No end of personal bests for Garry Connett and Del Brannigan
First catfish falls to cell
No-one was more surprised than Del Branningan when he hooked the smaller of our two lake-cleaning catfish on a single cell boilie. As the temperatures climbed into the 80s, and the England footy team battled Slovenia in the World Cup, Del was fighting to bring in the 49.5lb catfish which had succumbed to the sweet, coconut flavoured bait. The battle lasted 10 minutes and left an awed Del covered in slime with a beaming smile and a new, unexpected PB.
In fact, it was one of several PB's that occurred that week as both he and Garry Connett continually upped their Personal Bests with successive carp weighing in first in the upper 20s and finally leaving Garry and Del with PBs of 35lb and 36lb respectively.
According to Garry and Del there was no need for fancy tactics. "All rigs were kept simple," Del 'keepin it real' Brannigan commented on the final evening of their stay. "Knotless knots, hair rigs, no gumpf; fished with PVA mesh sticks and ground boilies and dunked in glug. 'Pulted boilies over the top. 49.5lb catfish was caught in this way on a size 8 wide gape hook and 14mm boilies, same way for the rest of the fishing."
Garry was keeping his cards closer to his chest, but revealed that he was quite pleased with his home-made boilies which featured an insect base with lots of fishy and fruity components added on top. "I'm not telling you the exact recipe," he said before adding, "I'm sure Terry Hearn stole my last one." We think that he was joking.
Find out what the lads thought of their carp fishing holiday by clicking here.