried to play the 'lump' everything went dead...like it was digging it's heels in at the bottom. Can't say there was any telltale head shake or 'wriggle' of your average catch...this thing went off like Jaws with a yellow barrel buried in it's ass! I added more strain and 'ping' everything went loose..gutted...wanted my piccy in TF....however, I snagged a nice rainbow during the fast reel in to get the line back on my rod.

Question to the forum:
is this how a monster (double figure) brown behaves when hooked?...remember, I was on a Di-7 and was told later (Robbie Winram, I think) that the area is shallow....so is it more a case of snagging an obstruction ... if so, why did the line 'whizz' off the reel? Nanu nanu!(Twilight Zone!!!)

Sensible answers welcome...

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JD - midland reservoir fanatic

pike maybe?

Yup, the thought crossed my mind ... is that how they behave? unstoppable with little/no vibration in the take/fight?

one thing that puts me off this idea though, is that it didn't chew off the fly / tippet. Do pike hang deep until the hook fails to hold under tension?

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JD - midland reservoir fanatic

I would have said a pike,sounds very much like it was lightly lip hooked so couldn't have bitten you through.
There are plenty of them in rutland and big at that.

Cheers Craig

You may have had a close encounter with a very large rainbow.... On rivers, I have, on many occasions, hooked into a similar 'solid' fish which seems unstoppable only to find on the odd occasion, a fighting fit rainbow on the end on my line..... these fight like no other pound for pound on a river... On a stillwater, they are again pound for pound stronger than any Brown IMO... something else that could have happened is that you 'foul hooked' a biggie in the tail???...

Thanks for the advice, maybe it was a pike...maybe it was a foul hooked trout...i know that i've foul hooked a few on the sinking line/booby method before, so it all adds weight to what might of happened

just wished now I didn't try too hard to bring the thing in!!!

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JD - midland reservoir fanatic

On Grafham a, few years ago, i chucken my DI7 out of the back of the boat with a single minkie on so i could stuff my lunch down my throat. We were drifting right alongside the tower on the north shore and my rod started to slowly bend over. I picked up the rod and felt a totally solid resistance. After a minute or so it was 'clear' that i had hooked the bottom so started pulling for a break. Just at the point where he leader was about to snap, the 'bottom' moved. Thump, thump........i had no droppers on so i knew there was no chance that i had one on another fly........thump, thump.........and so this continued for around five minutes without me gaining anything on the fish. Suddenly, i started to gain line very quickly......... this 'thing' was heading straight towards the boat! Then out of the depths it appeared, a MONSTER pike! It actually swam past the side of the boat and as it did so, my boat partner got it's head into his net and heave it in. From the length & girth masurements we took it was a very large 30lb and might have gone over 40.

My point is that for the first few minutes of hooking the fish, i believed that i had hooked the bottom. The same thing might have happened to you, they are in there of that size. I was also lucky that i hooked the fish on the outside of the scissors.

Thanks for that, ChickenFish...

I'm certain this wasn't a snag cos the reel went off way to fast...if only i wasn't drifting into the fast approaching shore I would have played it more carefully.

Exciting stuff, nevertheless

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JD - midland reservoir fanatic

Hi Josh,

I have had a similar thing on Rutland. It was in shallow water also. The fish turned out to be the mother of all bream (i think). It was like a dustbin lid. Must have been pushing 11Ib. Vey heavy slow thud thud fight. Was good fun!
Maybe you bent into one of these!

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