Of all the fish I have caught from a river this has to be up there with the best. I've managed a number of fully-scaled carp since I started in 1980 but never one from a river. I know that mirrors exist having had many from the river Cam. Over the decades of flooding plenty have escaped from the lakes along the Ouse valley into the river but a fully-scaled has still got to be a rare riverbeast indeed.
As ever I was sitting real close to the rods when it went off. On it in a flash I instantly backed up to pick up the slack from the backlead and bow caused by the flow, once the rod was fully over I wound down hard moving out to the edge of the marginal lilies. The fish was now on the surface, I quickly looked left and right, no boats. I took another step out and wound down on the fish as it went deeper kiting to my left, from there the rod went over into the water as the fish crashed into the margin 30 yards up river.
The rod bucked and the lillies erupted as the fish hit the surface and stopped, I held on and waited. The line gave way a little and I wound down, a little more and then, it was out. The water boiled as it went down deep pulling line off the reel, as it turned it came back up and that's when I first caught sight of it. I never want to lose a carp but when I do I tend to take it fairly well, if I lost this one I wouldn't have.
As it slid into the net a wave of exaltation flowed over me, it's moments like these that you live for and as we all know, they don't happen very often.